Trumka, Richard (1949– )

US union leader. In 1974 he went to Washington to serve on the legal staff of the United Mine Workers (UMW) where he soon became dissatisfied with the way the union was being operated. Running as an insurgent, he was elected president in 1982, winning by a clear 2–1 majority, and served three terms as president. In 1995 he was elected to the role of secretary-treasurer of the AFL–CIO, the federation of North American trade unions.

Trumka was born in Nemacolin, Pennsylvania. The son of an Italian-American mother and a Polish-American coalminer, Richard himself spent some seven years of his youth working in the coal mines. He took an active role in his local branch of the UMW but he left the mines to take a degree in accounting from Pennsylvania State University and then a law degree from Villanova.