Reprinted from The Hill by Alex Gangitano on March 11, 2021.
AFL-CIO on Thursday called for the Senate to abolish the filibuster if it prevents Democrats from moving forward with a pro-worker agenda.
“For decades, working people have paid the price for corporate-first government,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. “Time and again, the Senate’s arcane rules have been used to keep working people from claiming the basic rights and dignities that we’ve earned.
The labor group’s executive council wrote in a statement that the House-passed PRO Act gives Senate Republicans the chance to show if they are ready to work for workers. But, they noted, the filibuster could get in the way of enacting a “Workers First Agenda.”
“But there simply is no time for delay or for paralysis. And should a minority in the Senate seek to hide behind the filibuster—to obstruct, to interpose that artifact of Jim Crow between the American people and the change we voted for—the path forward for the leadership of the Senate must be clear,” the council wrote. …
