immigration from happening in this country. and to help the program find an american worker once you offer the job at a competitive wage. we're declining demographic, we are going to need new workers coming to this country as the population declines. so stopping that third wave means securing your border. i think we've accomplished that in this bill and i >> we talked about immigration ith n -- afl-cio richard trumka before a temporary visa bill was reached on friday. our guest this week on newsmakers with richard trumka, president of the afl-cio. here to question mr. trumka are

our two analysts. >> good to see you. thanks for doing this. you're in the middle of the immigration talks going on right now. it's one of the biggest issues happening in washington and you're playing a central role. as we see the negotiations going on, it's becoming clear there will be a big influx probably if they go ahead with this foreign workers, both low scaled and high scaled and that's a pretty controversial issue for the labor movement and has been for many years. how do you get those members in those unions that aren't so supportive of that to move along and support you if you decide to agree to the deal the democrats and republicans are working on? >> first of all, comprehensive immigration reform is necessary to help you create an economy that really does work for everybody. right now you have a permanent underclass where people are denied their rights and deny healthy, safe place to work and can't complain about it because they have no rights.

our first priority is to make sure we get citizenship for every worker out there. that will give them all the rights they have and help every worker out there because they won't be able to use them to drive wages down and we'll actually be able to drive wages up, help with wages. so the negotiations continue. there will be people come in and it's going to be data driven. and if there are shortages, two things ought to happen. one, we ought to bring people in at a fair wage, a wage that doesn't relegate them to poverty and doesn't drag down american wages and the second thing is it triggers training so we can train american workers that are unemployed to take those jobs ultimately. >> at the moment it may not look like you get what you want on the wage issue. and if you don't, what are you going to do? is that enough to blow up the whole deal as far as you're concerned? >> i've been through a lot of negotiations and i always look at the positive side of things. i think it's going to get

there. i think we're going to get an immigration bill because i think the republicans can't not get an immigration bill. and we've been working on low-skilled workers, trying to get them a fair wage, and they came back last week and said, look, we want it to be the minimum wage. if not the minimum wage we know, we want it to be wage level one which is 25% of the market rate. and we said look, that does two things. one, it relegates those newcomers to a life of poverty. nobody wants that. none of the groups out there, the immigration groups, they're all with us on this issue. the second thing it could do is drag down wages for american workers and benefits. nobody wants that on the side. so we made an offer. we said look, the language out visas, you hv 1 won't introduce wages that will hurt american wages and benefits. what's wrong with that? and originally they rejected

it. here's the point. i don't see how anybody can stand up on the floor of congress and say i demand them to have wages that relegate the newcomers to poverty and two, drag down american wages. if that's their position, let them do it before. i don't think that will happen and i think we'll get past this issue and get a pathway to citizenship and we'll have a system that finally works and i think we'll have citizens that don't have to hide in the shadows and be denied rights. they'll have full citizenship rights. >> what specifically do you and your members want on wages? and also, how significant a sticking point is construction work at this point? >> well, what do we want for wages? >> yeah. >> we want people that come here paid a fair wage, not 25% of the market value because that incenses employers not to hire americans and hire those low-wage workers and puts the

newcomers in poverty and drive down wages. what we said is let the department decide, whether it's prevailing wage, above, you pay that to the newcomers so they get paid the same as an american gets paid. >> do you want higher than -- isn't what your folks are proposing higher than what american workers are getting -- higher than the prevailing wage? >> no, the prevailing wage is the prevailing wage. what we proposed is the department of labor be able to decide. you don't issue visas at a rate that will hurt american wages or benefits. so everybody wins. the immigration community agrees with us. they don't want low-wage workers to be relegated to poverty. they don't want american wages to be driven down. because don't forget, when you drive down american wages, the 11.5 million workers already here will have their wages driven down as well. so everybody loses when that happens. >> you're making your case here certainly but it seems as though from what we're hearing about the bipartisan negotiations going on in the

