Richard Trumka
Born	July 24, 1949 (1949-07-24) (age 61) Nemacolin, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Miner; Labor leader; Attorney/Litigator
Known for	President, United Mine Workers of America; Secretary-Treasurer, AFL-CIO; President, AFL-CIO

Richard Louis Trumka (born July 24, 1949)^[1] is an organized labor leader in the United States. He was elected President of the AFL-CIO on September 16, 2009, at the labor federation's convention in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.^[2] He served as the Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO, from 1995 to 2009, and prior to that was President of the United Mine Workers from 1982 to December 22, 1995.

[edit] Life and career

Trumka, born in Nemacolin, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh, is an Italian-American,^[3] third-generation Polish American and coal miner son of Frank Richard and Eola Elizabeth (Bertugli) Trumka.^[1][4] He went to work in the mines in 1968.^[4] He received a bachelor of science degree from Pennsylvania State University in 1971 and a law degree from Villanova University in 1974.^[1][5] He married Barbara Vidovich in 1982. They have one son.^[1][6]

From 1974 to 1979, Trumka was a staff attorney with the United Mine Workers at their headquarters in Washington, D.C.^[1] He was elected to the board of directors of UMWA District 4 in 1981 and became President of the United Mine Workers in 1982.^[1]

While President of the UMWA, Trumka led a successful nine-month strike against the Pittston Coal Company in 1989, which became a symbol of resistance against employer cutbacks and retrenchment for the entire labor movement.^[7] A major issue in the dispute was Pittston's refusal to pay into the industrywide health and retirement fund created in 1950. Trumka encouraged non-violent civil disobedience to confront the company and relied on a corporate campaign involving Wall Street investors.

The United Mine Workers conducted a nationwide strike against Peabody Coal in 1993. Trumka was asked to respond to the possibility that some coal companies might hire permanent replacement workers.^[8] He told the Associated Press in September 1993, "I'm saying if you strike a match and you put your finger in it, you're likely to get burned."^[9] He also said, "That doesn't mean I'm threatening to burn you. That just means if you strike the match, and you put your finger in it, common sense will tell you it'll burn your finger. Common sense will tell you that in these strikes, that when you inject scabs, a number of things happen. And a confrontation is one of the potentials that can happen. Do I want it to happen? Absolutely not. Do I think it can happen? Yes, I think it can happen."^[8] The Associated Press reported that he was not threatening violence, and noted that UMWA staff had spent "thousands of man hours trying to prevent anything from happening ... to our members or by our members."^[10]

Besides his domestic labor activities, Trumka established an office that raised U.S. mineworker solidarity with the miners in South Africa while they were fighting apartheid.^[11] He further served as the U.S. Shell boycott chairman, which challenged the multinational Royal Dutch/Shell Group for its continued business dealings in South Africa. For these steps, Trumka received the 1990 Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award.

During his tenure as Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO, Trumka focused on creating investment programs for the pension and benefit funds of the labor movement, capital market strategies,^[12] and demanding corporate accountability to America's communities. He chaired the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council, a consortium of manufacturing unions focusing on key issues in trade, health care and labor law reform. He co-chairs the China Currency Coalition, an alliance of industry, agriculture, services, and worker organizations whose stated mission is to support U.S. manufacturing.^[13]

On July 1, 2008, Trumka delivered a speech attacking racism in the 2008 presidential election.^[4][14] A video ^[15] with an excerpt of the speech attracted more than 535,000 hits on YouTube as of July 1, 2009.^[4] Trumka's video was "surely the first YouTube moment in the history" of the labor movement.^[16]

Trumka was elected president of the AFL-CIO after the retirement of John Sweeney in 2009.^[2]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Organized labour portal

• Media related to Richard Trumka at Wikimedia Commons
• AFL-CIO
• United Mine Workers of America
• Richard Trumka speech attacking racism in the 2008 presidential election
• AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council
• The Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award
• Trumka quote