Trumka Getting 'Grief' From Union Members Over ObamaCare

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said he was "getting grief" from union members regarding his support for the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. The calls have not changed his opposition to repeal, he added, saying the program merely needs to be "tweaked."

Trumka made the comments in response to a question from Politico reporter Mike Allen during a breakfast event hosted by the news website. Allen wanted to know if Trumka, who has been an enthusiastic backer of the law since it passed, was getting angry responses from rank-and-file members. President Obama's new law has been causing serious problems for union-run multiemployer health insurance plans, known as Taft-Hartley plans.

"Am I getting grief about that? Sure, I am getting grief about that. Do I want to see Obamacare scrapped? Absolutely not, because it is a good start," Trumka said.

Asked what the disgruntled members were telling him, Trumka replied, "The typical: 'What are you doing, you idiot, you dummy?' You know, the typical stuff."

The structure of Obamacare has caused many unions to fear that employers will pull out of Taft-Hartley plans or limit the coverage of members. At its quadrennial convention in September, the AFL-CIO adopted a resolution calling on Congress to amend the law. Some union leaders have talked openly of repeal.

Trumka and other Big Labor leaders have held private talks with the White House to amend the law as it applies to unions, and recently received an exemption from Obamacare's reinsurance fee, which caused the fee to be raised for others.

Via: Washington Examiner

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AFL-CIO To Democrats: We'll Work To End Your Career If You Cut Social Security Or Medicare

WASHINGTON -- With fresh Capitol Hill budget battles on the horizon, the head of the leading labor federation planned to issue a blistering warning to unions' Democratic allies on Monday, saying the AFL-CIO would "never stop working" to end the political careers of Democrats who cut entitlement programs.

"No politician … I don’t care the political party … will get away with cutting Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits. Don’t try it," AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said, according to prepared remarks for a speech in Las Vegas, Nev.

According to the draft, which was supplied to HuffPost by the AFL-CIO, Trumka stressed his point for Democrats who may be wobbly on the issue.

"This warning goes double for Democrats," he said. "We will never forget. We will never forgive. And we will never stop working to end your career."

The AFL-CIO has long opposed any cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, and the labor federation has suggested in the past that it would consider pulling support from Democrats who help make those cuts happen. But Trumka's remarks on the issue Monday amounted to a far more aggressive threat: That the AFL-CIO would actively use its war chest to unseat Democrats on the other side of the issue.

An AFL-CIO spokesperson clarified for HuffPost that the federation still considers so-called "chained CPI" to be part of the off-limits cuts to which Trumka was referring. A chained CPI inflation index would alter the way cost-of-living adjustments are made for Social Security recipients, slowing increases and reducing the benefits for seniors and the disabled. Many Democrats have shown an openness toward chained CPI, and the measure was included in President Barack Obama's 2014 budget, where it was paired with extra money for the elderly and poor.

Via: Huffington Post

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Hashing Out a Sweetheart Obamacare Deal: Obama Meeting With AFL-CIO

Guess who's at the White House today? The AFL-CIO of course. And who are they meeting with? President Obama himself. Why? They're trying to secure a sweetheart Obamacare waiver and they want you to pay for it. 

President Barack Obama is meeting with union leaders at the White House to discuss labor's growing concerns about the new health care law.

Friday's meeting comes after the AFL-CIO approved a resolution this week saying the law could drive up the cost of union-sponsored health plans, encouraging some employers to drop coverage.

White House officials and labor leaders have been trying to work out a possible resolution. Unions want members to be eligible for the same federal subsidies available to low-income workers in the new health exchanges. The White House has resisted that fix, saying the law doesn't allow it.

Earlier this week the AFL-CIO passed a resolution warning Obamacare will drive up the costs of union worker healthcare plans, forcing workers to abandon them.

Let's take a step back here. Congress has granted themselves an Obamacare waiver. Corporations and businesses have been granted an Obamacare waiveruntil 2015 and labor unions are working to secure their waivers. The average American citizen however, is still required to comply with all aspects of the law and the individual mandate. And Obama says he's for the little guy? 

Via: Townhall

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Unions to Vote on Changes in Obamacare; Law Will Have 'Devastating Impact'

The AFL-CIO will vote on a resolution that calls for changes to the Affordable Care Act, revealing divisions within the labor movement over whether the landmark health-care law is good for union members.

The labor federation’s executive council today approved the resolution, sending it to the delegates for debate during the final sessions of the group’s quadrennial constitutional convention, said Terry O’Sullivan, general president of the Laborer’s International Union of North America. More than 1,600 delegates and guests of the nation’s largest labor federation are meeting this week in Los Angeles.

“I didn’t hear any votes against it,” O’Sullivan said after a meeting of the executive council.
Drafts of the resolution call for changes to several provisions in the law, such as one that requires employees under certain plans to pay a fee to maintain coverage. Or one that classifies multi-employer plans as group plans to deny them subsidies. Republicans in Congress are vowing to block the changes sought by labor.

