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 Labor Relations 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 the job. They deserve a collective Bargaining Agreement and we are working with them. More importantly with that, we are engaging the people from the committee, the very people you talked about. We are saying, lets jointly define what kind of Community Safety we want. What do we want it to look like . What do we want it to be . We are trying to Work Together with both groups and we are starting to make progress. It is going to take time. It is not going to happen overnight. I think we can get there and it is a lot better course of action to stay and fight and try to change the culture than it is to sing, you are out of here. Aint i cool . I kicked him out. I dont have anything else to do. Ok, Melissa Burke from the detroit news. Unmute yourself. Are you still here . Did we lose melissa . Ok. If we lost melissa, we will go to any from the Washington Post to annie from the Washington Post. Hi, thank you for doing this. Good morning. I wanted to get a sense from you about inferences between 2016 and 2020 in two areas. Can you tell me anything that you heard of that your unions are doing in terms of turnout or pushing the message that you said at the top in those swing states that is distinct from 2016 . And the second question is, are you getting any feedback from members . Our member one of the striking things about 2016 is the level of union support, union Member Support for trump. Do you have any data that suggests that has changed and shifted beyond the public polling . President trumka in 2016, remember trump got three Percentage Points more than romney did. Of once clustered in a lot important areas, which makes the 3 significant at that point in time and now. Here is what we did. Right after the election, i started calling balls and strikes. I started having communications, regular meetings with our Central Labor Councils and our general board. I started giving them the facts. Here is what he has done that helps. Here is what he did that hurts. Just giving them the facts. That is getting down to our Grassroots Level in area after area. So we have used that. As far as getting people out the vote, we have started that as well. We have had town Hall Meetings. We are doing more contacts with the locals. We are still doing phone banking and things of that sort. Anyill not do as much if doorknocking because of covid. We will do social media. We will do texting. We are doing all of those things. We are encouraging people to vote early, to vote by mail and vote early. Those that vote early will be able to track that. We are going to try to convert them into being volunteer workers for election day. You saw what happened in milwaukee in the primary. Normally, they have 178 voting sites in milwaukee. This primary, they had five. Five voting sites because they could not get volunteers. We are going to try to get volunteers and convert those that vote early so volunteers so we can early into volunteers. It is obvious what Donald Trumps strategy is. It is to tamp down the vote. It is to prevent you from voting by mail by putting things in your mind that loading by mail is that voting by mail is not safe. It will not work. First, it is fraudulent. It just will not work because you cannot trust them. We have 500,000 members working in the Postal Service. We trust them to do their job every day. Here is the fax. They have the a bit the facts. The Postal Service has the ability to do 4. 7 million pieces of mail a day. Likese of and during christmas, they can go to 6 million pieces a day. Right now, they are doing 3. 5 to 4 million pieces a day because the pandemic has things down, which means they are capable with no problem of doing another hundred million almost pieces of mail a day. More than enough to cover the space we need. We are encouraging them to vote by mail. We are encouraging our members to run. We call it the path to power. We have run thousands of our members. In the last cycle, we elected almost 2000 of our members to public office. We continue to do that this time as well. Just to be clear, are there arein person that you aware of that is happening . Or is it 100 digital, phone calls, social media . President trumka there is still contact going on because we are still at work. We are able to do literature drops and leaflets at work where those people that are working but if you are not working, it is more difficult for us to do that. We still do contact but digitally. And electronically through phone calls. So just the literature drops is the only in person . President trumka there will be some door knocks in a couple of the areas. Probably nevada and arizona perhaps. By and large, there will not be. I see melissas back with us. Do you still want to ask a question . Please unmute yourself. Thanks. I got disconnected. I am with the detroit washington bureau. It sounds like annie may have asked my question, which was, what kind of ground game, how you guys have adjusted due to the pandemic, your outreach, whether you are doing any in person stuff, which i think is the question just asked. President trumka let me supplement one thing i forgot to say to her. We have in each one of our locals right now, we have a local Union Coordinator that we coordinate with that we can get information to and information from so that all the locals, to go early in the