That organization, richard trumka. Thank you for joining us on newsmakers. Mr. Trumka, i want to ask you about this moment in our countrys history where the stock market has seen workers are uncertain. Where would you put this moment right now . It is a veryy serious moment for everyone in the country. Is probably a new chapter in our history that is going to be rewritten or redefined. We have things that have never happened before on a scale that never happened before and we are going to have to get back the way we did quite frankly during the world wars are we all started pulling together to solve a common problem. That new chapter would begin with what . The shortages there people do not know how to get it. The strategic stockpile is not being opened up the way it should be so we need to have one person in charge at the white house that is telling people here is where you can get those supplies. Hospital bedvelop capacity no matter how much it costs because we will be stretched beyond our limits quickly. That is the deal with the contagious part. Then you have to deal with the people into their lives afterwards. The first thing we should do is pass paid sick leave, 14 days of paid sick leave for everyone out there. I do not know why the white house insisted they would not have companies over 500 provide sick days for their employees. Those are the most important. 14 sick days for everybody. The second thing is we need to change our unemployment system. Right now it plate it pays too little. Are unemployed like autoworkers who just got laid off or bus drivers who got laid off because schools closed or thousands of others on aviationion sites in in transportation and entertainment, all those people can be covered who would not be cut or to otherwise. The next thing we need to do is make sure everybody maintains their health care because they will need it. If he give if we give bailouts they should be made to keep people on the job. Busting giant bonuses for management, no stock buybacks. Use the money to keep people on the job so we can keep the economy moving. We talked about the federal response. This past week at the white house when asked President Trump said he would give himself a 10 out of 10. What would you give him so far . I would give him probably a two or a three. This started a long time ago, steve. Right after this president took over there was a disease standard that was about to be issued. He scrapped it. That standard would have required employers to have a plan, to educate their employees and have Proper Health and Safety Equipment on to prevent contagious diseases. Then he dismantled the pandemic teamnse structure and a that was started by president bush. He scrapped that. Now we have to rebuild it. Occupational health and Safety Administration is designed to protect the safety of workers has the lowest number of Health Specialists and inspectors than it has ever had in its history and it has not had a director for a couple of years. Then at the beginning of this we knew in december it was coming and he wanted to pretend that it was just nothing. They even tried to pretend this was a hoax. Unfortunately some people still believe in the hoax because they said it. We have to tell people the truth and he hasnt done a particularly good job of that. I think the last couple of days he started to be more realistic about that and it has been a welcome thing but we lost four months in the process and a lot of people are going to lose their jobs a lot of people are going to get very sick and a lot are going to die because that delay was allowed to occur. Saw a stevenwe mnuchin say privately that he thinks the Unemployment Rate could escalate to 20 if washington doesnt come through with a very aggressive stimulus package. That kind of job losses are you concerned about right now for the Union Members in your organization . Pres. Trumka their massive already. We are seeing a number of job losses in a number of sectors. Your seeing them in education all the way down the line. Janitors, anyone associated with them. Manufacturing. The big three shut down. You see it in entertainment. Everything has been canceled. Under 10 when workers arent being able to do anything. We see it in construction. Construction workers are starting to get laid off. That is why it is important for us to get the Unemployment Insurance program up and running covering people with sufficient a sufficient amount of income to keep the economy moving so that when this pandemic leaves we can still pick up the pieces and quickly rebuild the economy and get our economy moving again. The American Federation of teachers is under your organization. Do believe at this point that schools teachers may not return to school this school year . Pres. Trumka i think that is quite likely. We will be doing things online the rest of the school year. Some schools have already done that. Some schools of Higher Education have already said they are not coming back. It can very well happen. That means all the support staff arent going to be around. They are going to need in unemployment system and unemployment system that takes care of them and with the focus sohere we should that more americans can fall into that safety net and be protected. , we are talking about bailouts. You mentioned it earlier, the possibility that companies could end up having the u. S. Government to be a major shareholder. We saw that in 2008 and 2009. What lessons did we learn about the financial crisis about how bailouts need to be applied . They used the money entirely improperly. Most of it went for stock buybacks and bonuses for management. They didnt use it to keep people on the job. This time we learned that lesson and we are putting conditions on that money so that anybody who no money has to say layoffs, you do not cut their wages, and you do not try to bust a union just because it is there. They did all of those things in the last crisis and it showed just how self centered they were. This time we are going to help them focus on the public good by putting conditions on any assistance they ultimately get. Tosaid we need to be ready pick up the pieces when this pandemic ends. At some point this too will pass but a twopart question from your standpoint what kind of a timeline are we looking at end how would that look in terms of picking up the pieces for the average worker . There are some workers out there hopefully that will continue to work throughout this. The frontline workers who are risking their lives every single day to keep us safe, to provide us with food, they are working out there and we need to protect them. That is the first thing we do. This could go on through