senate that democrats and republicans don't see eye to eye with you on some of these issues. ou mentioned the h 1-v wages and they didn't talk about increasing the wage floor, microsoft and bringing in other workers. >> that's something i don't agree with. i don't think the problem has been the democrats, the gang of eight, it's been the republican side. who is pushing their buttons? have no idea. all i know is we insisted two things happen, newcomers don't get poverty level wages and get the same wages anyone else does in that job and two, bringing them in doesn't drive down american wages and benefits and i think we'll ultimately get them. i think it's defensible not to do that. >> what about construction workers, do you have a particular concern there and isn't that something that is contemplating the bipartisan

talks or whatever discussions are going on? >> we're trying to make sure that construction workers get a fair deal, that the prevailing wages are there, that they can't bring people in to undermine prevailing wages. it's the same thing we're trying to do with other workers as well, whether it's waiters, waitresses or anybody else. >> don't you want a special car route for construction work? >> yeah, we'd like to see that. >> how would that be different? >> because it's so specialized. >> how would it be different than the other workers you're mentioning, what specifically would you like to see for construction workers? >> it's the wage level. we want to see some of them, the high skilled jobs exempt. i think everybody agrees to that. when you have a apprenticeship program where you have to work or go,000 an apprenticeship program for a year or two, those are skilled workers. you can't just bring people in off the streets and pay them as was proposed 25% of market value. that would destroy what happens in this country. it would destroy the training programs we have.

you wouldn't be able to have the high-skilled construction workers we have when electricians and carpenters and operating engineers and those things. so we're trying to make sure that the industry is balanced p-there's been no shortage. look, it's almost laughable for you to ask me a question about construction when you have 25% or 30% unemployment rate. you have 25% to 30% of the construction workers out there unemployed and you're trying to tell me, look we have a massage shortage, we have to bring people in. that's laughable. so what we said is until the unemployment rate gets down to a certain level, you don't bring them in. you hire the people that are here that are already trained that have experience and are ready to go. >> what level is that, the unemployment rate, or is that something still being negotiated? >> it's still being negotiated. >> is this the biggest sticking point from your view, you can close the negotiations, obviously the senate wants to

come out with their legislation in the next few weeks after the cess, do you think this is among the top challenges or are there others? >> the top challenges, what rate are you paying the newcomers, are you paying them poverty level wages, 25% of the market value? i don't think spofment we're not going to agree for that. and are you going to drag down american wages by bringing people in? we're not going to agree to that because that hurts everybody. it hurts the newcomer and the 11.5 million people we're trying to get citizenship for and it hurts every american out there. >> is there a line you won't in terms if an agreement comes out and say enough, the afl-cio won't support this anymore?

>> hey, we don't look at that. citizenship for a lot of people brings them out of the shadows and unites families and brings them back together, not brings them apart. i've been in so many negotiations, there's highs, there's lows but i learned this, you keep your eye on where you want to get to and that's the bill. >> is this bill higher or not in these negotiations? >> probably a transition. >> can you talk about what's changed since 2007 internally in the afl-cio and the labor movement? that was a time that the unions did not support a guest worker program and a lot of republicans -- >> let's be honest what happened in 2007. we've been supporting immigration reform since 2000. in 2007, they had a bad bill, a bill that hurt american workers and wage rates, relegated a number of workers and newcomers to poverty and did a bunch of other things and didn't give them a fair pathway to citizenship. it was a bad bill. there were a number of groups, immigration rights groups,

religious groups, all the other groups that opposed that bill because it was a bad bill. >> most of them supported that bill and were -- >> i'm sorry? >> you guys were not on the same page as a lot of the advocates at the time. >> disagreed with some. but there were a lot that agreed with us because it was a bad bill. it was the bush's attempt, the bush administration's attempt to try to get something done. but not really solve the problem. it wasn't a real pathway to citizenship. >> the change is not something internal at the afl-cio and the labor movement now that greater latino membership or the fact that you guys have been in a period of change here? >> we are in a period of hange. the labor movement is in a period of change. we're opening our arms to people who are out there. in fact, that's going to go on to the convention and hope we get a chance to talk to that because we're no longer going