battleground states will have the local Union Coordinator to get the information. So that we can address them. When they have issues, questions about an issue, we can get them the information very quickly. When they want to tell us something, they can get it to us very quickly. Becomerdinators have very important in our process right now. Did you say there is increased with your increased medication with your members that you are using as an opportunity to reach out more and encourage them to vote by mail or whatever it might be . President trumka significantly more communication because i have a meeting or a call every week with all of our state feds, all 52 of them and all of our central labor council. I have a call every couple weeks with our general board. That is the president of every one of our unions. And56 unions in the aflcio our consistency groups our constituency groups. We have had town Hall Meetings to talk to and with them about the things that are on their mind and things we are addressing, questions they have asked us. The level of communication is probably higher today than it has been in a long time. Are you concerned about the lack of canvassing, the doorknocking, that that is going to hurt democrats, hurt by did . Hurt biden . President trumka any time you have to do things differently, you have concerns. This is a completely different game plan the way we are running it. I think ultimately, when we can get back to normal, will meld the two together and we will cover all bases. Here, we are hoping there is no gaps. We are talking to our members. We are getting to them effectively. We are getting to them more effectively in some cases because if you do a door knock and nobody is there, you leave a piece of literature. We are putting more issue oriented mail into their mailboxes every day for families, Union Members and union families. Thank you. President trumka you bit. Eliza collins from the wall street journal, can you unmute yourself and ask your question . Thanks for doing this. You said you think joe biden is doing well in michigan, pennsylvania and wisconsin. Do you have any lingering concerns, anything you would like to see democrats do more of to engage your members . President trumka absolutely. I have things i would like to see them do more of. Tohink they have to stay Kitchen Table economics. The economics that affect workers and the issues that affect workers and their jobs. Joe biden has been doing a good job of that. Did inbetter job than we 2016. As a result, i think workers are paying far more attention. The advantage he has is twofold. One of the biggest issues is covid19. The president has done a horrible job. He has botched it completely. He did not cause covid19, but he sure is responsible for the response to it and he has done a terrible job. Joe biden knows something donald trump never did and probably never will, that you cannot beat or get the economy running, you cannot fix the economy until you beat covid19. You cannot beat covid19 unless you keep workers safe. Trump has never understood that and biden does. I think that is a tremendous for him. The issue you spoke about specifically, i think you have to talk more about Kitchen Table economics and remind people of all the broken promises that trump has made. Remind people that he is the most antiworker, most antiunion president we have seen in the decades i have been around. Just one followup. Are there any issues specifically you would like them to stop talking about . [laughter] president trumka let me i do not know about issues i would like them to stop talking about because i think they are talking about the right issues. Theyre talking about the economy. Theyre talking about covid19. Theyre talking about workers. There talking by the tax code. There talking about manufacturing. There talking about infrastructure. There talking about how to bring the economy back better than it was before. Those are all important issues. Probably and i cannot think of any specific examples right now maybe not what they are talking about but how they talk about it sometimes could be helpful. So what do you mean by that . How they talk about. About it. President trumka the terminology that is used. I said i could not think of any specific examples right now off the top of my head, but i know in the past, people would talk about something and i would think, that is not really effective with working people. There is a better way to talk about it. Just be straight and say this is how it affects you. When donald trump appoints three busters to the nlrb, here is how it affects you. It weakens your voice on the job. Youre going to get less wages and less benefits. That is the practical effect on you. All right. Maria from the Austin American statesman. If you want to ask your question, please unmute yourself. I think that is me. Inside heroesh bid. Sorry about that. My question is about usmca. Has thecio organization filed any labor challenges or do you plan to use the Rapid Response mechanism anytime soon, maybe this month . President trumka yes, we do plan on doing it this month. We have tremendous concerns with mexicos ability to enforce their laws. They have a system not unlike ours where you have federal law, but then it has to be lamented at the state law. Theres is a little different. Theirs is a little different. You have people that are not unions at all. They are an adjunct of the employer