Labor leader asks in speech for race to be left out of election
By Don Dodson
Thursday October 16, 2008
Vanda Bidwell
Rich Trumka, international secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, gave a speech titled 'Economic Justice: The Role of the American Labor Movement and the 2008 Election' on Wednesday at the University YMCA in Champaign. The event was sponsored by the School of Labor and Employment Relations.
CHAMPAIGN – When workers cast their votes for president next month, labor leader Rich Trumka hopes they don't let racial biases keep them from voting in their best interests.
But Trumka said he realizes some people may.
A former coal miner who now serves as secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, Trumka said he returned home to Pennsylvania to vote in the primary this spring and ran into an acquaintance long active in Democratic politics.
She said she was voting for Hillary Clinton, that she would never vote for Barack Obama.
Trumka, an Obama supporter, asked why.
The woman said Obama was a Muslim. When Trumka pointed out Obama was a Christian, she said he wouldn't wear an American flag pin. When Trumka said neither he nor she was wearing a flag pin, she stopped making eye contact and said, "Because he's black."
At that point, Trumka told the woman to "look around at this dying town."
"Here's a man who will fight for people like us, and you won't vote for him," he said.
Speaking at the University YMCA in Champaign on Wednesday, Trumka said racial bias is a subject many people are loath to discuss.
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