Editor's Note: ObamaCare Is About to Strike Are You Prepared?

“We want to offer some constructive suggestions” to President Barack Obama, Fred Redmond, a vice president with the United Steelworkers Union and a member of the AFL-CIO executive council, said in an interview. “We’re walking a balance to make sure that our message to the president is not disrespectful and should not imply any lack of support for the plan.”

O’Sullivan said without subsidies, some of the health funds used by his members could be forced out of business. He also opposes a temporary reinsurance fee to offset costs of expanding coverage.
‘Devastating Impact’

Via: Newsmax

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AFL-CIO slams Obama over deportation rate

AFL-CIO delegates denounced President Obama's record on illegal immigrant deportations Tuesday, saying the White House should put the brakes on the process while Congress is debating a comprehensive reform bill.

"When we have a bill for 11 million immigrants to become full Americans, we should not be, in the middle of this, deporting them," said Tefere Gebre, director of the Orange County Labor Federation, at a press conference during the AFL-CIO's quadrennial convention in Los Angeles. Gebre was joined by "several of the nation's top labor leaders," according to the L.A. Times.

Obama has deported more than 1.5 million immigrants in his first term and has maintained an aggressive approach, deporting an average of 34,000 a month in the last fiscal year alone. Obama has boasted of his administration's track record on deportations, even as he softened immigration policy in other areas.

The AFL-CIO has been supportive of comprehensive immigration reform, backing the bill that passed in the Senate earlier this year. It nevertheless has concerns of its own and fought to limit guest-worker programs authorized by the Senate bill. Several unions have opposed those programs, arguing they take jobs away from domestic workers.

A proposed immigration resolution on the federation's convention website states: "Immigration reform must fully protect U.S. workers, reduce the exploitation of immigrant workers and reduce employers’ incentive to hire undocumented workers rather than U.S. workers."

It lays out its main interest regarding immigration later in the resolution: "Specifically, the AFL-CIO will promote organizing of immigrant workers who seek to have union representation at their workplace."

Via: Washington Examiner

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Elizabeth Warren assails Supreme Court as too far right

LOS ANGELES — Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka denounced the United States Supreme Court on Sunday as a right-wing panel that serves the interests of corporate America, previewing a theme that is likely to rise in prominence with the approach of the 2016 election.

On the opening day of the AFL-CIO’s convention, Warren — the highest-profile national Democrat to address the gathering here — warned attendees of a “corporate capture of the federal courts.”

In a speech that voiced a range of widely held frustrations on the left, Warren assailed the court as an instrument of the wealthy that regularly sides with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. She cited an academic study that called the current Supreme Court’s five conservative-leaning justices among the “top 10 most pro-corporate justices in half a century.”

(QUIZ: Do you know Elizabeth Warren?)

“You follow this pro-corporate trend to its logical conclusion, and sooner or later you’ll end up with a Supreme Court that functions as a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Business,” Warren said, drawing murmurs from the crowd.

Speaking to reporters earlier Sunday, Trumka sounded a similar note on the Supreme Court, calling the current panel “the best champion of corporate America” and raising the prospect of a constitutional amendment to reverse the court’s rulings against campaign finance regulation.

Via: Politico

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Labor Unions Turning on Democrats

Criticism mounts as labor 

continues to be ignored by 

President Obama

Health care reform and a flurry of Obama administration regulations have caused internal divisions within the labor movement and led one of the Democratic Party’s biggest supporters to publicly rebuke the president.

The implementation of Obamacare, which received major union support when it was passed in 2010, has soured relations between labor groups and the White House and splintered labor coalitions.

More than 40,000 workers with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) left the AFL-CIO in August, blasting the union for being “in lockstep” with Obama on health care and immigration reform.

“We feel that the Federation has done a great disservice to the labor movement and all working people by going along to get along,” ILWU President Robert McEllrath said in a letter announcing the split. “President Obama ran on a platform that he would not tax medical plans. … Yet the Federation later lobbied affiliates to support a bill [Obamacare] that taxed our health care plans.”

The break-up occurred just weeks after the AFL-CIO’s Nevada chapter issued a resolution stating that Obamacare would eliminate full-time jobs and endanger generous health care plans that unions have negotiated for their members.

Via: WFB

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[VIDEO] AFL-CIO’s Trumka: Negative Obamacare Impact on Employee Hours Needs to be Addressed

 

      

AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka said Thursday that Obamacare’s negative effect on creating more part-time hires by employers trying to avoid the mandate was a consequence “no one intended” that still needed to be addressed.

Responding to a question about Obamacare undermining the 40-hour work week because of its definition of full-time work, the union leader expressed concerns about the increased amount of part-time hires by businesses to stay below 50 full-time employees. The Obamacare mandate requires employers above that threshold to provide health insurance to all workers or face heavy fines.