the second and Third Quarter of the year. I do not think that is unreasonable. Scientists are saying that in china where they pretty much knocked it down by isolating everybody, they think there will be a resurgence whenever the people go back to work and we will have to be careful about that. We should be pushing for there to be a cure for this, some type of cure that we can give our people so we dont have to worry when that and weekend we go back we will have to go back gently. We will have to have money in the hands of all the people who will need it. At that time employers will need money, Small Businesses will need money, and states and local governments will need money. We need to make sure that states and local governments are getting aid through medicaid, having medicaid paid for a year. Then we can start bringing the economy back online because it went down pretty quickly but it can i think it will go back a little more slowly than it went down. You think it is not going to be a quick rebound . Think it willi gear back up and it will take a while. It will take a couple quarters to see Real Progress getting people back to work. I do not want to sound like a that is whyd but reforming and fixing the Unemployment Insurance system in this country is so important because those workers are going to need that money, not just a onetime shot. They are going to need that money for a long time if we are going to keep the economy moving at any pace. Several weeks we have seen the stock market crash and the dow plunging between 20,000 points. Any workers rely on Pension Funds that are heavily invested in the stock market. Are you concerned that this point that those pensions could be in jeopardy . Questionk there is no that those pensions will be just like businesses. If we are doing a bailout for businesses we should be doing a bailout for pensions on a commensurate level. Pensions for those who live on them and actually spend those pensions to keep the economy growing can continue. This step drop in the stock market is hurting everybody, Pension Plans and 401 k s. We should bailout Pension Plans as well and make sure they can and maintainstorm the level of pensions people have out there right now. Plusu have 12 million workers you are representing. Are you looking at potentially giving people a break on union dues . Pres. Trumka if they are not working they do not pay dues. We are looking every where we can to put together packages from the entities we have. Have a thing called Union Privilege where we offer a series of benefits. One of those is mortgage relief. We drop the payments on those so you do not have to do them during if you are unemployed. We are putting together a series of packages like that to offer to our members. Well also be looking to put together a lump sum of money so we can offer it to our unions when they get into financial trouble during this process so they can keep functioning. It is more important for those unions to have a strong voice right now than it would be before because if our voice goes corporationsn would do exactly what they did the last time, use them for stock buybacks and things of that sort they will not use them to keep people on the job. There will not be a voice pushing to expand Unemployment Insurance so it covers everybody for a longer. Of time at a higher amount. That is what we should be doing. Im sorry. Please continue. Wonder have you talked to the president about Unemployment Insurance and these other concerns . Pres. Trumka i have not talked directly to the president. I talked to the leadership on the hill. We send messages directly to the white house. No our position, we know there is. Position, weow our theirs. Res days and expanded Unemployment Insurance so we can cover more people for a longer. Of time. Let me turn to politics. Joe biden is the Presumptive Democratic nominee. Are you prepared to endorse him . Processumka that is a it takes two thirds of our members to endorse. Our endorsements come from the bottom up. Comingcess will be together electronically before long to talk about that very thing, to see if we have the necessary amount of support. I wouldnt hesitate that we do, i would anticipate that we do. An endorsement probably will not be until june or july because frankly we are focused on this crisis right now. The health of our frontline workers and the benefits of people of in the past do you have a sense that the democrats will still meet in milwaukee . Are you hearing of any plans by the dnc in light of what we are hearing today . Pres. Trumka if this is still going on and we still have to be isolated from one another then in fact they are not going to violate those rules, but i am sure we will find a way to do it that preserves democracy and they will of the delegates and come up with the candidate that we think will ultimately take the white house back because this white house has not been very good in this crisis but they have not been very good for workers throughout the process. Anit sounds as if endorsement of joe biden is almost inevitable. Joe biden is not done yet. The primary is not done yet. Bernie sanders is still there. Will make a decision if he is still in at that point. In november of course we will have the election. The intersection of politics and the pandemic, with people having to go into the voting box. Are you favoring any sort of votingvoting or allmale mail voting . Pres. Trumka we have always been in favor of having an expanded early voting system. It works tremendously. Gives you time to think and look at the ballot. You do not have to worry about whether it is a bad day on election day or if it is raining. You can get it done. We have always been an advocate of that. We want to expand early voting, not let it be contracted. We dont want them to use it as an excuse to reduce the number of people who vote but make it come to more people and have more people people to vote and avail themselves of the process of democracy. Pivoting back to your conversation that you have been leading for the last several weeks that we just havent gotten the right equipment to those frontline workers there is also a conversation about our simple manufacturing passively. Youre seeing General Motors and ford and tesla considering converting plants to make some of these. Is that a good strategy in your mind . Absolutely. We need to start making more and more of the products. We only make 48 of the things we need for National Security in this country. I have been screaming about that for years. We should make everything necessary for National Security right here. We make 48 of the stuff we need. Now they say we do not have the capacity to do