A bit of background. President trumka hails from southwest pennsylvania and comes from a proud family of coal miners working his way through college and then through law school. He started his union work with the United Mine Workers and became the unions president at the age of 33. Since 1980 done, he has been working on the aflcios executive council and was like a president in 2009 and was like a president in 2009. We are on the record. Please know live blogging or tweeting. No filing of any kind mother breakfast is underway. While the breakfast is underway. The embargo is lifted when the session ends. We are hoping to make this as much like an inperson event as possible. That is collegial, conversational and informative. We ask that all of the reporters keep their audio there video on and audio muted unless you are speaking. To ask a question during the q and a, please use the raised hand function on zoom to help us set up a queue. To access raised hand some of you might know this already click on the participants to have the bottom of your screen and click raised hand at the bottom of the window that appears. When i call on you to ask a question, obviously, unmute yourself and introduce yourself by news outlet i name and news outlet if you have not already done so. If i have not already done so. Followup questions are fine, but bear in mind we have a bunch of people on this call and i want everyone to have a turn to ask a question if they want to. If you have a question about how this works for you feel you have not been able to ask a question, please direct a message to our breakfast assistant, Noah Robertson on the zoom chat and please make sure you are messaging him alone and not the entire call. Now, president trumka. If you would like to make brief opening remarks, the floor is yours. President trumka thank you for that introduction. Thank you all for being here. I hope that wherever you are logging in from, you are healthy and you are safe. I look forward to this discussion every year as a kickoff to labor day. In many ways, it is a Progress Report on the American Labor movement. It is a tribute to the leadership and resilience of our movement that even when our union is in such disarray, the state of americas unions is strong. Union members have answered the call of covid19 every day and in every way. We have served. We have sacrificed. We have healed. We have done it all. We have honored the country we love, the country that unions built. That is why new research from gallup released this very morning puts our Approval Rating at 65 . That is the highest since 2003. One of our best marks in more than half of a century. The problem and more than that the clear and present danger, is that too many of our countrys leaders have not honored us. They have not served us well. They have not protected us. They are letting our country crumble and our people suffer. Donald trump and Mitch Mcconnell are at the top of that list. Remember what nancy pelosi and House Democrats did to make america whole. They passed the heroes act on may 15. That is 16 weeks ago tomorrow. More than 100 days. It would protect our paychecks and our pensions and our public services. It would save lives. Mitch mcconnell and his antiworker colleagues in the senate have refused to act. American workers are sitting awake at night worrying, suffering and mourning. Our bills are mounting up on the Kitchen Table because that bill sits on Mitch Mcconnells desk. Across america, some governors and mayors have tried to pick up the slack and they deserve credit. But they cannot do it alone. An unprecedented National Crisis requires a plan from the top. It requires vision and competence and management skills. It requires humility, agility and perseverance. And yes, compassion. Compassion for everyone who calls this country home. The crisis we confront today would challenge americas most revered president s. Our lives depend on the competence and compassion of donald trump. He is simply the worst president to have at the worst time. The worst part of this devastating moment is that it did not have to be this way. In 2016, enough Union Members defected from the Democratic Party to tip the balance in places like michigan and my home state of pennsylvania. When trump was elected, i committed to working with the president on issues where we can agree. That to every working person out there, whether they voted for trump or clinton, or did not vote at all. Because if working people are strong, america is strong. At the time, trade and infrastructure manufacturing stood out as areas for Common Ground. But donald trump failed. He failed to seek Common Ground with us. He failed to consult common sense or demonstrate common decency. He broke his promises on infrastructure and manufacturing. The jobs he said were coming never came. Instead of rebuilding america, he is tearing it apart. His tax cut for the ultrarich accelerated the outsourcing of good paying american jobs and worsened inequality. On trade, working people made some progress. But lets get the facts right. Nancy pelosi stood with us in blocking the United States mexican canadian agreement until we finally made it enforceable. Never forget, working people rewrote nafta. The president just rode our coattails. It is more than just broken promises that made him such a reckless president for working people. It is the relentless, reprehensible attacks. There are too many examples to name this morning, but let me point out just a few. Donald trumps appointments from the Supreme Court to the National LaborRelations Board to the department of labor have made it their mission to undermine collective bargaining. Every rule, every decision, every move has made it harder to live and work in america. Not since Ronald Reagan fired the air Traffic Controllers have we seen this level