working with the employers trying to prevent the able mentation of the law. They arrested her and threw her in jail for no reason. And then they said, we will let you out of jail if you promise you will not organize three or four years. That is a clear violation of the agreement. We are garnering the facts on that. Organizersater, two were kidnapped and tortured in that same state and let go and said, stay out of this area. Do not organize. The message was that those iyers, their adjuncts hesitate to call it unions because they are not. They were sending a message that it is not going to be easy. Then you have the budget of mexico, which has been on the wane. We do not know how much they can contribute. We are in the process of working with the trades administrator whoour members and people we have on the ground to develop the facts and you two cases. One will be the rapid and do two cases. One will be the Rapid Response. If we are able to block products from coming in, it will get their attention fast. They will understand they will have to change and comply with the law or their products will not get to, to the country like they did before. Is it a positive thing problem. Then you have the department of labor that was given 180 million to help with unions to create monitors and stuff like that. The money has been parceled out very slowly. I do not know the any of it has gone out so far. We have been pushing the department of labor to try to get that money out and to pass in billing that is necessary mexico so they can monitor and enforce the trade laws in mexico. Case in the a next 30 days. All right. Lauren from the Christian Science monitor, please unmute yourself and ask your question. Thank you, linda. Welcome, mr. Trumka. President trumka thanks for having me again. Unions are strongest in workplaces where you have to show up to do your job. Workplace is increasingly virtual. It looks like a lot more people are going to be working from home post pandemic than they were prepandemic. How does that change the challenges workers face in the workplace and what if anything does the Union Movement offer these people . President trumka we offer them a voice on the job and the ability to come together and have the power of all workers come together whether you are virtual or in tact. Whether you are day factory or you are a factory or sitting in front of a computer screen or you are a nurse or doctor over professor, we offer you a strong voice and we balance the power. In this country, we talk about inequality. When most people talk about inequality, they talk about inequality of wealth. There were two other inequalities they do not talk about better equally important. One is inequality of opportunity. We are beginning to talk about that with Structural Racism and all of that stuff. The one we do not talk about so much is inequality of power. Corporations are too strong and they get stronger all the time with the tax code, with the Supreme Court that has never seen a Corporate Power that did not want to this till upon them. They get stronger and workers get weaker. You can never correct inequality of wealth or inequality of opportunity until you correct inequality of power. Workers get that opportunity whether you are virtual or not. You come together and when that power is balanced out, you start to see better and more fair decisions and you start to see inequality start to fade away. With the level of inequality that we have right now, we are on a trajectory our economy is only trajectory to employers is on a trajectory to implosion. Our system can only serve the people at the top so long before it actually implodes. Youre starting to see the telltale signs of the. Harvard did a study. They asked millenials how important it is to live in a democracy. 30 of millenials said it is important to live in a democracy. 70 said it is not. 24 said it is bad to live in a democracy. Why . Because millenials have lived their entire lives under the rules of globalization. They have seen their parents whose wages, health care, pensions and probably a home. They were told, do not worry. You go to school and get a good education and everything will be great. So they went to school. They came out with a mountain of debt and they still cannot get a good job. It is those millenials right now that understand whether they are working virtually or whether they are coming to work in a single place everyday that having a voice on the job is the most important thing you can do and the only way you get a voice on the job is when workers come together and have a real say. Forming a union of themselves so they can actually negotiate and balance out that power. That is what we offer. That is why we are at 65 Approval Rating. That is why we are continuing to grow. That is my people in South Carolina or texas are joining a union right now as we speak. Why nurses have come together in some of the most antiworker, antiunion states out there to form a union because they need protection, they need power and the only way to get that is by coming together and collectively having all of their power at once in union. In you to. A unit. A union. Are you finding it easy or hard to to organize these virtual places . President trumka does nrb is trying to make it possible impossible. They came at a rule saying we are not going to have any organizing drives during the pandemic. We literally beat them to death and said, ok. We