LaborTalk (June 8, 2005)
Who Cares if the AFL-CIO Is Torn Apart? So what if Inter-Union Wars Break Out?
By Harry Kelber
If you're interested in the crisis facing the labor movement, as both tragedy and farce, here is how the story within the AFL-CIO is unfolding.
Our review begins with John Sweeney, the Federation's portly and stolid president, who was elected in 1995 as the "reform" candidate. Imbued with a bureaucratic leadership style, Sweeney's method of solving problems was to create still another initiative, strategic group, study committee and new staff positions, while ignoring proposals from dissident union members. These elaborate efforts did not prevent a series of expensive organizing failures that were kept secret from the membership. But what Sweeney could not hide was that during his 10-year tenure as AFL-CIO president, labor's percentage of the nation's work force had dropped from 14.2%, when he took office, to 12.5%, with a meager 7.8% in the private factor. And there was absolutely no significant legislative accomplishment for the millions of dollars that the unions had spent on an agenda for working families.
Even Sweeney's supporters concede that he is a bust as a public speaker. In the rare times he has appeared on a national talk show, he comes across as a dull personality with a monotone voice and few interesting things to say to a national audience. He lacks wit and charm, and seems unable to respond to a tough question with a wisecrack or a clever one-liner. He simply does not do well at communicating both the woes and aspirations of working families. That may be the reason why he shuns many opportunities to appear before the public to promote labor's message..His statements on the AFL-CIO website are riddled with bureaucratic jargon, with rarely a humorous comment that might evoke a smile. He never alludes to a great philosopher, scientist, poet, painter or historical figure. Indeed, the impression is that he doesn't read much of anything except staff reports and memos. Does he have any cultural interests? He has never exhibited any.
So now Sweeney thinks he deserves to be re-elected to another four-year term as AFL-CIO president. He has let it be known that he already has the 50% of the convention votes he needs to win. What he means is that eight or ten of the presidents of the big unions, who each cast hundreds of thousands of convention votes, will give him their support and seal his victory.
Ordinary union members, of course, have no voice at the convention. It is doubtful whether Sweeney could muster more than 3% of the votes in a nationwide election, because he is not well-known or well-liked by the rank and-file.The remarkable thing is that, at least until now, there is not a single labor leader, knowing all of Sweeney's shortcomings, who has the balls to oppose him. For a while, the dissident group of union presidents were grooming one of their own, John Wilhelm, the head of UNITE-HERE, a merged union of garment and hotel workers, but Wilhelm held off, after counting noses and finding he could get only about 35% of the vote.
The thought of Sweeney's impending re-election was the last straw for Andy Stern, who had been threatening to pull out of the AFL-CIO for months and now made it fairly certain that he would, taking as many unions as he could into a new labor federation. Stern would be joined by his recently-acquired ally, Douglas McCarron, president of the 500,000- member Brotherhood of Carpenters, who has a well-founded reputation as one of the worst autocrats in the labor movement. If Stern thinks that by quitting the AFL-CIO, he will be in a better position to build a better and stronger labor movement, he's taking a risky gamble that could turn his ambitious plans to dust. His departure from the AFL-CIO will almost certainly precipitate a civil war between the two rival labor federations, with very little money, energy and time left for massive efforts to recruit new members.
Anti-union employers would be in an even better position than now to crush organizing campaigns. Stern's actions would trigger a series of events that would end up by causing
hardship and pain to to the very working people whose lives he had promised to improve.
Without the per capita payments of the SEIU and other dissident unions, the fractured AFL-CIO would have to lay off hundreds of staff people, seriously damaging its ability to function effectively. And Sweeney is already taking pre-emptive action in response to Stern's expected departure from the Federation. He has ordered state federations and central labor councils to remove all officers and members of SEIU and the other unions that are no longer AFL-CIO affiliates. If that order is obeyed, it will result in confusion and paralysis among the state and local affiliates, that traditionally play a major role in conducting labor's economic and political campaigns.