of unionbusting from the white house. Donald trumps disregard for Workplace Health and safety has been dangerous, delinquent and deadly. He has never had a fulltime director of the Occupational Safety and health administration. There were a few inspectors today the at any since it was point founded. He has weakened enforcement of the mine safety and health administration, forcing miners to work in hazardous conditions. As a former miner and as the son and grandson of miners, that offends me personally. He has halted new rules. Even Infectious Disease. You see, donald trump inherited a pandemic playbook from his predecessor and he literally tossed it in the trash. He abandoned a workplace Infectious Disease standard that could have protected our frontline heroes from covid19. Even after the virus hit, he refused to issue a National Workplace standard, leaving millions vulnerable to infection and in too many cases, death. What did we learn from all of this . That working people cannot afford donald trump. We learned that workers might not be able to survive another four years with him. Meanwhile, what has he learned . Precious little. After months of pandemic politics and generations of systemic racism, he is pouring gasoline on the fire. It is a transparent, ugly lastditch effort to scare some people into voting for him and scare others away from voting at all. Our country is sick and donald trump is making it worse. Our economy is weakening and donald trump is making it worse. America is hurting and donald trump is making it worse. America needs healing. He gives us division. America needs hope. Here is the plain truth. For the good of the country we love, working people gave donald trump every last chance to prove himself. It is clearer than ever for working people that to defeat coronavirus, economic inequality and systemic racism, we are going to have to remove this president from the white house. Can i jump in . President trumka im just about done. Working people are ready to push america forward. We are ready to organize and form new unions. We are ready to mobilize and pass the heroes act so that workers can join unions freely and fairly, and we are ready to elect joe biden and Kamala Harris and Union Members and allies from coasttocoast. I will stop there. I wanted to give you a great quote from Lyndon Johnson but i will not. Maybe we can work that in a little bit later. I want to get into questions. I will ask a few and then we will go to others. First of all, as you mentioned, bluecollar workers in places like pennsylvania are extremely important to Donald Trumps reelection. As you know, many of them voted for mr. Trump in 2016. Some of them for cultural reasons, whether it is guns or abortion or other issues that are not directly about labor or work issues but are very important to them personally. How can joe biden, a native of pennsylvania how can joe biden and the democrats win these people back and win back these northern formally blue states that are so critical to the democrats . President trumka first of all, i think joe biden knows something donald trump never has and probably never will. If you want to restore the economy, you have to defeat the pandemic and to defeat the pandemic, you have to keep workers safe. First thing he would do is keep workers safe. He would bring back inspectors, enforcement to osha so workers who went back to work would be able to do so safely without being injured, infected or even die. He has a plan to bring back america. The infrastructure that donald trump promised to do but has never done, including retrofitting 4 million buildings that would create 4 million jobs for workers. He understands the importance of manufacturing, and would do a tax code that would encourage people to manufacture here, unlike Donald Trumps tax bill, that has rewarded and encouraged people for outsourcing jobs. Joe understands working people and he understands that a job is more than just a paycheck. It is about dignity and it is about respect and it is about safety. He would honor all of those. He knows working people. He will do it for us. The other thing let me supplement that. You remember when donald trump ran, he said wages were too high. He has done everything he can to lower wages. First thing he did in the department of labor was on the misclassification issue, change that law, abandon the work being done. He changed the law for overtime and 3 Million People lost over time. His national Relations Board is stacked with corporate lawyers and unionbusting lawyers and every decision they make is designed to weaken the voice of workers and lower wages. As a result, workers understand that the promises he made is not exactly what he did, he did the exact opposite. Ok. I also want to ask you about Teachers Unions. As you know, they are absolutely essential to get kids back in school in person so the economy can get going again. The Teachers Union has been a force in keeping teachers out of the classroom. What is the solution to this . Should the unions be working harder to get teachers back in the classrooms so parents can go back to work . President trumka every teacher out there wants to get back into the classroom. That is what they do and that is what they love. Teachers are fiercely protective of their students and the community where they do business. Right now, Many School Districts dont have the resources necessary to be able to put kids back in the classroom safely, so it protects the students and the professional staff. The heroes act, if it were passed, would provide aid to the schools and would have helped us get kids back to school more quickly. Teachers are not going to allow their students or their professional staff and teachers to go back unless it is safe. And yet, we have a president who is in a rush to get people back, but he