AFL-CIO Head Calls for "Popular Control Over Private Corporations"

More fundamental transformation.

That's the message AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka took to a group of supporters gathered in New York City last week for a panel discussion -- "Which Way for the Working Class? Elections 2010 and Beyond." According to the AFL-CIO blog, Trumka joined other key allies on the left, including Working America Executive Director Karen Nussbaum, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, Eric Alterman, journalist and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and moderator Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation.

To a reported audience of about 400, Trumka warned supporters about Fox News and the tea party "extremists" delivering what he called a "a cynical, deeply dishonest and incoherent message—that big government is somehow to blame for the current crisis that the budget deficit will eat our children, and that illegal immigrants took all the good jobs."

In response, Trumka stressed that the left needs to offer the public an alternative to "the failed agenda of greed and the voices of hate and division and violence."

Building for the future, he said, "we need to fundamentally restructure our economy and re-establish popular control over the private corporations which have distorted our economy and hijacked our government. That’s a long-term job, but one we should start now."

Trumka and his allies are gearing up for the election season and rallying their supporters.  Trumka's AFL-CIO is just one of many liberal groups who are sponsoring the Oct. 2 "One Nation Working Together" march in Washington, D.C.