header

header

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

So AFL-CIO boss Richard Trumka is suddenly against violence?

Here's a rich one from the news: AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka has loudly announced he's resigning from the president's manufacturing council, to protest, of all things, violence.  He's thrown racism, too, in the mix, baselessly accusing President Trump of it, in line with his long history of race-baiting.
But the doozy is his newfound sudden aversion to violence.  Up until now, violence has always been his stock in trade.
I cannot sit on a council for a President that tolerates bigotry and domestic terrorism; I resign, effective immediately. pic.twitter.com/ip6F2nsoog
— Richard L. Trumka (@RichardTrumka) August 15, 2017
Get a load of Trumka's acts and statements from the fact sheet of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation upon his election to the AFL-CIO presidency from his previous position as the president of the United Mine Workers union:

FACT SHEET
Incoming AFL-CIO President
Richard Trumka: An Ugly History of Violence and Corruption
Richard Trumka, former United Mine Workers (UMW) union president and current secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, is expected to be elected this week as president of the nation's largest union coalition.Trumka's record of militancy, disregard for the rule of law, and condoning of violence by union goons during strikes suggests that his presidency of the AFL-CIO could usher in a new era of forced-unionism extremism. Trumka's reign (1982-1995) as president of United Mine Workers (UMW) union was marked by militancy, strikes, and union violence[.]
Trumka's fiery rhetoric often appeared to condone militancy and violence, especially against workers who dared to continue to provide for their families by working during a strike:
"UMWA President Richard Trumka...urged union members to...'kick the (expletive) out of every last one of 'em"
"You'd have to be very naïve to believe that if management brought in scabs, there won't be something somewhere."
Trumka's record of militancy, disregard for the rule of law, and condoning of violence by union goons during strikes suggests that his presidency of the AFL-CIO could usher in a new era of forced-unionism extremism. Trumka's reign (1982-1995) as president of United Mine Workers (UMW) union was marked by militancy, strikes, and union violence.
"I'm saying if you strike a match and you put your finger in it, you're likely to get burned. 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."
So now he says he's against violence, or domestic terrorism, or whatever it is going on in Charlottesville that gives him an opportunity to make political hay?  He's always liked violence.
Take a look at his own history of violence from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation Fact Sheet, which is fully footnoted at the bottom of the linked page:
  • 1993 UMW strike against Peabody Coal – Eddie York, a 39 year old nonunion worker, "was shot in the back of the head and killed" leaving a job in Logan County, West Virginia. "Guards told police the truck careened across the road and went into a ditch. When guards rushed over to check on York, they continued to be pelted with rocks, guards told police."
  • In a detailed account of the York murder and subsequent investigation, Reader's Digest noted that "UMW President Richard Trumka did not publicly discipline or reprimand a single striker present when York was killed. In fact, all eight were helped out financially by the local." Eventually, the union agreed to let the company "dismiss the eight original defendants if they were convicted," but when the company "issued letters of dismissal to the seven pickets who pleaded guilty," the union filed a grievance on their behalf.
  • 1985 UMW strike against A.T. Massey Coal – "At the Sprouse Creek Processing Co., Buddy McCoy was a union man who crossed the picket line to become a foreman. 'I had a family to care for,' says McCoy, who received a three-stitch gash in the head from marauding strikers after his defection." 
  • 1989 UMW strike against Pittston Coal – Virginia Circuit Court JudgeDonald McGlothlin Jr. declared that "the evidence shows beyond any shadow of a doubt that violent activities are being organized, orchestrated and encouraged by the leadership of this union."
  • Unanimous Virginia Supreme Court reinforced Judge McGlothlin's findings: "Union officials took active roles in these unlawful activities. Notwithstanding the large fines, the Union never represented to the court that it regretted or intended to cease its lawless actions. To the contrary, the utter defiance of the rule of law continued unabated."
This is a man who is nothing but a left-wing ideologue on an Olympic quest for power.  Discover the Networks sums up his career and its odious direction well:
Unlike their more moderate predecessors, Trumka and his fellow AFL-CIO bosses see free-market capitalism not as essential to worker prosperity but as something to be despised and destroyed. Their ultimate aim is not to boost members' wages, but to radically transform society. Trumka would confirm this in a September 2010 moment of candor, when he stated that he had gotten "into the labor movement not because I wanted to negotiate wages," but "because I saw it as a vehicle to do massive social change to include lots of people."
So that explains why the man could head up the United Mine Workers union and not make a peep when President Obama dismantled and destroyed the U.S. coal industry.
It would also explain why he had nothing to say when the nightmare of Obamacare hit union members with their gold-plated health care benefits especially hard.
It would explain his loathing for free trade – all free trade, not just certain versions of it – despite the high-paid jobs for union members who would benefit from the right pacts.
It would explain why he got so loud about supposed white union member "racism" during the election campaign of 2008, which saw the election of far-left ideologue Barack Obama as president, blasting white union members as racists for any qualms about electing Obama president.
He never was about improving the lives of workers; he was solely on a quest for leftist political power.  Hence the propensity for race-baiting and supporting the failed transformative Obama agenda.  Now he's got a newfound aversion to violence – an amazing thing for a man with his record, making a political grand stand.  His blind spot is the spot of the left, of course: he sees violence only when his opponents do it.
One wonders what the heck he was doing on the president's manufacturing council other than throwing sand in the gears.  He certainly wasn't doing anything constructive there.  His hatred of free trade is positively famous and not the way to go in enacting good bilateral trade pacts, which form the Trump agenda.  In fact, his proposal, noted on his Twitter feed, probably went off like a lead balloon, prompting the real reason for his resignation.  But there's something rich about a union thug crying crocodile tears about domestic terrorism and violence.  Yeah, sure, pal.
What a hypocrite.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/08/so_aflcio_boss_richard_trumka_is_suddenly_against_violence.html

https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2017/08/16/trumps-business-advisory-councils-disband/

No comments:

Post a Comment