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DanS
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Kickball Capital of the World
Jan 1970
time: 00:37
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4 unions, including the Teamsters, are to split from AFL-CIO over priorities of the labor movement in the US. The rebels want to spend money on membership drives while the incumbents want to continue to spend the vast majority of member dues on democratic party politicking.
The rebels have been very aggressive in unionizing, and these unions are primarily in the growing service sector. Their success in unionizing has only been fair so far, but I think they have the right idea. According to the article below, only 8% of workers in the private sector are union, where it used to about 1/3rd of workers. And I think many union members believe that their leaders' are out of touch politically.
Here's a good article on the upcoming split...
quote:
Four Big Unions Boycott AFL-CIO Convention and May Split Away
By Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 25, 2005; Page A04
CHICAGO, July 24 -- Four major unions announced Sunday that they will boycott this week's AFL-CIO convention, and union officials said all four are likely to leave the AFL-CIO altogether, fracturing the federation that for 50 years has represented the U.S. labor movement.
The four unions say the AFL-CIO leadership has failed to stem a steady decline in the percentage of workers represented by unions and believe that AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney should have retired to let new leaders take charge. The dissidents say they want to restore the labor movement to a position of power in the political system and the economy.
"Today we have reached a point where our differences have become irresolvable," Anna Burger, a top official of the Service Employees International Union and chair of the insurgent Change to Win Coalition, said at a combination rally and news conference.
On Monday, the SEIU plans to announce its formal withdrawal from the AFL-CIO. "I don't see any change in course," said Andrew L. Stern, the SEIU president.
The presidents of the Teamsters and the United Food and Commercial Workers signaled they are prepared to resign from the AFL-CIO. "Our differences are so fundamental and so principled that at this point I don't think there is a chance there will be a change of course," said UFCW President Joe Hansen. "We may have an announcement tomorrow."
Unite Here, which represents hotel, restaurant and garment workers, is also on the verge of leaving the federation. SEIU is the largest of the 56 unions in the AFL-CIO, and the four unions threatening to leave represent about a third of the 13 million union workers who are in the AFL-CIO and pay about a third of the dues to finance the federation's $120 million annual budget.
Stern has led an insurrection calling for major reorganization and strengthening of the powers of the AFL-CIO. Sweeney was Stern's mentor in the labor movement and his predecessor as SEIU president.
Stern contends that to survive, unions must be merged into much larger, but fewer, organizations equipped to take on global companies and large chains, especially Wal-Mart. In addition, Stern contends that union organizing efforts must be carefully segmented by industry sector to prevent wasteful inter-union competition and to ensure that specific unions are given the responsibility to build strength and density in specific areas, such as health care, retail services or transportation.
The labor schism threatens to leave this critical wing of the Democratic Party split for the election of 2006 and probably 2008. Organized labor contributes tens of millions of dollars and workers for Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts.
Sweeney, 71, has rejected calls to retire and attacked the convention boycott as "an insult [to] union brothers and sisters, and to all working people. . . . It's fundamentally wrong to use working people's issues as a fig leaf for a power struggle."
For the past nine months, Sweeney and his allies have been meeting with leaders of the unions in the Change to Win Coalition in an effort to broker a compromise.
Coalition leader Burger on Sunday described those negotiations as fruitless. "The language of our reforms has been adopted, but not the substance. Our principles have been watered down and papered over. . . . Workers cannot afford half measures."
At an earlier rally in support of his reelection, Sweeney told more than 900 cheering and chanting supporters: "We are here for each other. We're here for our sisters and brothers all over America who are struggling to win their right to organize . . . with the most powerful weapon we have -- our solidarity."
To applause and shouts, Sweeney declared: "Common sense tells us that a union movement divided against itself risks losing the fight for workers' rights."
The decision to boycott the convention angered leaders and ranking officials of the unions that plan to remain in the federation. Edward J. McElroy, president of the American Federation of Teachers, accused Stern and his allies of bargaining in bad faith. "Their stance was that unless you agree with their position, they won't make an agreement," he said.
R. Thomas Buffenbarger, president of the Machinists, said Stern and other dissidents "showed total disrespect for their colleagues who sat through the negotiations."
In addition to the four unions likely to leave the AFL-CIO, two others, the United Farm Workers and the Laborers International Union, have joined the Change to Win Coalition. These two unions are not boycotting the convention, but their presidents pointedly did not rule out leaving the AFL-CIO in the near future.
Terence M. O'Sullivan, president of the Laborers, told reporters that they "should not take" the decision against boycotting the convention as a sure sign his union will stay in the AFL-CIO. Instead, he said, "we stand shoulder to shoulder in unity and solidarity" with the other members of the coalition. |
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Ghidorah
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quote:
Originally posted by Frankychan
better question:
Is there an international labor union? |
The IWW - a union that has been instrumental in many of the most important gains of the labour movement in the last century.
I'm not from the US, so my knowledge of the AFL-CIO is not what it could be, but to me this sounds like a petty little power struggle between union bigwigs who need something to do because they've completely forgotten that they're actually there to protect the rights of their members.
Union membership in the western world has been slipping - partly because of vicious propaganda campaigns from government and business that have somehow convinced workers that organisation is not in their best interest; but also partly because so many of the larger unions have fallen back into bureaucratic irrelevancy, and exist as little more than a stairway for the ambitious to lever their way into major-party politics.
Lobbying politicians will never get you anywhere - so-called "labour" parties use and abuse the unions they supposedly represent, and help only when it's politically convenient.
The whole point of a union is that workers organised in numbers are an incredibly formidable power in themselves. But when your comfortable conservative unions refuse to make use of their best tool and strike, but instead just sit around being useless, you might as well not have any union at all.
A single rogue union with an active and militant rank-and-file and which is prepared to strike committedly and often, is worth an entire "labour coalition" that achieves nothing.
The established union movement desperately needs to take a long, hard look at itself rather than playing silly buggers with its leadership.
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Ramo
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Austin, Texas, USA
Oct 1999
time: 23:37
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I think Stern and his allies are being rather petty. While focusing on organizing is great, CtW's plans don't allocate all that much more to organizing - and besides, locals are far more effective at doing the organizing than central operations. Also, while the SEIU is growing in leaps and bounds, there's also a disturbing tendency of taking away autonomy from locals. I don't think this is as one sided a problem as some make it out to be.
OTOH, I don't think a split in the labor movement is that bad an idea. I think the world would probably be a better place if the CIO had never united with the AFL.
Last edited by Ramo on 25-07-2005 at 18:49
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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:37
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Labor wouldn't have grown in the mid-century had the Western Federation of Miners not split from the AFL and founded the CIO. I think this may be a good thing. The AFL-CIO is ossified and stuck in the mindset of the 50s, dealing with businessmen who are in the 21st Century. They can't do the job. Labor is having its ass handed to it on a platter, and these guys can't offer anything better than trying to restore the agreement with management Ruther established in '47.
I don't know enough about what the rebel platform is, but I know enough that if a strategy is losing, one should not compromise with it. In this instance, I don't agree the rebels are bargining in bad faith if they think that the other side only has a strategy for losing. You don't want to keep any part of it.
I'll be interested to see where they go with this, but for now, I think I'm on the side of the splitters. This could mark a rejuvenation of the labor movement. There are two crucial segments of labor that need to be sought after by the unions, and have been largely ignored: low-wage service workers and white collar office workers, i.e., the service industry.
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25-07-2005 11:38
They're gonna screw everything up (I'm in the freakin AFL-CIO!!!) 
The dissident union leaders are not playing smart. And basically slapping the rest of us in the face. 
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