This speech from 2008 is a template for white, blue collar leadership to talk about race to their constituents:
Timothy Noah at the New Republic:
Trumka ran the AFL-CIO with the same plainspokenness he displayed that day in TNR’s offices. In an October 2008 speech before the United Steelworkers in Las Vegas, he confronted head-on the racism of white union members who didn’t want to vote for Barack Obama. “There’s not a single good reason for any worker, especially any union member, to vote against Barack Obama,” he said. “And there’s only one really bad reason … and that’s because he’s not white.”
Trumka talked in that speech about going back to Nemacolin and hearing an elderly Democratic activist he knew say, “There’s no way that I’d ever vote for Obama.” When he asked why, she said, “Well, he’s Muslim.” Trumka told her Obama was a Christian, and anyway, “So what if he’s Muslim?” Then she said, “He won’t wear that American flag pin on his lapel.” Trumka pointed out that he wasn’t wearing one and neither was she, and that Obama had worn a flag lapel pin plenty of times. “Well, I just don’t trust him,” she said finally. He asked why not. “She drops her voice a bit. She said, ‘Because he’s Black.’”
Trumka told the woman to look around. This town is dying, he said. Our kids are moving away because there aren’t any jobs. Obama says he’ll fight for us. And you won’t vote for him because of his skin color? “Are you out of your ever-lovin’ mind, lady?”
“We can’t tap-dance around the fact that there’s a lot of folks out there just like that woman,” Trumka told the crowd. “And a lot of them are good union people.… Those of us who know better can’t afford to sit silently or look the other way while it’s happening.”
Eight years later, as rank-and-file union members flocked to Donald Trump, Trumka made clear not only that Trump wasn’t anyone the labor federation could support but also that he felt personal disgust for the man. “Trump wants to talk to people like you and me,” he said in January 2016, then recited instances of Trump’s amply documented bigotry and thuggery. “I’ve been around awhile,” Trumka said, “and I’ve heard that kind of thing before. Politicians trying to divide working people. Talking about us and them.”
Trumka was forthright to the end. On July 27, he was asked whether he supported a vaccine mandate. Many union leaders (including, surprisingly, the usually tough-minded Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers) have been hesitant to endorse such mandates, neglecting their responsibility to protect members’ health in deference to a few crank anti-vaxxers among the rank and file. Not Trumka. “Yes we do,” Trumka told C-SPAN. “If you come back in, and you’re not vaccinated, everybody in that workplace is jeopardized.” In the current climate, regrettably, a union leader who doesn’t dither about the need for vaccine mandates in the workplace is showing real gumption.
We need more leaders like Trumka but they are few and far between. Plain spoken truth tellers have a much better chance of penetrating the veil of conspiracies and propaganda the Big Money wingnuts have created to keep power and money to themselves.