Moreover, there will no longer be the kind of political labor unity that was so successfully maintained in the 2004 presidential election. Stern has his own ideas about what labor's political strategy should be and he is unlikely to play second fiddle to Sweeney in the upcoming election cycles. Any objective observer would have to conclude that organized labor's future is in grave danger, and that unless some sensible solutions are found by the time of the convention, July 25-28 in Chicago, the AFL-CIO may become just a footnote in labor history.
You would expect national union leaders to come up with a feasible plan to restructure the AFL-CIO while preserving labor unity, and that they would reach out to their 13 million members to become involved in supporting the plan. Surely, you would assume that union members would be kept informed about the distressing developments. Wrong.
A survey of the websites of 25 of the largest international unions reveals that only four unions made any mention of the crisis facing the labor movement. (The Service Employees, Teamsters and Laborers devoted space to explain their opposition to Sweeney's proposals. AFSCME carried a brief Chicago Tribune story that the SEIU planned to pull out of the AFL-CIO.)The other 21 unions consciously ignored telling their members what was going on within the labor movement, while they conducted their business as usual. Members were kept unaware of the depth of the crisis, as though it really was none of their business, but a problem for leaders. Nearly all of these 21 websites failed even to mention the AFL-CIO in their "latest news" summaries.There's very little excitement or evidence of distress among the leaders of the state federations and central labor councils. They are mostly occupied with their internal problems and offering no sign that they intend to intervene in the destructive struggle between the Sweeney and Stern factions. And there is no outcry from labor activists around the country with a plan to forestall the suicidal struggle at the convention.
Why won't Labor Notes mobilize its hundreds of supporters in a pre-convention conference to discuss what can be done to avoid a breakup of the labor movement? Why don't rank-and-file movements, like Teamsters for a Democratic Union, get involved in this all-important battle for labor's future?Can we allow the labor movement to be destroyed by default, without a massive outpouring of union members at the convention?
Our weekly "LaborTalk" and "The World of Labor" columns and other labor materials can be viewed at our Web site: www.laboreducator.org.
Harry Kelber's e-mail is:.
By Harry Kelber
If you're interested in the crisis facing the labor movement, as both tragedy and farce, here is how the story within the AFL-CIO is unfolding.
Our review begins with John Sweeney, the Federation's portly and stolid president, who was elected in 1995 as the "reform" candidate. Imbued with a bureaucratic leadership style, Sweeney's method of solving problems was to create still another initiative, strategic group, study committee and new staff positions, while ignoring proposals from dissident union members. These elaborate efforts did not prevent a series of expensive organizing failures that were kept secret from the membership. But what Sweeney could not hide was that during his 10-year tenure as AFL-CIO president, labor's percentage of the nation's work force had dropped from 14.2%, when he took office, to 12.5%, with a meager 7.8% in the private factor. And there was absolutely no significant legislative accomplishment for the millions of dollars that the unions had spent on an agenda for working families.
Even Sweeney's supporters concede that he is a bust as a public speaker. In the rare times he has appeared on a national talk show, he comes across as a dull personality with a monotone voice and few interesting things to say to a national audience. He lacks wit and charm, and seems unable to respond to a tough question with a wisecrack or a clever one-liner. He simply does not do well at communicating both the woes and aspirations of working families. That may be the reason why he shuns many opportunities to appear before the public to promote labor's message..His statements on the AFL-CIO website are riddled with bureaucratic jargon, with rarely a humorous comment that might evoke a smile. He never alludes to a great philosopher, scientist, poet, painter or historical figure. Indeed, the impression is that he doesn't read much of anything except staff reports and memos. Does he have any cultural interests? He has never exhibited any.
So now Sweeney thinks he deserves to be re-elected to another four-year term as AFL-CIO president. He has let it be known that he already has the 50% of the convention votes he needs to win. What he means is that eight or ten of the presidents of the big unions, who each cast hundreds of thousands of convention votes, will give him their support and seal his victory.