to allow employers to decide who our members are. we're going to decide who our members are and open up our arms to the people that want to be part of our movement. >> a question before we leave immigration. you have been in any talks and you have been hearing talks in the house? the senate has a bipartisan group and seems like the house is still where you would want to finally get a bill through is still in the initial phases this. what do you think is going on there? >> i wish i knew what was going on there. i don't know specifically what's going on in the house. our goal is to get a bill, a bipartisan bill in the senate and then work with everybody we can in the house to support that bill, to make sure that we get a pathway to citizenship for all the people that are here, and we get a system that actually works and doesn't just solve the problem today unless the new problems start growing tomorrow but actually solves the problem for immigration. >> you just mentioned changes in the way you're going to approach bringing workers into the movement and to unions.

in the last few weeks you talked about the labor movement being in crisis and the need for systemic change and i guess that's what you're talking about here. can you put some meat on the bone there is and tell us what you have in mind? what are the systemic changes? how are you going to pick your own members when it is up to members themselves and employers? >> no, it isn't. right now we have in working america, we have 3.5 million members. they're not employees -- they're employees of somebody but it's not a membership through their employment. we're an organized people. they came to us. we go to their door. the working american goes knocking on the door and says hey, would you like a voice in political action and legislation and different things. they say yeah, what do you stand for and we tell them. two out of every three doors we knock on join us. and when we give them the facts, they organize and vote very, very strongly. they voted 1%age point better

for president obama than our active members did because we gave them the information. we'll particular to reach out. here's what we're doing. in the past our conventions, we would have a committee, committees would meet two or three days before the convention to come up with some great reports, would go to a convention, have a bunch of speeches, do a resolution, a bunch of speeches, a resolution, nothing happened afterwards. we went back and things sort of stayed the same. we're starting our committees right now and we're opening them up. we're going to bring in rank and file workers. we're going to bring in academics. we're going to bring in community allies from the civil rised groups, from the religious communities, all differential lies are going to be part of those committees. and we're going to spend six months listening, learning, and thinking about how we have to change to meet the needs of young workers, old workers, our community allies and partners in the system and then come

together at the convention and have the convention, rather fying, have an educational system where everyone gets with the plan and we'll have breakout sessions and teaching people with the plan and strategy and the convention won't be the end of anything but the beginning. >> for what? i thought unions were for collective bargaining and improving the workplace and organizing workers in a specific place. we're talking about a political organization, right, that has members who might pay you $10 a year to be on a membership list. >> you don't think that's part of it. >> i'm asking, is that a change in direction? >> what happened in wisconsin? was there something political happening there? did it hurt workers? yeah, i think so, too, peter. what this is is us bringing together all of us and instead of saying to our community partners and the civil rights movement or the latino movement that's your issue and this is my issue. they're going to be our issues that we're going to work on them together.

that's going to make working people stronger. that's going to give working people stronger voice in our community and our states and in our federal government. >> i'm going to get at what's different? the unions have done a lot about giving -- >> we're opening up the process in what we're going to be, what our priorities are going to be and what our strategy is going to be. we're going to jointly plan that with our community allies and community partners and rank and file people and academics and we never did that before. >> what happened, how will the old guards speak and deal with this change? >> i don't know why it happened sooner. in fact it used to happen and we got away from it and we got away from it and it's back to the future, if you will. have the to say, we same philosophy and agenda and both want to share prosperity

and here's an avenue to get there, why shouldn't we come together? so we're going to change our struck sure so young people sit on our -- structure so young people sit on our councils and helping us plan, not us coming up with a plan and us saying, you come and join us. this is us jointly figuring out what the plan will be and i'm pretty excited about it . >> one of the issues you were saying, and one of them was there is a minimum wage and the president mentioned in his state of the union address, not much has happened with it since he mentioned it in congress and is that something that concerns you and concerns your members? secondly, the wage that we're talking about, the $9 is less than some states are even talking about in terms of their minimum wage legislation, would you like to see it higher, the discussion? >> i applaud the president for opening up conversation and getting a debate on it and was important and necessary for the

