John,

I am absolutely heartbroken to hear of the passing of AFL-CIO President, Richard Trumka, a fighter for working folks everywhere.

President Trumka has been a figure in my life since I was a little girl. He and my father became good friends–they always had each other’s backs when times were tough for their members.

When I called my dad to let him know of the news of his friend’s passing, he immediately recalled how warm President Trumka was, and how he never acted put out when rank and file members or young folks wanted to chat with him about the Movement or politics in general.

My dad also told me about how the two of them worked together during the Decker Mine Strike in the late 1980s in Sheridan, Wyoming. Decker locked out the union workers and hired scabs to replace them. Trumka was President of the United Mine Workers at the time, and asked my father’s local at the Detroit Edison Company (now DTE) to help bring attention to the lockout. Detroit Edison was buying their coal from Decker. My father helped organize various protests and wrote an open letter to Edison asking them to purchase their coal elsewhere until the workers were given their jobs back.

Eventually, the workers won. They were out on strike for nearly 7 years. The company had to offer the workers their jobs back with backpay (this is HUGE).

That’s the kind of leader Richard Trumka was. Even as the odds became longer, he never backed down from what was right.

Rest easy, Brother Trumka. You are already missed. 

- Mari