Thomas Reilly Donahue Jr. (September 4, 1928 – February 18, 2023) was an American trade union leader who served as Secretary-Treasurer of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations from 1979 to 1995, interim president for several months in 1995, and was President Emeritus from 1996 until his death. He was considered as one of the most influential leaders of the post-World War II American trade union movement.
Early life Born and raised in the Bronx in New York City, Donahue was the son of Thomas R. and Mary E. Donahue and was the grandson of Irish immigrants. According to The New York Times, he "came of age at a time when unions were helping deliver New Yorkers from the Depression and were perceived as a beacon for many young people."Steven Greenhouse, "Working Men: Old Friends, New Rivals; Labor Battle Born in Bronx," New York Times, October 24, 1995
Donahue was first drawn to the trade union movement after he saw how much his father's wages increased when he went from working as a nonunion janitor to a unionized construction worker. The younger Donahue worked as a Best & Company department store elevator operator, a school bus driver, a bakery worker, and a doorman at Radio City Music Hall.
Donahue graduated from Manhattan College in 1949 with a degree in labor relations. Donahue's union career actually started a year before when he became a part-time organizer for the Retail Clerks International Association. From 1949 to 1957, he held several positions within Local 32B, the flagship local of the Building Service Employees International Union (BSEIU), including business agent, education director, contractor director, and publications editor.William Serrin, "AFL-CIO's 2d in Command," New York Times, November 22, 1979. Meanwhile, he attended night classes at Fordham Law School and received his law degree in 1956.
In 1957, he became the European labor program coordinator for the Free Europe Committee in Paris. He returned to the United States in 1960 to take a position as executive assistant to David Sullivan, the newly elected president of the BSEIU."Thomas Reilly Donahue (1928-)," www.aflcio.org/aboutus/history/history/donahue.cfm
Many years later, Donahue would tell interviewers that Sullivan "remains my hero in the trade union movement." "He was an Irish immigrant who came here in 1926 and was an elevator operator at the start, and became active in the union. He then led the reform faction in the union to oust a racket-dominated leadership."James F. Shea and Don R. Kienzle, "Interview with Thomas R. Donahue," The Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. (unpaginated)
Donahue was nominated by President Lyndon Johnson as Assistant Secretary for Labor-Management Relations in the Labor Department in 1967. He served in that position until the end of the Johnson administration in 1969, then returned to the Service Employees International Union, as it was by then called, where he served as executive secretary and later first vice-president.
Donahue became executive assistant to the president of the AFL-CIO, George Meany, in 1973.
Career as a Labor Leader Already an influential figure as Meany's executive assistant, when Meany retired in 1979, Donahue was elected Secretary-Treasurer, the second-highest ranking position in the AFL-CIO. The week of his election, The New York Times reported that "His position is a strong one. The federation is generally regarded as the voice of labor. And Mr. Donahue is an intelligent man with clear opinions." He was re-elected at seven AFL-CIO biennial conventions.
For the next 16 years, Donahue was involved in virtually every part of the trade union movement. His strongest influence was considered to be in three areas: the campaign against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), rejuvenation of the union movement, and advancing Catholic social teaching on workers' rights.
NAFTA On December 17, 1992, President George H. W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, and Mexican President Carlos Salinas met in Texas to sign the NAFTA, which would create a trilateral trade bloc and financial zone in North America. To take effect, NAFTA had to be ratified by the legislatures in the three countries.
Long before the signing ceremony, Donahue was already leading a massive campaign by the AFL-CIO against US ratification. As early as February 1991, it was reported by The New York Times that "the AFL-CIO has made blocking a Mexican agreement its No. 1 legislative priority".Clyde H. Farnsworth, "Revival of Trade Talks Stirs Political Fight in U.S.," New York Times, February 25, 1991.
The main reasons for AFL-CIO opposition were that "it would pave the way for tens of thousands of… jobs to be exported to Mexico, and it would bump hundreds of thousands down the economic ladder to underemployment and low wages", Donahue wrote.
Donahue condemned its "powerfully regressive effect" and noted, "The jobs that are most easily exported to Mexico are not those of probate attorneys, stockbrokers, economists, and editorial writers; they are the jobs of assembly-line workers and others who can least afford a massive disruption of their work lives."Thomas R. Donahue, "The Case against the North American Free Trade Agreement," Columbia Journal of World Business, Summer 1991, pp. 93, 94.
The AFL-CIO was not the only opponent of NAFTA. Others included Ross Perot, the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, the National Farmers Union, the National Council of Senior Citizens, Ralph Nader's Public Citizen, Jerry Brown's We the People, and Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition.Peter T. Kilborn, "The Free Trade Accord: Little Voices Roar in the Chorus of Trade-Pact Foes," New York Times, November 13, 1993.
