AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka

Speaking to union members in Anchorage, Alaska today, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said Sarah Palin would “go down in history like [Joe] McCarthy,” and predicted that “Palinism will become an ugly word.” Trumka also told the Alaska union members, who surrounded Palin for a bill signing two years ago, that Palin abandoned the state and the union members to cohort with the Tea Party.

“She used to have a job, your governor,” he will say. “You knew her. … Or thought you did. … I know I thought I did. She seemed like a decent person, an outdoorswoman. Her husband’s a steelworker. She seemed to take some OK stands for working families.

“And then things got weird,” he added. “After she tied herself to John McCain and they lost, she blew off Alaska. I guess she figured she’d trade up … shoot for a national stage. Alaska was too far from the Fox TV spotlight.”

“Instead, she’s hanging out on cable TV, almost a parody of herself, coming out with conspiracy theories about Obama and his ‘death panels.’ … Talking about ‘the real America.’ Talking about building schools in ‘our neighboring country of Afghanistan.’ Writing speech notes to herself on her hands.”

Palin took to Twitter to respond. Rather than try to translate them into English, I’ll paste them and you can get the gist. First:

Know our hardworking union friends (esp from my days as an IBEW sister, Todd IBEW & USW brother) aren’t sheep, they’ll ask: Trumka’s motive?

And:

Think Trumka’s frustrations r w/Obama, not me (high unemplymnt, deals w/Obama&his subsequent broken promises)so understandable Rich’s ticked

So there’s that. AFL-CIO spokesman Eddie Vale responded with the quote of the day:

“Basically, she’s having a temper tantrum, putting her hands over her ears and yelling ‘la la la la la, I can’t hear you,’ ” Vale said. “Because if she had actually read the speech the motivation and message are crystal clear. She left working families in Alaska behind when she tried to trade up to Fox News and the Tea Party. We understand that she wants to keep up her faux populism and image as caring about ordinary people, but her actions, policies and candidates she supports speak way louder than her tweets.”

Palin(’s ghostwriter) took the time to pen a longer response on Facebook posted tonight, in which Palin asks union members to consider “a different home for you: the commonsense conservative movement … you won’t regret it.”

To my hardworking, patriotic brothers and sisters in the labor movement: you don’t have to put up with the scare tactics and the big government agenda of the union bosses. There is a different home for you: the commonsense conservative movement. It cares about the same things you and I care about: a government that doesn’t spend beyond its means, an economy focused on creating good jobs with good wages, and a leadership that is proud of America’s achievements and doesn’t go around apologizing to everyone for who we are.

This November, you have a choice. You can go with the flow and merely pull the lever the way they tell you to. Or you can join millions of others, and take a stand for freedom and independence and dignity, while still being part of a greater working community.

Join us. I promise you, you won’t regret it, and Americans who want good jobs for our families will be better off for it!

Oh, and she said “you lie” to Trumka, too.

Trumka purposely misquoted something I said in a speech I gave in Texas a few months ago. Let me clarify things for him: I never called union members “thugs.” You lie. I called some union leaders “thugs.” And I refuse to apologize for that because they have acted like thugs – at least in this day and age.

The AFL-CIO’s Eddie Vale told me the final word on the matter, reiterating that Palin, shockingly, didn’t read what Trumka actually said and is basically talking out of her ass:

Yet again its blidingly obvious she didn’t read the speech. Yes she was at our convention last year to announce a good project. That’s our entire point. She quit her job so she could leave alaskan workers behind and cuddle up to the teaparty.

Now can you PLEASE go away, Sarah? (I know I’m not helping the situation, but come on.)

After getting roundly whacked by basically the entire internet, the US Chamber has officially apologized for its blog post yesterday that suggested women seeking equal pay have a “fetish for money” and suggested women should “choose the right partner at home.” But don’t let it fool you: the US Chamber has for decades advocated in private the very sentiments posted to its public blog yesterday. We just got a look behind the curtain.

Chamber COO David Chavern wrote on the Chamber’s blog tonight:

Yesterday, Brad Peck posted a piece on ChamberPost about the wage gap between men and women. There is a lot that I don’t like about the piece. It is simplistic and misguided. Even worse, I find it very, very old fashioned. “Women still face challenges at work because of their own work-life choices”, blah, blah, blah. It is an argument from the 1960’s.

The trouble that it is an argument that doesn’t explain a whole bunch of bad things. Why, for example, does the number of Fortune 500 women CEO’s and senior managers seem to have topped out? That is a truth that impacts a whole bunch of women who have made a wide variety of work-life choices. It certainly isn’t an outcome one would predict if all companies were really the “equal opportunity” (let alone “equal outcome”) workplaces that Brad implies that they are. The “glass ceiling” is real and simply blaming it on women’s work-life choices is ridiculous.

There is also a lot of good evidence that women make great entrepreneurs. Shouldn’t that tell us something? Why is it that a large number of large, institutional environments don’t work for women — but ones they create for themselves do?

The bottom line is that I found Brad’s post to be both wrong and wrong-headed. Luckily, as the COO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce my opinion on these matters counts a lot more than his does when it comes to Chamber policy and operations.

For the record, here was the also insufficient backtracking in an update from Peck on his original post:

Update: The above post has been interpreted many different ways, few of which were intended. It is the belief of both the U.S. Chamber and I that women should have equal employment opportunity. In the above I was attempting, rather poorly, to point out that using the wage gap as the only measure of full equality provides an incomplete picture. The post was unclear in its message and I would like to apologize to those for whom it has caused offense. There was no intent to dismiss the challenges women face in the economy or diminish their substantial contributions.

Note: in this original “apology,” Peck says that the Chamber believes in “equal employment opportunity,” just not in “equal pay.” But neither blogger Peck’s nor COO Chavern’s “apologies” can explain away the Chamber’s not-so-secret past of opposing equality for women.

