AFL CIO President Richard Trumka Jonathan Swan said in an interview with Axios on HBO that he wished President Biden did not cancel the Keystone XL pipeline his first day in office because it would cost precious unions.
Why it matters: Organized labor is crucial to the Biden Coalition. But there is significant tension among environmentalists, the president’s team addressing climate change and some parts of the labor movement.
- The Laborers’ International Union of North America said the Keystone decision would cost 1,000 existing unions and 10,000 projected jobs.
- “The Workers International was right,” Trumka said.
Between the lines: Trumka said he thinks Biden has learned a lesson from his Keystone announcement and that he hopes the president will link any future decisions that will kill unions with simultaneous and specific announcements on how these positions will be replaced.
- “If you destroy 100 jobs in Greene County, Pennsylvania, where I grew up, and you create 100 jobs in California, it’s not doing the 100 families much good,” Trumka said.
- “If you look at a pipeline and say we’re going to put it down, what are you going to do now to create the same well-paying job in that area?”
- Trumka also appears to be uncomfortable, pausing for a few seconds and pondering the question, when asked if he is comfortable with Biden’s plan to ban hydrofracking on federal lands.
- White House spokesman Vedant Patel said: “President Biden has proposed transformative investments in infrastructure that will not only create millions of good unions but also help tackle the climate crisis.”
The conclusion: Trumka, who began his career as a coal miner, indicated he would have no patience for promises of retraining programs as comfort for union workers being forced out of their jobs.
- “You know, when they laid off at the mines in Pennsylvania, they told us they were going to train us to be computer programmers.”
- “And I said, ‘Where does the computer programmer work?’ “Uh, they’re in Oklahoma and they’re in Vegas and they’re here.” And I said, ‘In other words, what we’re going to be are also unemployed miners and unemployed computer programmers.’ ‘
People ‘like where they live and they love the people in the area, “Trumka said. And for them, it’s the house. And that’s their culture. ‘
- “I think what is not understood enough in the country, especially in DC politics, is that the culture is very, very important to the people who live there.”
Editor’s Comment: Updates to the White House’s comment.