will have some drives but they have done everything they can to make it difficult. Now, they want to say, you do not have to give people telephone numbers or addresses in the excelsior list if you are organized at a place. They have had to do that since the 1950s for god sake. Now, they want to say you cannot do that. They are trying to make it harder and more difficult. The most antiunion we have seen. Administration, them aquatic or republican, has ever instituted rulemaking in term. They have five going on to try to weaken the act. By the way, remember this. The laws that govern us right now were made in 1947. They were amended in 1959 to make them weaker. Do you think those laws are still relevant today given what we are talking about with virtual workplaces or do we need to have a new law . We do have a new law. It is called the proactive. Joe biden supports the pro act. Donald trump does not support the pro act. We have another one from the monitor. Mark, please unmute yourself. Good morning. Thank you for doing this. Ald like to ask about wild back, corporations made a shift in their public tone saying they would say more about stakeholders broadly and less be thinking about their mission solely is about profits solely as about profits. I am curious as to what degree you see some corporations walking the talk on that. Does it extend to seeing i tie eye tou seeing eye about worker safety during the pandemic. Does it extend to what used to be called worklife balance and maybe shorter working hours for people . Look, thereumka are employers out there that i think want to do what is right either employees. I think that is true. Some do not know how, but they would like to. Lets talk first. Let me set the table for that because those employers you talked about changing, they did not do that out of altruism or the good this of their heart the goodness of their heart. They understood what i just talk to you about. If the path continues, we are on a trajectory where the current Economic System will implode because if we keep taking care of a smaller band of people, it will end. People will not tolerate a system that only supports those at the top. They see that coming. They started talking about, how do we make this broader . We have to at least look like we understand the problem. We want to share all the wealth, the tremendous wealth in a more equitable way. So they started talking about stakeholders and shareholders. We have not seen a significant change in their attitude. A lot ofy to unionize places, they still employ part of the billiondollar unionbusting industry to keep their workers from having a voice. Here is the question. Let me broaden this out because i think it is an important point. Technology comes into the workplace, if you have a union, we are able to bargain for fairness, a piece of that increased productivity to ensure that technology is safe and healthy and we get a piece of it. We make it work. If society does not have a mechanism to be able to do that, to share that wealth and so they are talking about them being altruistic enough to say, we have so much. Let a little bit fall down to the people below us. It is a recognition that the system in fact is threatened. If it keeps going on the ankle it is. That is why the pro act is so important. It would rebalance the power between corporations and employees and get a more fair balance. Until 1975 from 1945 when the middle class was built and the people at the bottom end the two quartiles at the bottom of the spectrum, their wages were growing faster than the people at the top. So inequality was collapsing. They see the threat. They are working on it. There are employers out there as i said that care about the health and safety of their workers and they work with us. They try to create we have employers out there who would like to see a National Pandemic standard that we have been trying to get done, that osha and the department of labor will not do, the trumpet administration will not do the Trump Administration will not do. There were small employers that want that so they know what they can do to protect their employers and we are working with them so we can keep those workers safe on the job and we can keep those businesses open. It is growing. I would say slowly, there are more of the employers that understand that of the employers that understand that. Most of it now is talking the talk. There are more we are increasing the number of employers who walk the walk when it comes to showing the benefits, keeping workers safe and understanding the importance of having an economy that does meet the needs of everybody in it and not the small band of people at the very top. Thank you. Maybe just a quick followup, how this pandemic has pushed the limits so that the worklife balance many people are stretched trying to take care of their kids at home while working how manyi do not know Union Members are being forced to go to work with other kids are at home. President trumka millions have to go to work. Seeeah and so, what do you do you see this as a wakeup call that unions and employers alike need to do more to help people figure out this blend of work and life even after the pandemic ends . President trumka president trumka absolutely. I think what this demonstrated us to meet ther varying needs of many, to be things. Xible with work you have i dont know how how ar, i dont know single parent does it right