AFL-CIO President Slams The Green New Deal Again

April 24, 2019

The Green New Deal has suffered yet another blow thanks to one of the nation’s largest labor unions standing up for its members.

In March, the AFL-CIO first came out against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s marquee plan, saying that it is “short on specifics” and would cause “immediate harm to millions of our members and their families.”

This was a stinging setback to Ocasio-Cortez, who lauded that all the jobs created by the Green New Deal would be union jobs. But that doesn’t seem to have assuaged actual union workers, who would see jobs they currently hold in the energy industry decimated by her extreme eco-agenda.

In other words, the AFL-CIO predictably did not like the idea of abolishing existing union jobs for mythical “green” ones.

Now, the AFL-CIO is doubling down.

Yesterday, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said that he continues to oppose the Green New Deal because “workers’ interests weren’t completely figured into it.”

This could be cataclysmic for the left. For decades their coalition has included blue-collar union workers. But if they continue to embrace the Green New Deal, as nearly every leader on the left has done, it could drive these blue collar workers further away.

Time will tell whether the left wises up and starts creating smart economic policies or if they’ll continue to push away working-class Americans.