Ordinary union members, of course, have no voice at the convention. It is doubtful whether Sweeney could muster more than 3% of the votes in a nationwide election, because he is not well-known or well-liked by the rank and-file.The remarkable thing is that, at least until now, there is not a single labor leader, knowing all of Sweeney's shortcomings, who has the balls to oppose him. For a while, the dissident group of union presidents were grooming one of their own, John Wilhelm, the head of UNITE-HERE, a merged union of garment and hotel workers, but Wilhelm held off, after counting noses and finding he could get only about 35% of the vote.
The thought of Sweeney's impending re-election was the last straw for Andy Stern, who had been threatening to pull out of the AFL-CIO for months and now made it fairly certain that he would, taking as many unions as he could into a new labor federation. Stern would be joined by his recently-acquired ally, Douglas McCarron, president of the 500,000- member Brotherhood of Carpenters, who has a well-founded reputation as one of the worst autocrats in the labor movement. If Stern thinks that by quitting the AFL-CIO, he will be in a better position to build a better and stronger labor movement, he's taking a risky gamble that could turn his ambitious plans to dust. His departure from the AFL-CIO will almost certainly precipitate a civil war between the two rival labor federations, with very little money, energy and time left for massive efforts to recruit new members.
Anti-union employers would be in an even better position than now to crush organizing campaigns. Stern's actions would trigger a series of events that would end up by causing
hardship and pain to to the very working people whose lives he had promised to improve.
Without the per capita payments of the SEIU and other dissident unions, the fractured AFL-CIO would have to lay off hundreds of staff people, seriously damaging its ability to function effectively. And Sweeney is already taking pre-emptive action in response to Stern's expected departure from the Federation. He has ordered state federations and central labor councils to remove all officers and members of SEIU and the other unions that are no longer AFL-CIO affiliates. If that order is obeyed, it will result in confusion and paralysis among the state and local affiliates, that traditionally play a major role in conducting labor's economic and political campaigns.
Moreover, there will no longer be the kind of political labor unity that was so successfully maintained in the 2004 presidential election. Stern has his own ideas about what labor's political strategy should be and he is unlikely to play second fiddle to Sweeney in the upcoming election cycles. Any objective observer would have to conclude that organized labor's future is in grave danger, and that unless some sensible solutions are found by the time of the convention, July 25-28 in Chicago, the AFL-CIO may become just a footnote in labor history.
You would expect national union leaders to come up with a feasible plan to restructure the AFL-CIO while preserving labor unity, and that they would reach out to their 13 million members to become involved in supporting the plan. Surely, you would assume that union members would be kept informed about the distressing developments. Wrong.
A survey of the websites of 25 of the largest international unions reveals that only four unions made any mention of the crisis facing the labor movement. (The Service Employees, Teamsters and Laborers devoted space to explain their opposition to Sweeney's proposals. AFSCME carried a brief Chicago Tribune story that the SEIU planned to pull out of the AFL-CIO.)The other 21 unions consciously ignored telling their members what was going on within the labor movement, while they conducted their business as usual. Members were kept unaware of the depth of the crisis, as though it really was none of their business, but a problem for leaders. Nearly all of these 21 websites failed even to mention the AFL-CIO in their "latest news" summaries.There's very little excitement or evidence of distress among the leaders of the state federations and central labor councils. They are mostly occupied with their internal problems and offering no sign that they intend to intervene in the destructive struggle between the Sweeney and Stern factions. And there is no outcry from labor activists around the country with a plan to forestall the suicidal struggle at the convention.
Why won't Labor Notes mobilize its hundreds of supporters in a pre-convention conference to discuss what can be done to avoid a breakup of the labor movement? Why don't rank-and-file movements, like Teamsters for a Democratic Union, get involved in this all-important battle for labor's future?Can we allow the labor movement to be destroyed by default, without a massive outpouring of union members at the convention?
Our weekly "LaborTalk" and "The World of Labor" columns and other labor materials can be viewed at our Web site: www.laboreducator.org.
Harry Kelber's e-mail is:
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