Trumka calls out ‘corporate leeches,’ predicts defeat of Prop A (RTW)

St. Louis – AFL‑CIO President Richard Trumka (UMWA) spoke at the Missouri AFL‑CIO’s 29th Biennial Convention today, rallying a packed audience of local union leaders and working Missourians in the fight against Prop. A (RTW).

In today’s charged political climate, with working people under attack from seemingly every quarter, Trumka recalled the words President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered to Americans in the midst of the Great Depression: “True patriotism urges us to build an even more substantial America where the good things of life may be shared by more of us.”

Working people in Missouri are speaking out and mobilizing their neighbors against a corporate-backed attack on our fundamental economic rights. As union leaders gather in St. Louis, the state’s Labor Movement is continuing to embody the spirit of collective action currently sweeping the country.

Faced with a right-wing “right-to-work” law passed by Missouri’s corporate-owned legislature, working Missourians took the fight to workplaces and living rooms across the state. Tasked with gathering 100,000 signatures to put the law on the ballot, working Missourians collected more than 300,000. And now, in the face of a deep-pocketed anti-union campaign, they are knocking on hundreds of thousands of doors in the weeks leading up to the Aug. 7 referendum.

“These corporate leeches, wrapped in the American flag and hijacking words like ‘freedom’ have brought the fight here to Missouri,” Trumka said. “They think they can send us running for the hills. I’ve got news for them: the only place we’re running is to the polls on Aug 7 to defeat Prop A!

“The Missouri Labor Movement defines extraordinary,” Trumka said. “We defeated right to work in 1978. And we’re going to defeat it again in 2018!”