A bit of a lateish post here today (I know, everyone is just crushed). I wandered down to Wall Street to see the new president of the AFL-CIO give one of his first–perhaps his first–public speech since taking over the federation last week. Here is Trumka on the left–to his left is Liz Schuler, the federation’s new secretary-treasurer and to her left is Jack Ahern, the president of the New York City Central Labor Council.

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My main reason for mentioning this is for two things Trumka said in his speech in front of a labor crowd of about 200 people. First, he highlighted labor’s support for the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which, as I noted recently, is under attack from the bankers and financial powers-that-be that simply don’t want anyone stopping their incompetent and greedy behavior.

Second, he announced that at the G-20 summit that will take place in Pittsburgh on the 24th-25th (a summit that will be mostly about rhetoric, and not very much about accomplishment), the global labor movement’s main organizations will call for a tax on financial transactions. I’ve written about the benefits of a so-called Tobin Tax in the past (including a year ago)–not the least of which is the possibility that such a tax, by very modestly slowing down the rapid pace of massive trading, would encourage long-term investment and discourage short-term greed, the latter phenomena being a root cause of last year’s financial chaos.