Thomas R. Donahue, the second in command to Lane Kirkland, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. for 16 years, and briefly his interim successor in an period of relentless union membership declines and diminished affect by organized labor in American life, died on Saturday in Washington, D.C. He was 94.
He was affected by a number of well being points and was hospitalized on Thursday after a fall, his spouse, Rachelle Horowitz, mentioned.
A Bronx janitor’s son, Mr. Donahue labored as a baker, a bus driver and a doorman at Radio Metropolis Music Corridor and later turned a lawyer, an assistant secretary of labor in Washington and one of the vital influential leaders of the postwar commerce union motion.
In 1973, he succeeded Mr. Kirkland as government assistant to George Meany, the outdated warrior who had merged the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1955 and was the newly fashioned group’s president.
In 1979, Mr. Donahue once more succeeded Mr. Kirkland, this time as secretary-treasurer of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. The place was one step beneath the presidency, labor’s strongest put up. And when Mr. Kirkland was deposed as president by a revolt of constituent union leaders in August 1995, Mr. Donahue was named interim president, the inheritor obvious pending election on the federation’s conference in October.
However the prize that Mr. Donahue had coveted for many years — management of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., the policymaking umbrella group for 78 unions and 13.3 million employees — remained his for less than three months.
Years of rank-and-file frustration with labor’s decline boiled over on the conference, and the tide that had swept Mr. Kirkland away caught Mr. Donahue in its tow. Regardless of his pledge of institutional reforms, he was soundly defeated by an rebel slate led by John J. Sweeney, president of the Service Workers Worldwide Union.
“John Sweeney’s victory over Thomas Donahue within the first contested election for the management of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. yesterday mirrored the labor federation’s recognition that it should change or proceed to shrivel,” a New York Instances day-after editorial mentioned. “Mr. Donahue was shackled by the outdated craft-union legacy and got here throughout as representing a failed established order.”
Mr. Donahue quickly retired.
As Mr. Kirkland’s lieutenant all through the Eighties and early ’90s, Mr. Donahue shared the scorn of disgruntled unionists as one industrial plant after one other closed and the service financial system grew quickly with little union group. Jobs went to overseas competitors and to new processes, whereas strike after strike was misplaced, together with one by the nation’s air site visitors controllers in 1981.
There have been additionally main successes within the Kirkland-Donahue years. Autoworkers, mine employees, longshoremen, warehousemen and the Teamsters joined or rejoined the A.F.L.-C.I.O. The primary girl was positioned on the group’s government council and the participation of Black and Hispanic individuals on the council was raised, although hardly sufficient to fulfill critics.
However the variety of unionized employees fell to fifteen.5 % from 24 % of the American work pressure within the Kirkland-Donahue years. The A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s political energy additionally pale, as fights had been repeatedly misplaced in Congress. A notable loss was the failure in 1993 to dam passage of the North American Free Commerce Settlement, which unions had opposed in anticipation of American job losses to Mexico.
Regardless of being subordinate to Mr. Kirkland, Mr. Donahue was an influential union chief. He oversaw A.F.L-C.I.O lobbying, petition drives and a $3.2 million finances for promoting and promotion campaigns. He helped construct a working coalition between the federation and environmentalists, notably the Sierra Membership and the Nationwide Toxics Marketing campaign.
And he was a distinguished A.F.L.-C.I.O. spokesman within the shedding combat towards NAFTA. He appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and CNN’s “Late Version”; wrote articles, letters to editors and opinion items for main newspapers; and testified earlier than Congress not less than 9 occasions.
Mr. Donahue created packages that supplied client advantages to tens of millions of union members, together with mortgage help, bank cards and supplemental medical insurance coverage with reductions for imaginative and prescient and dental care. And he was instrumental in worldwide union work, supporting the Solidarity motion towards Poland’s Communist regime and an funding boycott of apartheid South Africa.
Thomas Reilly Donahue Jr. was born within the Bronx on Sept. 4, 1928, the youngest of 4 youngsters of Thomas and Mary (Purcell) Donahue, second-generation Irish American Catholics. His father’s wages jumped when he turned a unionized development employee.
He attended Bronx parochial colleges and graduated in 1944 from Mount St. Michael Academy, a Marist Brothers highschool within the Bronx. He joined the Navy as World Battle II ended.
He married Natalie Kiernan in 1950. That they had two youngsters: Nancy and Thomas III, earlier than divorcing in 1975. In 1979, he married Ms. Horowitz, director of political motion for the American Federation of Lecturers.
Along with Ms. Horowitz, he’s survived by his daughter, Nancy Donahue, and 6 grandchildren. His son died of a gastric hemorrhage in 2018.
Mr. Donahue started his labor profession in 1948 as a part-time organizer for the Retail Clerks Worldwide Affiliation. He earned a bachelor’s diploma in labor relations at Manhattan School in 1949.
Over the subsequent eight years, he was a enterprise agent, contract director and publications editor for the Service Workers Worldwide Union. He additionally studied economics at New York College and, after taking night time courses for a number of years, obtained a legislation diploma from Fordham College in 1956.
He labored in Paris from 1957 to 1960 for the Free Europe Committee, an American labor program that aided union exiles from Communist international locations. On returning, he turned an aide to the president of the Service Workers Worldwide Union for seven years, shifting to Washington in 1963. He was an assistant secretary of labor within the Lyndon B. Johnson administration from 1967 to 1969.
Mr. Donahue jumped on the probability to change into Mr. Meany’s assistant 4 years later. He additionally started his lengthy affiliation with Mr. Kirkland, following him into the higher echelons of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. to the head of union energy.
After leaving the union in 1995, he remained in Washington, serving on the boards of foundations and authorities panels, together with the Nationwide Endowment for Democracy and the State Division’s advisory committee on labor diplomacy.
He not often spoke publicly about his brief presidency or the election defeat that ended his life within the union. However in a 1997 interview for a Library of Congress oral historical past undertaking, Mr. Donahue touched on the matter.
“I misplaced,” he mentioned. “I misplaced with quite a lot of dignity, I need you to know. However I misplaced!”
Alex Traub contributed reporting.