now. If you have to go to work, if you have to keep a household then you have to take care of a child or two during virtual learning, i dont know how you do that. To come up with a better way. We have to come up with Better Options for people that work. We have to come up with better Healthcare Options for people and a different flexibility in the workplace and has, i think the pandemic shown us that we can, that we be change, that we can flexible. We need to look through that a then fill upr and the holes. The pandemics also told us that president considers us expendable. He callsus essential, he considers us expendable. He wanted my members back to work at a meat packing place. He said you must go to work. Standards,nd safety not a one. Thousands and thousands have been infected and are still infected. He have voluntary standards right now. He says voluntary is good enough. He said a meat packing plant in pennsylvania where the came in, workers are working shoulder to shoulder, get infected. Osha did nothing. They said we cant, its a voluntary standard and we cant enforce it. They admitted to what we have been saying all along, unless a mandatory standard, they have no enforcement power and now workers are going to get workers are going to die because they refuse to have a mandatory standard. For that. Standing the heroes act does that. Forheroes act also provides that childcare. The heroes act also provides for healthcare for the 12 Million People who have lost healthcare because theyve been unemployed throughout this pandemic. Provides aid to state and local governments so that school the things they need to do to get students back in the classroom. The president only understands, he just wants the economy opened. He doesnt care what price he it open and weet were the price. Thatre the expendable ones he was willing to toss into the theder just so he could say economys open. And i find that sad and i find too many of my members have died because of him thaning about him rather the president thinking about whats best for the country. Me just throw in one here. Mr. Trumka, your term ends october of next year. Are you going to run for reelection . President trumka well see, wont we. You decide not to, is the next president of the aflcio a woman . President trumka regardless of what i do the next time, i hope next president on the aflcio is a woman. All right, great. Annie linski i think has another question. I just noticed while you were speaking that the wall street an article about the Firefighters Union and a federal investigation in corruption there. Im wondering if theres that,ng you can say about if theres any internal probe also going on. The journal has been investigating this for a while. Is there anything you can add there . Whatdent trumka heres you should know. There is an internal election the firefighters right now and during those just like a general election, things get hurled around. There is legitimacy, it will be rooted out. If theres corruption, it will and extinguished and those responsible will pay a price but right now it is in the middle of a Heated Campaign and thats called democracy. Its no different than donald or,p saying that joe biden im sorry, barack obama, was treasonous. Thats outrageous, its unfair, even be illegal. Its part of whats happening. So you think theres less to these accusations perhaps than meet the eye, its more of election smears going on internally . President trumka i dont know the facts. I really dont because we involved in that. There is an internal investigation. When that internal investigation reports out, then we will take do whats and appropriate at that point. Again, if theres corruption, rooted outsure its and those responsible will pay and if theres not, then hurled theose that accusations should be enough of to stand up and say, ok, i took my best shot, im wrong. I was thank you so much. Its 10 00. Fornt to thank everybody coming to the first monitor zoom breakfast. Taken part in history. And richard trumka, thank you so much for joining us. I hope to see you next year in person. I hope were meeting in person. But i thought this was great. Thanks again, everybody. President trumka let me thank Christian Science monitor for doing this. Thisly do look forward to every year because i enjoy our discussion. I like it better in person, as you do, but this was well. Linda, that i do regret, its called a breakfast for myept waiting breakfast to come and it never showed up this morning. I dont know what to make of all that. I know you have your coffee. Thats the most important. Havedent trumka i still it. God bless, happy labor day. [captions performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] announcer Homeland Security anicials speak tuesday at annual cybersecurity summit. Other speakers include security raytheonrom amazon, and cisco. 9 30coverage begins at. Astern on cspan2 hear from mack mclarty, card, Dennis Mcdonough and mick mulvaney. Theyll talk about their experiences handle the attack at 9 11, benghazi, ebola, the 2008 Current Crisis and coronavirus. Georgetown university hosted event. I want to thank everyone for tonight. Both here in the zoom chat, members of the georgetown community, but also the broader public who is following us on social media or other channels. This is a really timely conversation, i think, as we look at the world and the state
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