03 Jul Next AFL-CIO president played a key role in Cape Breton labor history

Remember this guy? In 1981 and 1984, United Mine Workers of America president Richard Trumka spent weeks in Cape Breton, staving off two certification votes by the rival Canadian Mineworkers Union (CMU), a nationalist upstart opposed to affiliation with US parent unions.

Angry Cape Breton miners turned to the CMU after the UMWA failed to provide strike benefits during a 13-week walkout in 1981. The new union twice signed up enough members to force certification votes, but Trumka outmaneuvered them, adroitly enlisting retired coal miners, including the colorful (if not buffoonish) Jake Campbell, to help turn back the challenges.

For the last 14 years, Trumka has served as Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO, America’s largest labor group. According to an article in today’s New York Times, he is poised to win the AFL-CIO presidency at its convention in September.

Trumka also boasts 536,000 hits on a YouTube video of his speech to a steelworkers’ convention last year, a stemwinder urging union members not to vote against Barack Obama because of his race.

“There’s no evil that’s inflicted more pain and more suffering than racism — and it’s something we in the labor movement have a special responsibility to challenge,” Trumka told the steelworkers. “It’s our special responsibility because we know, better than anyone else, how racism is used to divide working people.”

With his Polish heritage, bushy mustache, stocky frame and fiery speaking style, the Times compares him to Lech Walesa, leader of Poland’s Solidarity movement.