OCT 04, 2019
During the chaos that
transpired from Dec. 22, 2018, to Jan. 25, 2019, in the
most recent government shutdown, two speeches by a woman named Sara Nelson,
our Truthdigger of the Month, spread like wildfire across the internet.
On Jan. 20, as she accepted
the 2019 MLK Drum Major for Justice Award from the AFL-CIO, Nelson, the
president of the Association of Flight Attendants-Communications Workers of
America (AFA-CWA), called
for a general strike and questioned why the labor movement was missing
in action during this crucial time for 800,000 federal workers.
“Almost a million workers are
locked out or being forced to work without pay. Others are going to work when
our workspace is increasingly unsafe,” Nelson said. “What is the Labor Movement
waiting for?”
“Federal sector unions have
their hands full caring for the 800,000 federal workers who are at the tip of
the spear,” she went on. “Some would say the answer is for them to walk off the
job. I say, what are you willing to do? Their destiny is tied up with our
destiny—and they don’t even have time to ask us for help. Don’t wait for an
invitation. … Go back with the fierce urgency of now to talk with your local
and international unions about all workers joining together—to end this shutdown
with a general strike.
“We can do this. Together. Si
se puede. Every gender, race, culture, and creed. The American labor movement.
We have the power. And to all Americans—We’ve got your back!”
Days later, speaking to
another crowd in front of the Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Va., Nelson
passionately highlighted the security dangers flight attendants—and anyone on a
plane—during this period were facing while federal workers, including air
traffic controllers, worked without pay.
Lives are at risk because of
the gov’t shutdown, and these airline workers want Trump to take that seriously
“Many of these people are our
veterans,” she said in her Jan. 24 speech. “Many of these people are fighting
for our country right now, and we are not paying them.” When several air
traffic controllers chose to abstain from unpaid work the next day, forcing
flights to stay grounded in several busy airports, suddenly the Trump
administration had an added incentive to reopen government as fast as humanly
possible, proving the power workers have always held.
Democratic presidential
candidate Bernie
Sanders reportedly credited Nelson with helping shut down the
shutdown, telling her, “Between you and me, that’s what ended the shutdown. …
When planes looked like they weren’t taking off.” But he wasn’t the only one
who saw the role the rising labor movement star had played in those crucial
days.
Nelson started
organizing and intimidating corporate bosses not unlike President
Trump long before she made national headlines during the longest government
shutdown in U.S. history. A United Airlines flight attendant since 1996, Nelson
became the head of the AFA-CWA in 2014 after holding several positions at the
union, including vice president. Her activism began almost as soon as she
started working at United, and has continued throughout her tenure there as
she’s helped negotiate better terms for pensions, among other labor
improvements, not just for her fellow United flight attendants, but for the
50,000 members of the AFA-CWA who work at 20 airlines.
Now, Nelson
has been tapped for the head job of the American labor movement,
president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial
Organizations (AFL-CIO), despite the fact the current president, Richard
Trumka, still has a couple of years left in his term. The flight attendant
turned union president and fervent activist is a far cry from the American
labor leaders we’ve seen in the past few decades, and that’s precisely why so
many people, including her, want her to lead labor in the upcoming years.
Already, she’s been called “the most powerful labor
leader in the country.”
Not only does Nelson have the
passion and presence sorely lacking in other labor leaders—who, for instance,
can remember a single speech by Trumka?—she’s willing to fight at the
frontlines—not just for workers in her unions, but for all American workers—on
a number of crucial issues.
The AFA-CWA president
has testified
before Congress about the sexual harassment still rampant in her
industry, and has also thrown her support behind activism across the nation,
including teachers’
strikes in California, Wyoming and West Virginia, General
Motors workers protesting stagnant wages, and, most recently,
the global
climate strike inspired by Swedish youth activist Greta
Thunberg.
Nelson is also an outspoken
proponent of Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, stating her support stems from the
proposal’s focus on the need to address both the very real climate crisis
before us, along with better labor conditions and the creation of jobs.
When 2020 Democratic
front-runners Biden
and Sanders debated the Vermont senator’s Medicare for All bill, with Biden
saying Sanders’ policy would fly in the face of union accomplishments, Nelson
was clear where she stood:
A note to anyone who wants to
use union members as a wedge to oppose #MedicareForAll:
@UAW has one of the best plans in the
country, but management can still use it to hold workers hostage. #M4A puts power back in our
hands. #1u https://twitter.com/vyurkevich/status/1174036332320088065 …
Nelson faces an uphill battle
toward the leadership position she seems to have been born to take on. Since
its formation after a merger in 1955, the AFL-CIO, which boasts 12.5 million
members and is made up of 55 unions, has never had a woman in the top
office. The labor leader is also facing stiff competition from the
AFL-CIO’s secretary treasurer, Liz
Shuler, who’s also likely to run.
But adversity is something
Nelson is familiar with. As a woman, she has been consistently
underestimated and discriminated against, even harassed, by men in any
number of work situations. As she fights for women’s rights and workers’
rights, the Oregon native will not be cowed, no matter the challenge. Her
rising profile is evidence of this, if nothing else.
The AFA-CWA
president’s main inspiration for possibly running came after Trump was
elected after running a campaign that fed off blue-collar workers’ discontent.
“Trump took up so much of the
airwaves because he was off-script,” Nelson said. Unions, stuck in a defensive
crouch, barely participated in the conversation. “If we had someone who
could bring a different vision of what a union leader is,” she said, “it could
have been a moment that was really powerful.”
Nelson, by all accounts,
embodies that “different vision,” and with signs that the
American labor movement is on the rise, there is no one better to take the
lead than this strong, passionate woman who is a
great speaker, has earned her progressive chops as a worker, activist and
union leader, and understands the vital truth about the U.S. economy: Workers
have all the power, as long as they have each other’s backs.
Since we just celebrated Labor
Day in September, we have decided to make Sara Nelson our Truthdigger of the
Month—for all she has done and will do for American workers.
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