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American Rights at Work Honors Sweeney, Employee Free Choice Champions |
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AFL-CIO President Emeritus John Sweeney received the top honor at last night’s 5th annual American Rights at Work Eleanor Roosevelt Awards for his long-term dedication on behalf of workers’ freedom to form unions.
Business Leaders for a Fair Economy and “West Wing” actor Richard Schiff also were recognized at last night’s event in Washington, D.C., where hundreds of labor activists and our allies gathered to celebrate their outstanding leadership.
Sweeney credited the union members, activists and advocacy groups who make up the coalition for making real progress on the Employee Free Choice Act:
You are the front-line fighters for social and economic justice, working towards a better future for America’s working families.
Speakers noted the tough fight ahead for passage of the bill but said we are closer than ever to passing the Employee Free Choice Act and making sure that the freedom to form a union and bargain for a better life is a reality.
Kimberly Freeman Brown, the new executive director of American Rights at Work, said Sweeney, Schiff and the business leaders have been a critical part of a growing movement for labor law reform:
This year’s honorees have played an important role in fighting for the Employee Free Choice Act. We are serious about restoring our middle class—we recognize a vital labor movement is critical to this goal. We are unified in our effort to make the American Dream an achievable aspiration—a fair day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay, good benefits, safe conditions and dignity and respect on the job.
Along with other “West Wing” cast members, Schiff joined workers from around the country in the Faces of the Employee Free Choice Act campaign this year. He said while he, Bradley Whitford and Martin Sheen helped draw attention to the cause, the people who really deserve the award are those who have fought against great obstacles for a voice on the job and a better life for their co-workers:
I don’t have the right to speak for the real heroes, but we live in a culture that listens to celebrities and the least I can do with the spotlight is to shift it over to the people who deserve it. I’ve been a member of many unions, and I know what it means to have the protection of a union and a fair wage.
In a powerful acceptance speech, Roger Smith, the CEO of American Income Life and chairman of Business Leaders for a Fair Economy, said he and other business owners realize the whole economy benefits when workers can bargain for a fair share. Smith and business leaders like him have been able to succeed by working with, not against, their employees:
This is a community that believes in workers’ rights and the value of shared prosperity. We believe that shared prosperity starts with closing the ever-growing wage disparities.
By honoring workers’ right to organize, business gives workers a chance at real change, and that lets business grow and thrive.
Smith said far too many people equate “CEO” with greed, irresponsibility and disdain for the hard work of the employees who build companies. He criticized CEOs who have profited while driving their companies into the ground, those who have raided pension funds and those who have squandered millions on union-busting consultants and attacks on their own employees.
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What are the great accomplishments of Sweeney and now Trumka in leading the AFL-CIO to it’s present status? Here are several articles that shed light on the history behind these leaders.
US: Top AFL-CIO officials resign in insurance scandal
By Joseph Kay
13 December 2002
Three top US labor officials, including AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, have resigned their positions as directors of the union-owned insurance firm, Ullico. The resignations come amidst bitter conflicts within the union bureaucracy over probes into corrupt insider trading by board members.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/dec2002/ulli-d13.shtml
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AFL-CIO names new president
Who is Richard Trumka?
By Jerry White
17 September 2009
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/sep2009/trum-s17.shtml
On Wednesday, John Sweeney, who has led the AFL-CIO since 1995, stepped down and was succeeded by his long-time lieutenant, Richard Trumka, who ran unopposed and was elected by delegates at the AFL-CIO convention in Pittsburgh.
Few workers will take notice of the changing of the guard at the summit of the right-wing trade union apparatus. However, the corporate media and various “left” apologists for the labor bureaucracy have suggested that the elevation of the former president of the United Mine Workers might lead to a revival of the labor movement.
Similar claims were made when Sweeney succeeded Lane Kirkland, and then proceeded to preside over a further catastrophe for workers and a fall in unionization rates to levels not seen since the beginning of the last century. In 2008, only 7.6 percent of private sector workers were in unions, the lowest rate since 1900.
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Obama turns to AFL-CIO to defend health care cuts
By Jerry White
16 September 2009
With popular discontent growing toward his health care overhaul, President Obama turned to the United Auto Workers and AFL-CIO to bolster his efforts to put a progressive cloak on his medical rationing and cost-cutting plan. On Tuesday morning, he spoke at a General Motors plant in Ohio, and in the afternoon he was the keynote speaker at the AFL-CIO convention in Pittsburgh.
The events underscored the symbiotic relationship between the Democratic Party administration and the right-wing trade union apparatus. Obama received a hero’s welcome at the convention, where his health care plan was presented as the culmination of a decades-long struggle to extend coverage to all Americans. In return for perpetuating this lie, Obama presented the AFL-CIO as a beacon of working class struggle.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/sep2009/obam-s16.shtml
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John Sweeney has been a great leader, a decent person and an outstanding vocie for the AFL-CIO. The Lord will look upon him with kind eyes for doing his work every day. John never sought the spotlight, deferring to others to take credit he so rightly deserved. John suffered defeats but was never defeated. John was quite in voice but bold in mission. To lead an organization with such a diverse composition as the AFL-CIO takes special skills and abilities. John reached deep inside himself each day to call upon those attributes. He was led by the notion that not one of us is greater than all of us. Go now John and may you be blessed with peace, health and the joy of a job well done.
Allan B Darr, IUOE #302, retired.