Richard Trumka was the president of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations, better known by its acronym AFL-CIO, from September 2009 until his death in August 2021.8 York’s widow sued the union for $27 million, naming Trumka as one of the co-defendants. The case was settled out of court in 1997.
Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO
As United Mine Workers president, Trumka became a close ally of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) president John Sweeney, who ran a left-wing campaign to take the AFL-CIO presidency from the center-left administration of Tom Donohue, the successor to Lane Kirkland. A member of Sweeney’s victorious candidate slate, Trumka was elected AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer—the union’s second-highest-ranking officer—in 1995.
Trumka embroiled the federation in controversy shortly after taking office. Trumka was close to Ron Carey, the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters who had brought the exiled Teamsters back into the AFL-CIO fold and who was locked in a re-election battle with James Hoffa, Jr. Corruption scandals surrounding the election resulted in the vote being invalidated by federal regulators. Carey was removed from office, expelled from the union, and charged by federal investigators (though he was acquitted at his criminal trial).18
On the night of the 2020 presidential election, Trumka released a statement alongside Chamber of Commerce CEO Thomas Donohue asking voters to be patient with the vote counting process. “We call on the media, the candidates, and the American people to exercise patience with the process and trust in our system, even if it requires more time than usual,” the two organizations said in a statement. 0){
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