AFL-CIO portrait of Richard Trumka Photo: Richard Trumka

Sarah Palin responded to criticism by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, calling him a “career union boss” and saying his remarks are “the usual Beltway nonsense.”

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, in a speech from Anchorage, Alaska Thursday night, criticized the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, calling Palin a hypocrite who quit the governorship to avoid being held accountable for her record and accused Palin of language he says could lead to violence by her supporters.

“There was a bit of the politics of personal destruction thrown around, and he mixed it in with the same old big government agenda that has been rejected in union halls, town halls, and voting booths all over our country,” Palin wrote in a Thursday Facebook note titled, “Union Brothers and Sisters, Join our Commonsense Cause.” “I’m not sure why he’s attacking my record when I’m not the one responsible for the policies resulting in continued mass unemployment and a weak economy (that would be the man in the large white house on Pennsylvania Avenue),” Palin said.

Trumka’s remarks for the Alaska AFL-CIO biennial meeting were that Palin will go down in history like [Joe] McCarthy.

“… down in Tyler, Texas, she’s talking about — and I quote — ‘union thugs.’ What? Her husband’s a union man. Is she calling him a thug? Sarah Palin ought to know what union men and women are,” Trumka said, referring to a June speech by Palin in Tyler’s Oil Palace.

Palin responded, “Trumka purposely misquoted something I said in a speech I gave in Texas a few months ago. Let me clarify things for him: I never called union members ‘thugs.’ You lie. I called some union leaders ‘thugs.’ And I refuse to apologize for that because they have acted like thugs — at least in this day and age.”

In her post, Palin defended her labor record, pointing out her former membership in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and recalling the day two years ago when she met “with union members at the Alaska AFL-CIO Convention in Anchorage to sign important job-creation legislation related to the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act.”

“Trumka’s attempts to put himself on the side of the working man and woman would be more convincing if he weren’t a career union boss who’s spent most of his life in DC,” she wrote. “No surprise then that his priorities aren’t the priorities of the average working man or woman, but of the Beltway power player. My fellow union brothers and sisters have had their union dues squandered for far too long by a few of the union bosses who work for partisan politics and not the good blue collar Americans who have to fund their cushy salaries.”

Palin concluded her post urging hardworking, patriotic brothers and sisters in the labor movement to not put up with the scare tactics and the big government agenda of the union bosses. “There is a different home for you: the commonsense conservative movement,” Palin said. “It cares about the same things you and I care about: a government that doesn’t spend beyond its means, an economy focused on creating good jobs with good wages, and a leadership that is proud of America’s achievements and doesn’t go around apologizing to everyone for who we are.”

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