Worker Institute Statement on the Passing of Richard Trumka

The news of Richard Trumka’s death on Thursday, August 5, 2021, sent shock waves through the U.S. labor movement. A fiery orator and fierce warrior for the working class, America’s unions have lost a powerful leader and The Worker Institute at Cornell ILR has lost a devoted friend.

Trumka was a long-time leader of the AFL-CIO, serving as its secretary-treasurer beginning in 1995 and as the federation’s president since his election to that post in 2009. Before becoming labor’s national leader, Trumka served as president of the United Mine Workers of America, first elected in 1982 as a 32-year old reform candidate.

Trumka was a tough negotiator, an unrelenting campaigner, and a forceful advocate. He was outspoken in 2008 when he confronted union members who might not support Barack Obama for “only one really, really bad reason . . . because he’s not white.” And, he was perhaps at his best in 2020 after George Floyd was murdered saying: “What happened to George Floyd, what happened to Ahmaud Arbery, what happened to far too many unarmed people of color has happened for centuries. . . Racism plays an insidious role in the daily lives of all working people of color. This is a labor issue . . .”

Trumka was a regular speaker at Cornell ILR events and a visiting labor leader in residence at Cornell’s main campus in Ithaca, New York. Trumka’s support of the National Labor Leadership Initiative (NLLI) helped Cornell ILR launch the innovative program in 2013. His guest visits to the NLLI were a high point for many of the program’s participants.

We join thousands of union leaders and activists across the country in mourning the loss of Richard Trumka, labor’s champion.