The unexpected death of Rich Trumka last week has catapulted his right hand at the AFL-CIO into the position of acting president of the labor colossus.
As the umbrella group representing 56 unions and roughly 12 million active and retired workers prepare to mourn Trumka, sources in organized labor privately told us they expect that Liz Shuler will be made his permanent successor sometime after Labor Day.
Shuler, 51, who holds the Number Two office of secretary-treasurer in the AFL-CIO, has a long history in left-of-center politics and is expected to work as closely with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, symbolized by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., as with the Biden White House.
After graduating from the University of Oregon, Shuler began her career in organized labor as a union organizer for the decidedly leftist International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). She later went on to serve as its lobbyist at the Oregon legislature.
Shuler earned her reputation as a political operative in 1998, when she oversaw the AFL-CIO's winning effort against California’s Proposition 226. Championed by national conservative leaders such as Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, “226” would have denied the check-off of union dues to public employees. The proposition would also have required all union members in the state to annually give their approval to the use of their dues, which could be used for political purposes.
The measure was defeated on the statewide ballot by 53 to 47 percent.
"Liz Schuler led the fight in California to force workers to pay for the support unions give the the left wing political agenda, whether workers like it or not," Norquist told Newsmax, "She won that fight in 1998 in California. Now she wants to continue and expand forced unionism and forced union dues nationally."
Shuler is also a longtime activist in the Women’s Campaign Fund, which helps recruit and elect pro-choice women to office.
After nearly a decade in the IBEW’s Washington DC office, including a stint as executive assistant to union President Edwin Hill, Shuler was tapped by Trumka as his secretary-treasurer running mate when he made his winning race for the AFL-CIO presidency in 2009.
Should Shuler receive the permanent presidency, she will become the AFL-CIO’s fifth president since George Meany oversaw the merger of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in December 1955.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.