health care for an emergency they knew was coming so yes we should convert nts that we have two make you can do that on a smallscale end on a largescale. A Small Manufacturer in maine that is right now is figuring out how to make masks. Cuttingnurses who are up downs to make their own masks because they cannot get masks or respirators. Then there is the need for ventilators. In italy doctors were making the decision on who got a ventilator and lived and who did not get a ventilator and died. That decision should never have to be made. We should be developing that capacity right now. Strategicry has a reserve and they will open that up but i fear that is still not going to be enough. We need to have the capacity to make ventilators, respirators, and all ppe that we need to keep our frontline workers healthy. If they come off the line then we dont have anyone to take care of the sick. We have that in danbury, connecticut. They are over capacity. They have more than 200 nurses that got taken off the line because they were exposed to corona disease. They are over capacity and they have 200 nurses off the line right now. Let me turn to you the president of the aflcio. You said this is a new chapter changing the way American Workers earn and income and income. How is this changing the aflcio . Pres. Trumka we have had to start training our frontline members and provide them with the equipment they should have been getting from their employers and or the government. What we do best, we have a structure that puts us in every state. We are able to reach people of every state. We are bringing them together, we are finding out what they need, we are trying to use the power of solidarity to keep the fear down in this country and actually have people Work Together at a time when we need them to Work Together more than ever four. It is causing us to rethink ever before. Now from theing aflcio headquarters. Our employees are out, we are operating remotely and we are ironing out the bumps that go along with that. It has caused us to rethink the social safety net, how we do things, protective equipment that is needed, manufacturing process. Everything we are dealing with now we are rethinking to make sure that it works in this situation. Last bottom line, you seem quite frustrated with the preparedness and all this. Frustrateda i think is perhaps part of it. I am also extremely disappointed. This started right after this Administration Took Office when they got rid of contagious workplace disease standard that got should have been there. They let osha atrophy. It has no leader, it has fewer people than it has ever had. There are not enough of them there because they have taken so many away. Then they dismantle the pandemic disease infrastructure that we had then they knew this was coming. They did not get do anything to get testing to people. Have frontline workers out there, firefighters, emts, letter characters who go from home to home who cannot letter carriers who go from home to home who cannot get tested. It is going to cause more pain and suffering and unfortunately even more deaths because we do not get in front of best. Did not get in front of this. This is not a game. Having the American People not prepared because of that was a sad chapter in our history. I am not just frustrated. Im disappointed, but quite frankly i am also hopeful because every time i go out i see things that i think are going to fall apart, people do this extraordinary thing. Americans come together, nurses do more, doctors do more, transportation workers do more, pilots do more, teachers adapt to our kids. It makes me so hopeful because i see them coming together with the resolve that says nothing and no one is ever going to defeat this country, we are going to come together as a grope group, we are going to defeat the coronavirus. Was the president lying or misinformed . Pres. Trumka does it matter . He was wrong. When he told the American People, what he told the American People was wrong and it hurt us. You still have people out there who believe this is a hoax. Imagine that. People still believe this is a hoax because he said it. It does not matter whether he lied or whether he was misinformed it hurt the American Public and it should never have happened. We deserve better than that. You talked about the painandsuffering rippling through the economy. Do you believe you may have to reopen contracts for unions throughout this country to potentially give a break to some of the employers who are facing pressure right now . Pres. Trumka we will partner with anybody. We have always done our share if that is what is necessary but i tell you what we will not do. We will not let them get a a ceo andive az exorbitant salary while they lay off workers and cut their wages. We will not do that. We have partnered with them or without we did one time and that is what happened. It will not happen again. It will be fair and it will be mutual. We come together and we do what has to be done to get through any crisis or any challenge and i have faith that the American Worker, given the right tools and opportunity, can face any challenge any time and prevail. I love the American Worker and i have total faith in them. We will conclude on that note. Trumka joining us from the aflcio headquarters in washington dc, president of that union. Inc. You for joining us on newsmakers. Be safe thank you for joining us on newsmakers. Be safe. President trump will hold a briefing today. We will have live coverage from the white house starting at 4 30 here on cspan. Cspans washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up monday morning we will discuss the latest congressional efforts to address the coronavirus pandemic with zach cohen. We will talk with chief medical u. S. Or about the coronavirus response. Watch cspans washington journal live at 7 00 eastern monday morning. Join the discussion. The other thing that we are seeing that is very similar to 1918 as to the early ofrs of cholera is a mixture fear, anxiety, and panic. Takingother hand, not rings seriously early enough especially in the United States taking things seriously enough early on especially in the u. S. Watch Christian Mcmillan author of pandemics a very rt introduction tonight at on q a. Hell with an article in the last hour reporting Steven Mnuchins comments that the Coronavirus Relief package will include two weeks of loans to Small Businesses and an average payment of 3000 to a family of four. House and Senate Leaders are gathering to work on the stimulus package. On thee briefing coronavirus by california governor governor newsom. He talks about the restrictions put in place by the city and state