“Employers are trying to plan their future by creating a work force that gets 29-and-a-half hours or less a week so they don’t have to pay health care,” Trumka said. “That is obviously something that no one intended. No one intended for an act to be the result of people working fewer hours, just so they don’t have to pay for health care, so that’s something that needs to be addressed. Is that an issue? Yeah, that’s an issue.”

Trumka also said mistakes were made in writing the law, and he added he would support changing Obamacare’s definition of a full-time work week from 30 hours to the 40-hour standard at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast.

Via: WFB

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Goon Squad: AFL-CIO Chief Trumka Promises More Than 2,000 Union “Poll Monitors” In Battleground States…

(CNSNews.com) - Setting the scene for possible post-election legal challenges, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said his unions plan to deploy 2,000 “poll monitors” who will be linked with lawyers around the country as a way to prevent
"voter suppression" in states such as Ohio.

During a media conference call on Thursday, Trumka recalled being at an early voting site in Las Vegas where he saw “challengers inside.”

“We’re going to have over 2,000 people that are going to be available as poll monitors that’ll be connected to a number of lawyers around the country. So that if they [the opposition] attempt to deny them the right to vote, or hassle them we’ll be able to have a rapid response team that will respond immediately to that and protect them,” Trumka said.

“That will be up in the core states like Ohio, where we think there could be problems and so we’ll challenge those everywhere we can and protect the votes,” he said.

Via: CNS News

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CLICK: Top Union Leaders’ Salaries...

Not exactly the 99%: Top union leaders’ salaries

Advocating for the working man doesn’t pay too poorly, it seems. Here’s a list of the annual salaries and benefits earned by the nation’s top labor officials, according to the Labor Department. This data is based on 2011 filings:

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka – $293,750.

National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel – $460,060

Service Employees International Union President Mary Kay Henry – $290,334.

American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees President Gerald McEntee – $512,489.

International Brotherhood of Teamsters President James P. Hoffa , Jr. – $372,489.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten – $493,859.

International Association of Fire Fighters President Harold Schaitberger – $323,811.

American Federation of Government Employees President John Gage – $198,690. (Gage retired this month)

United Food and Commercial Workers President Joseph Hansen – $361,124

That’s still not in the the league of most top corporate executives, but it’s not bad. Interesting to note too that Trumka, who leads the largest coalition of unions, is on the lower end of the scale.

Via: Washington Times

AFL-CIO Sending Out Union Goons To Knock On 640,000 Doors During RNC…

The AFL-CIO will have its members out knocking on doors early this year to counter the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla.

The nation’s largest labor federation is planning to knock on 640,000 doors in 23 states over the weekend for a massive canvassing campaign. Labor unions have traditionally begun their political efforts on Labor Day, but are starting a week early to coincide with the GOP convention.

Joining in the canvassing effort will be MoveOn.org and Workers’ Voice, the AFL-CIO’s super-PAC. Workers’ Voice will also be sending out direct mail to 240,000 senior citizens taking direct aim at Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and his vice presidential pick, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the union ground game would help Democrats and President Obama win the election this fall.

“Working families talking to their neighbors, co-workers, friends and families is kryptonite to the radical right-wing agenda,” Trumka said in a statement. “We’ll be breaking through the noise of misleading ads paid for by wealthy special interests and letting voters hear from the people they trust most on the economic issues they care about. That’s how working families will win this election and lift up the middle class.”

The direct mailer from Workers’ Voice is designed as a viewer’s guide for the GOP convention, with the warning label “viewer discretion advised.” Among many attacks, the piece asks, “Will Paul Ryan tell you about his plans to privatize Social Security and end Medicare?”

Much of the initial campaigning by the AFL-CIO will focus on six battleground states: Florida, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The AFL-CIO has endorsed Obama for reelection. Labor, a key political ally for Democrats, will likely boost the party’s candidates at the polls this November with its voter turnout machine.

Via: The Hill

Labor chief Trumka vows stronger ground game for elections

The nation’s largest labor federation says it is ready to unleash a new and improved political program ahead of the November elections with expanded outreach and more volunteers than past years.

AFL-CIO President Richard L. Trumka on Thursday outlined a strategy that will emphasis grass-roots efforts over TV ads, vowing that at least 400,000 volunteers — 100,000 more than during the 2008 election season — will hit the streets nationwide this autumn.

“You won’t see us doing all the ads, all the anonymous ads,” he said during a briefing with reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. “We turn out people at the grass-roots level, something [anti-union groups and candidates] can’t do. And this time we’re going to try to do it even better.”

“That’s where we’re going to shine this time.”

New laws allow labor activists to have more contact with voters in non-union households — a demographic Mr. Trumka vows not to ignore.

“It used to be that we would do a door-knock, and there’d be 500 houses in a small community, and if 100 were union, we had to skip 400 houses. Now we’re going to be able to go to those 400 houses, talk to them about the issues,” he said.

Via: The Washington Times

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