wont do anything to help the School Districts get back safely. He will not pass aid to state and local government so we can get those schools open and get kids back to school. I respect those teachers for standing up and protecting their students and protecting the communities where we do business in. Thank you. All right, john. I want you to unmute yourself. Newsmax would like to ask you a question. Go ahead. Am i coming in . Yes, you are good. Ok, good. Happy labor day. Two questions if i might. First, lets talk some hardnosed politics. You mentioned labor states, such as pennsylvania, michigan, work michigan, were key to the president s election, working people going to vote for donald trump in some numbers. How do you see both of those states and wisconsin all three labor strong states doing now . President trumka i think joe biden is doing well in all three of those states. Per one because for one because we look at the promises that donald trump made. Let me go back and do a frame for your question. Workers back in 2016 did not think either the economy or the political system was working for them. They were looking for someone who was going to change the rules to make the system work for them. Donald trump said i am going to , change the rules. I am going to change the rules on trade, manufacturing, so you can get ahead. After almost four years, he has changed the rules, all right, but not to the benefit of working people. Working people are smart. They understand what is happening. They know he is the most antiunion president we have seen in decades. We know we have fewer manufacturing jobs than when he took Office Almost 275,000. We know that we have fewer mining jobs than when he took office. We know all the promises he made on infrastructure never came about. In fact he presented a budget , that actually had negative spending on infrastructure, not positive spending. When those facts get to our members, they understand he has not lived up to his hype. His rhetoric does not match what he does. As of today, would you say he is ahead in michigan, pennsylvania and wisconsin . Who . Dent trumka biden. President trumka yes, i would. The other question i had is this a number of your predecessors, all of them were also strong voices for freedom worldwide. George was strong anticommunist. Do you have any thoughts on what is going on in belarus right now in the persecution of a lot of demonstrators, many of them workers, coming out of factories at this point . President trumka i do. Ok . Yes . President trumka is that your i got you question for this year . No, that is not at all. President trumka you have another i got you question . Every year you asked me a question in a matter how i answer, you have a sensational headline. We still oppose communism like we always did. We think what is going on is not fair. We are working with our brothers and sisters around the world to bring freedom and Free Democratic unions around the world including belarus. So you think he should go . President trumka i am not going to get into that today. This is about labor day in the United States. Thank you. Next, we have bloomberg law. Go ahead and ask your question. Thanks for having the call this morning. President trumka, you rejected saffiliating with police unions, saying you want to engage members rather than isolate them. Around the same time, you were sent a letter calling your position on police reprehensible and said they will not and i quote sit down with those who march in the streets calling for death or those with loud voices that have indicted 850,000 men and women based on one incident. This is still ongoing in kenosha, wisconsin. What progress have you made in engaging and talking to your members and police and at what point do you give up those efforts and say that a consensus cannot be reached on this . President trumka first of all, me correct what you said. Not disaffiliate us from them. We would disaffiliate them from the aflcio. That is a technical correction. People have said you should disaffiliate the police union. Lets assume i did that. Now what . What happens . Does anything change . Nothing changes. It is still all the same. The harder thing, quite frankly, is for us to engage them and get them to change their culture and that is what we started doing. As you know, i set up a task force to deal with systemic racism. One of the subcommittees on that task force is dealing with the Police Officers. Many, many, most officers are good citizens and trying to do what is right. There are bad cops and those bad cops need to be weeded out. And we need to help our members get the tools to weed those that those bad cops out and have become providing the type of safety that every community wants. We have started the process. We have 13 unions that have Police Officers and correction officers in them. We have one union that is independent, that is participating in that process as well. We have started a conversation between officers and the community to try to see where we get. I have had several meetings. It is an ongoing process. I do not expect it will succeed overnight. In the long run, it will be successful. Rather than cut and run and say you are out of here, i did the easy job, we are going to do the hard work. The hard work of staying and changing the culture and working with all of our members so all of our members can be safe. And the communities they do business in can also be safe. Did you want to follow up . Yes, i do have one followup. Are you concerned at all that by not disaffiliating, it will undermine your sway with black urban voters in the election . President trumka not at all because many of those officers are black officers or people of color. They are men, women, gay, straight. They are from every walk of life and they are good people. They deserve safety on t