president to use his bully pulpit to do that. >> it wasn't part of the campaign. >> right. >> it was a change to hear it at the state of the union because we hadn't heard it during the campaign? >> if the minimum wage has really lagged behind, if you went back to 1968 and you brought the minimum wage forward, it would be $10.68 right now and if you kept it where the average wage was, comparison to the average wage, it would be around $12 right now. it's important for us to increase the minimum wage. the house and senate democrats have come together with a bill is, s $10.60, i believe it and will be indexed according to the average wage. the president said $9 and was disappointing because we think it should be higher to keep up with inflation and get people back to where it was. now, remember, this is the

important part, our economy is driven by consumer spending, when people have money in their pockets, they can spend when they spend, they create demand and the demand creates jobs. so actuality, the real job creators in the country are really consumers. because they're the ones that drive this. just giving them more money brings the minimum wage up and will help the entire economy because people will have the ability to buy more and create demanding jobs. >> are you disappointed it hasn't advanced more in congress? >> of course. we would like to have seen it done last week let alone the next week. but we are dealing with a number of issues and we'll continue to push for an increase in the minimum wage because that's good policy. it's good for those who work for minimum wage but good for the country because it will create jobs. >> you mentioned you were disappointed in the president's $9 figure.

did you express that to him and what has the white house told you about why they aimed so low? >> i didn't ask them why they aimed so low. we did tell them we thought it should be higher. we were very emphatic and very clear about that. i continue to be emphatic and very clear. >> staying on the theme of the white house and cabinet, we're seeing tom perez nominated as labor secretary and you express your support for him. what will you be hearing during the confirmation hearings and what could be problematic for him? >> what could be problematic is he's done an excellent job the whole time in his political career or working career and always stood up for the little guy, whether it's been in the marketplace, whether it's the workplace or voting booth, he stood up for the average guy. and the only thing that they have to fear about is he will enforce the laws and he'll be an advocate for working people. i always thought that that's what the secretary of labor was intended to be, an advocate for working people.

so tom perez, i applaud the president for appointing him. he's a terrific human being. he's a very good advocate for working people and we look forward to him being confirmed and will be good for the country. >> is he on the list of people you had expected or hoped for to be named to that position? >> absolutely. >> he was. and have you met with him since his appointment, have you talked tom? >> i have. >> does he agree but on the minimum wage issue? >> i think he needs to get his feet on the ground and get confirmed before we start getting into those things. >> you'll give him a day or two? >> absolutely. i know tom and he will move quickly to get a hold on that department or get his arms around that department so he can be a good advocate and can help workers. >> i'd like to positivity you -- pivot you to another subject, tax overhaul. there is talk in the therapy house ways and means committee apparently writing a bill to

overhaul the tax code. where do you stand on this at this point and how concerned are you about losing tax breaks that middle americans use? look, the tax system is broken and encourages companies to take jobs and money offshore and keep them there. they're $1.7 trillion parked offshore that they can keep there forever and will keep there forever if the tax system isn't overcome. you have people that work on wall street that pay a lower ax rate than the secretaries that work for them? >> you could have a millionaires sur tax and financial transactions tax. if you look at today's paper, "the washington post," there is a big article about the fact

corporations, the top dow 30, are paying less now in taxes than they paid since the second world war. united technology pays 5.8% in taxes. that's what they pay. and there's a bunch of them like that. g.e. gets a rebate, all kinds of different -- things like that. so if there's going to be an overhaul, you shouldn't take things away from working people to give additional tax breaks to the rich or corporate america. >> do you worry that would happen? >> i worry that could happen. because of the total influence of corporate america and their money in the political process. the streak did us no favors when they said that you can spend unlimited amounts of money on politics so they can't be regulated. that just makes no sense. i don't believe that thomas jefferson and madison werecying