I have a feeling that Brad Peck will be dismissed, fired, or decide to go spend more time with his family. That shouldn’t happen. Punishing Peck for his post would allow the Chamber to erroneously claim that its culture, its politics, and indeed, its very core, doesn’t represent the intent of Peck’s post. Indeed, I’d argue that Peck’s argument that women wanting equal pay have a “fetish for money” and that they should “choose the right partner at home” is the very essence of the Chamber’s ideology. From my original post on the Chamber’s hideous views of women:

• 1977: US Chamber opposes amendment to Civil Rights Act that would ban discrimination against pregnant women.
• 1978: US Chamber says pregnancy is a “voluntary” condition in its opposition to Pregnancy Discrimination Act.
• 1987: Family Medical Leave Act “sets a dangerous precedent,” according to the US Chamber.
• 1998: US Chamber opposes Equal Pay Act because “work experience does tend to create greater wage gaps.”
• 2007: US Chamber opposes Lilly Ledbetter’s court case for equal pay because “tear-stained testimony” prejudices against a defendant. Opposed the bill in Congress to right the wrongs against Ledbetter in 2008 and 2009 as well.
• 2007: Chamber official pledges “all out war” against Family Medical Leave Act, and in 2010 made it a “priority” to fight in Congress.
• Monday: US Chamber again cites pregnancy as a “voluntary choice.”

You can’t try to pin this on an overzealous blogger. Peck just wrote in public what the Chamber has thought, believed, and lobbied for decades: doing nothing to help women who find themselves earning far less in pay, promotions, and respect than their male colleagues.

The Northern California council of the ILWU, otherwise known as the Longshoremen, announced its support for Prop 19, California’s marijuana legalization initiative. The 25,000-member council cited the extraordinary “waste” of money and lives in the war on marijuana, including marijuana prohibition’s disproportionate impact “on the backs of workers, poor people, and people of color.”

The longshore workers have jumped aboard the pro-marijuana legalization bandwagon, as the 25,000-member Northern California District Council of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union say they are pro-Prop 19.

And why would that be?

“The ILWU NCDC supports Prop 19 for good reason,” sez the union’s official statement. “The continued prohibition of marijuana costs society too much. Billions of our tax dollars are wasted annually on the prosecution and incarceration of many, whose only crime is using, growing and selling marijuana.

“Peoples’ lives are ruined for a lifetime because of criminal records incurred from using a drug that is used recreationally by people from all walks of life. Those criminal records fall disproportionately on the backs of workers, poor people, and people of color,” says the ILWU NCDC.

The Northern California Longshore workers – the union of men and women who make every shipping port on the West Coast run smoothly –  join their brothers and sisters in the 200,000 member Western council of the United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW) in endorsing Prop 19. One UFCW local, Local 5 in Oakland, which organized more than 100 employees of main Prop 19 backer Richard Lee’s medical marijuana dispensaries, is going all-in for Prop 19. The feature article on marijuana legalization in next month’s Rolling Stone gives some insight into what UFCW is doing to support the initiative.

The effort marks the first time that labor unions, civil rights groups and drug-policy reformers have worked together, side by side, in the same initiative campaign. Their main message is to emphasize that legalization isn’t about catering to the needs of potheads — it’s about rescuing the state from its $19 billion deficit and putting tens of thousands of unemployed Californians to work. “We don’t see Prop 19 as a marijuana issue,” says Dan Rush, a union organizer with the United Food and Commercial Workers who is lining up endorsements for the ballot initiative. “We see it as a jobs creator and tax-revenue generator.”

Armed with union mailers that describe cannabis as “California’s newest union-friendly green industry,” Rush has secured an endorsement from the Western States Council of the UFCW, which boasts 200,000 members. He’s also won support from unions representing longshoremen, communication workers and painters, and he hopes to get the security workers, machinists and public employees onboard soon. But convincing the state’s political establishment to take a public stance on legalization has been a challenge. “When I’m talking one-on-one with union people or Democratic Party people, everybody loves the idea,” says Rush, an old-school organizer who owns three Harleys and sports a dozen tattoos. “But they’re afraid to come out front.” It’s his job, he says, “to make this industry palatable by illuminating its potential.”

This is huge, and very much needed. UFCW’s approach to marijuana legalization is right on. Not only would legalization bring thousands of jobs from the black market to a legitimate job market, but unions can help these be good jobs, with better pay and benefits for employees involved from production to harvest, from distribution to sales. UFCW’s support for Prop 19 is critical to, as organizer Dan Rush says, bring out people whose instinct is to stay in the shadows about legalization.

But the Rolling Stone article also shows some other big news relating to unions and Prop 19: the influential (and well-endowed) California Correctional Peace Officers Association, commonly known as the prison guards union, is staying out of Prop 19.

For now, though, the prison guards are staying out of the fight. The union appears to have less of a stake in the measure than it did in the 2008 campaign, which directly threatened to reduce jobs in the prison industry. “At this time, we haven’t taken a position on Proposition 19, and it’s not certain that we will,” says JeVaughn Baker, a spokesman for the union.

This is huge: in 2008, the prison guards reportedly spent $2 million to help defeat Prop 5, an initiative that would have reformed prison sentencing for nonviolent offenders. The prison guards’ union contribution was 75% of the No on Prop 5 campaign’s total advertising budget, which featured fellow Prop 5 opponent – and current Prop 19 opponent – Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein. With the CCPOA on the sidelines, Prop 19 is avoiding a major opponent – and potential funder – for the dirt-poor No on 19 campaign.

All in all, working people are lining up behind Prop 19 to legalize marijuana. This is a very good development.