SEIU reunion brings AFL's strength up to 15 million
Jake Johnson for Common Dreams
"CEOs and billionaires want nothing more than to see
workers divided, but we're standing here today with greater solidarity than
ever to reach the 60 million Americans who say they'd join a union tomorrow if
the laws allowed and to unrig our labor laws to guarantee every worker in
America the basic right to organize on the job," AFL-CIO president Liz
Shuler said in a statement.
With SEIU included, the unions that make up the AFL-CIO
represent roughly 15 million workers across the nation.
April Verrett, SEIU's international president, said union members "are ready to unleash a new era of worker power, as millions of service and care workers unite with workers at the AFL-CIO to build our unions in every industry and every ZIP code."
"Working people have been organizing our workplaces and communities to build a stronger economy and democracy," Verrett added. "We are ready to stand up to union-busters at corporations and in government and rewrite the outdated, sexist, racist labor laws that hold us all back."
While neither the SEIU nor the AFL-CIO mentioned
President-elect Donald Trump by name in their
statements announcing the move, Shuler acknowledged during an MSNBC appearance
late Wednesday that organized labor is "going to be on defense, probably
right away," as the Republican leader takes office and moves to stack his
cabinet with lobbyists and others with
deep corporate ties.
"We know that we've got to play a good defense game,
but we also, as April and I have been talking about, we've got to be on
offense," the AFL-CIO's president added. "Coming together is how
we're more powerful and we rebalance the scales of this economy."
Trump's second term is expected to bring an assault on
workers' rights much like his first four years in the White House, which
saw rollbacks of
safety rules, wage protections, and collective bargaining powers.
Among other steps, Trump is expected to
fire worker champion Jennifer
Abruzzo, general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, and nominate
a pro-corporate replacement after
he takes office later this month. Abruzzo has led the charge to ban anti-union
captive audience meetings, and the incoming Trump administration is expected to try to reverse
progress on that front and elsewhere.
Unions are also bracing for Trump's mass deportation plan. Bloombergreported Wednesday
that the AFL-CIO "has been working to equip its affiliates around the
country to help defend immigrant workers against potential workplace raids and
mass deportation efforts once Donald Trump becomes president this month."
"The union federation is also readying rapid response
plans to defend federal government employees against the Department of
Government Efficiency," Bloomberg added, referring to the
advisory commission set to be led by anti-union billionaires Elon
Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, said Wednesday
that "by standing together, SEIU and the AFL-CIO are sending a powerful
message to President-elect Trump and his allies who are trying to pit working
people against one another: The labor movement will not be fractured or
silenced."
"Unions are a crucial part of a robust and fair
economy—and SEIU's affiliation with the AFL-CIO strengthens the collective
power of millions of workers, enabling them to fight more effectively for
better wages, benefits, and working conditions," said Shierholz. "It
also amplifies labor's voice in advocating for progressive economic reforms
that benefit all working families."