-- sitting around one day and madison said, you know, tom, i have $1,000 and you have $100, so i get 10 times more free speech than you. i just can't imagine that happening, if that's what the supreme court said. citizens united and the whole influence of money and the political system needs to be revisited and tackled and taken care of because it is corrosive to democracy. >> just a for a minutes left. >> how many? >> about three. >> we sat here in the studio last year in the lead up to the 2012 election and you talked about pushing the unions to be more independent, politically independent especially in the democratic party but as it turns out, i think you guys were pretty much in line with the president and democratic party and helping out the party as you have in the past. were there ways you did show your independence before and are now? >> look, when i talked about

independence, i was talking about building our structure or building someone else's structure. when we build somebody else's structure, no matter who it is, democrats, republicans, independents, after the election they don't. we talked about bigging structure and we talked to millions of workers and we built our structure and had the ability to talk to nonunion workers we never could do before. we're actually building a permanent structure now. our central councils will have to have campaign people in place year-round so we continue after election day so that the tearing our process down and building it up again, we continue to build. >> you are tearing it down -- >> in six states it's completed and the rest will be done by may of next year. >> how many people is that, what does it look like on the ground infrastructure?

>> you have a campaign director and data people, you have communications people that are going to be there full time and stay in play. >> which states? >> pennsylvania -- i forget. pennsylvania, ohio, nevada, i forget the other ones. we've been moving them around everywhere but we have six right now. >> a minute left. did you have anything else to say? >> what's the one piece of legislation you'd like to see pass because you know it's a preelection year so it would have to happen this year? >> i'd like to see sanity happen in congress where they actually start putting the country first and everybody working, the republicans start working a little bit and easing up on all of the filibustering stuff they do to stop anything from happening. there can only be one piece of legislation, it probably would be comprehensive immigration reform. >> thank you so much, richard trumka, president of the afl-cio. thanks for being our guest on news matters.

>> thanks for having me. [ >> staying with us to review our conversation. jodi, we'll start with you. what did you hear about the issue of immigration reform from mr. trum came -- mr. trumka that stuck with you and would like to see that as a piece of legislation, if he could have one pass, that would be it. >> he talked about the morns of minimum wage and the fact he said "comprehensive immigration reform" shows he thinks that's something that has a possibility of happening and minimum wage really is being very slow to move through congress even though he made a point of saying he was very appreciative of the president that he put that in the state of the union address so clearly they had been lobbying for that. >> another aspect of immigration reform in terms of wages and what the unions will bring to the table and ask for. >> right. and the challenge there. the challenge around the

prevailing wage and bringing people in and what wage he should bring them in at and he said construction workers and wanted to carve it out for construction workers though he turned around and said construction is -- right now construction still has high unemployment, it's sort of laughable we have to worry about this but clearly they're worried about it. >> peter? >> he's worried about it and i don't think he wanted to get into this but they have construction unions in the afl-cio that are rereluctant to support any form of immigration, a guest worker program, so he on the one hand is this champion pushing for a change in the immigration system, but on the other hand, he's having to deal with a lot of internal strife in his federation, and in the past, they've been blamed for blowing up an immigration deal, so he clearly -- i took away he's very sensitive to that and does not want to be blamed again but at the same time he did leave the door open to eventually opposing this deal if they don't get what they want on wages? >> what sense do you have, the

power of the union's seat at the table, how much power will they bring to this debate? >> i think they bring a great deal of power on the left because of their organizing ability, if there's a bill that moves through congress, the white house, and supporters are going to rely on the labor movement to help rally support among kind of moderate mainstream voters and they're a very important partner with the kind of immigration advocacy organizations that that will be kind of an important ground game for building support. >> i think that's right. when we get to the house, right now everyone is talking about the senate but he acknowledged it's nowhere in the house but when you do get to the house because a lot of republicans are going to oppose it, they'll need the democratic leadership. >> we heard about restructuring. >> yeah, that was interesting. he talked about a restructuring of the labor movement that really takes the emphasis off the role of the -- historic role of theni