However, an editorial in The Washington Post said that "It's not Ross Perot but the labor movement that's the central force in the campaign to kill NAFTA – the North American Free Trade Agreement. Mr. Perot has little following in Congress, but the unions have been working ferociously to line up their friends and campaign beneficiaries against the agreement.""Labor and NAFTA," Washington Post, September 23, 1993.
Donahue succeeded in mobilizing the entire trade union movement against NAFTA. The New York Times reported that "within the labor movement, the campaign against the accord extends far beyond the industrial unions…" 'Our self-interest is very similar,' said Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers. When factories close, he said, "community tax revenues plunge, so teachers lose wages and jobs."
Beyond the AFL-CIO, Donahue oversaw what The New York Times described as the federation's "lobbying, petition drives and $3.2 million in billboard and radio advertising." He testified before Congress against NAFTA at least nine times.According to the ProQuest Congressional database, Donahue appeared before Congress 62 times while he was an AFL-CIO executive officer. He testified on topics ranging from job safety and health to pay equity for women workers to US policy towards South Africa. He appeared on such TV shows as NBC's Meet the Press"I cannot exaggerate the depth of feeling on the issue," AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Thomas R. Donahue said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "It burned very deeply." (Jim Abrams, Associated Press, "Labor Aide Says NAFTA May Cost Clinton Support." Published in Buffalo News, November 22, 1993.) and CNN's Late Edition.After then-President Bill Clinton attacked the union movement for what he said were "real roughshod, muscle-bound tactics," Donahue on Late Edition described Clinton's remarks as "a cheap shot" and observed, "I think the administration is behind right now in the vote and they're reaching desperately to get ahead." (Gwen Ifill, "Clinton Is Critical of Labor on Trade," New York Times, November 8, 1993.) He frequently wrote articles, letters to editors, and op-ed pieces for leading newspapers.Three examples are "Free Trade with Mexico: Conspiracy for the Rich" (Washington Post, March 14, 1991), "Put the brakes on free trade with Mexico" (USA Today, April 10, 1991), and "The No-Brain, Low-Wage Road" (Baltimore Sun, September 12, 1993).
Donahue built a working coalition between the AFL-CIO and leading environmentalists, notably the Sierra Club and the National Toxics Campaign.A typical instance was at the opening hearing on NAFTA by the Senate Finance Committee, where Donahue appeared along with Craig Merrilees of the National Toxics Campaign. "The AFL-CIO believes that the huge differences that presently exist between the United States and Mexico make the establishment of a free-trade area both damaging to U.S. workers and of little benefit to Mexican workers," Donahue testified. "What we need is a trade agreement that will promote social and environmental justice on both sides of the border," said Merrilees. (Stuart Auerbach, "Factions Dig In Positions Against Mexico Trade Pact," Washington Post, February 8, 1991.)
Two months later, NAFTA was passed the House by a vote of 234-200 and the Senate by a vote of 61–38. It was signed by President Clinton on December 8, 1993, and went into effect on January 1, 1994.
Nine years later, an Economic Policy Institute briefing paper on NAFTA's effects pointed out that "the rise in the U.S. trade deficit with Canada and Mexico through 2002 has caused the displacement of production that supported 879,280 U.S. jobs. Most of those lost jobs were high-wage positions in manufacturing industries."
It continued, "The loss of these jobs is just the most visible tip of NAFTA's impact on the U.S. economy. In fact, NAFTA has also contributed to rising income inequality, suppressed real wages for production workers, weakened workers' collective bargaining powers and ability to organize unions, and reduced fringe benefits."Robert E. Scott, "The high price of 'free' trade: NAFTA's failure has cost the United States jobs across the nation." Economic Policy Institute, November 17, 2003.
AFL-CIO Change Agent When Donahue was elected Secretary-Treasurer, he told a reporter, "My hopes for the labor movement are growth, dynamism, militancy."
The chief vehicle for his efforts was the AFL-CIO Committee on the Evolution of Work, which he chaired.It was created by the AFL-CIO Executive Council with a mandate to "review and evaluate changes that are taking place in the United States in the labor force, occupations, industries, and technology and the implications of those changes for workers." (AFL-CIO Committee on the Evolution of Work, "A Labor Perspective on the New American Workplace – A Call for Partnership." February, 1994, p. i.) Under Donahue, "the group has become the federation's principal think tank for modernizing its structure," according to The New York Times.A.H. Raskin, "Big Labor Tries to End Its Nightmare," New York Times, May 4, 1986.
It eventually published three reports: "The Future of Work" (August, 1983), "The Changing Situation of Workers and Their Unions" (February, 1985), and "The New American Workplace: A Labor Perspective" (February, 1994).AFL-CIO Committee on the Evolution of Work, "The New American Workplace: A Labor Perspective," February, 1994, p. 8.
The most important report of Donahue's committee was "The Changing Situation of Workers and Their Unions." The New York Times summarized its message as: "American unions have fallen 'behind the pace of change,' and should adopt innovative methods for representing their members and for attracting new ones." Its importance was due to its long-term impact on American trade unions