By Doug Cunningham

With the AFL-CIO’s central labor councils and state federations concerned about their funding should the SEIU and Teamsters be forced out of local participation in the wake of their disaffiliation from the labor federation, AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Rich Trumka
says he hasn’t heard about any movement by the local bodies to create their own network…

[Trumka 1] : “I’m not gonna speculate. We haven’t heard it. We haven’t made any plans yet, we’re just gonna continue where we are.”

Trumka says the AFL-CIO will continue to support the workers in the rank and file of the SEIU and Teamsters but reaching out to their leaders is difficult since he says they refused to change their positions on reform issues during months of attempted negotiations.

We’ve reached out to them for nine months now. And they started with a position and they ended with the same position they started with, so we’ll continue reaching out. The workers, the members of their unions are good, hard-working members. We’ll continue to support workers in this country.”