CHICAGO — Already in a downward spiral,
the American union movement emerged last week from a pivotal
confrontation with its future even more in doubt.
A bitter clash of personalities and agendas
split labor into rival camps as two big unions broke early last
week from the AFL-CIO to start their own federation, the Change to
Win Coalition. And on Friday, the United Food and Commercial
Workers announced its split from the AFL-CIO. At least one more
major union — UNITE HERE, a union of hospitality and textile
workers — could break away as well.
That would cost the AFL-CIO about a third of
its 13 million members and strain its budget. The coalition already
has had to lay off a quarter of its Washington staff.
The dissidents who left and some analysts say
that the split will spark competition, a new devotion to
unionizing, and eventually more clout to help working people at the
workplace and in politics.
“Our goal is not to divide the labor
movement but to rebuild it,” says Andy Stern, president of
the Service Employees International Union, the country’s
largest union and the first to bolt the AFL-CIO. The other was the
Teamsters.
But other union presidents call the move a power
grab by the 54-year-old Stern, whom they cast as a onetime
protégé eager to oust his former mentor, AFL-CIO
president John Sweeney, 71. That weakens labor, hurts friendly
Democrats, and helps President George W. Bush and anti-labor politics,
they say.
“A tragic day,” says Gerald
McEntee, the president of the American Federation of State, County,
and Municipal Employees, the largest union remaining in the
AFL-CIO. “The federation is weaker.”
“A power play”
All this comes at a time of major shifts in
the economy, with global competition, the loss of manufacturing
jobs, and the rise of a service economy symbolized by the rapid
growth of Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest company. Wal-Mart is
nonunion and buys most of its inexpensive goods overseas.
After peaking at about a third of the work
force in the 1950s, unions now represent just 12 percent —
and less than 8 percent of the private-sector workforce.
Why the split? Dissidents say that the AFL-CIO
was too stuck in its ways for a new age.
“We must revitalize the labor movement and
reverse the continuing decline in union membership,” says
Teamsters president James Hoffa. “We must reallocate every
possible resource to increased organizing. . . . The federation has
refused to embrace the progressive measures that we believe are
necessary.”
The Teamsters specifically wanted unions to
get back 50 percent of the dues they paid to the AFL-CIO, money
they would use for more union organizing. Sweeney offered to rebate
25 percent of the union payments.
The dissidents also wanted to replace Sweeney.
Aware that he had enough support to win a second term, the
dissident unions pressed for him to agree to leave within a year or
two. Sweeney was reelected.
Though the new coalition didn’t mention
Stern as a possible replacement for Sweeney, the names floated as
potential successors include Stern allies Terry O’Sullivan,
president of the Laborers International Union of North America; and
John Wilhelm, president of UNITE HERE.
“It was a power play,” says
Michael Sullivan, president of the Sheet Metal Workers union. “The last offer on the table
was that President Sweeney leave in six months and that they put their
person in. That’s been the issue from the beginning.”
Stern and allies insist that it was about
organizing.
Sweeney calls the move a “grievous
insult” to the 50-year-old federation. He also sees it as a
personal rebuke by Stern, who heads the same union that Sweeney
once led.
“He’s hurt that this test came
from his own old union. He’s disappointed. He’s
angry,” McEntee says. “He literally gave Andy Stern all
the jobs he ever had.”
Party’s over for Democrats
The two sides do disagree over how much to
devote to organizing and how much to devote to helping elect
Democrats and union-friendly Republicans. Dissidents say that
cultivating politicians doesn’t matter as long as unions are
losing members. AFL-CIO loyalists say that they can’t afford
to forsake politics because anti-labor policies set in Washington
make it harder to unionize.
The AFL-CIO has responded by beefing up
efforts to unionize more workplaces while maintaining a commitment
to politics. It created a $22.5 million fund to help finance union
efforts, changed rules to allow unions to work together in
targeting an entire industry and announced plans to train 100,000
worksite stewards to better fight for the right to unionize.
The effect of the split on the Democratic
Party, which relies on unions for cash and volunteers to turn out
votes, isn’t clear.
“It’s bad for the party,”
says Erik Smith, a Democratic strategist. “It may be good for
labor in the long term, but it’s bad for Democrats in the
short term.It’s less energy, time and resources they’ll
have for politics.”
But individual unions will remain free to
spend time and money helping campaigns. Stern’s SEIU and
McEntee’s AFSCME, for example, endorsed Democratic
presidential candidate Howard Dean.
As a perhaps illustrative comparison, the fact
that there are numerous conservative Christian organizations
hasn’t splintered their support for Republicans.
Still, one effect of the unions’ debate
could be to loosen labor’s ties with the Democratic Party
— or make the party work harder for labor support.
“They should be worried. Maybe
they’ve taken us for granted,” says James Williams, the
president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades.
SEIU last year gave $575,000 to the
Republican Governors Association, that group’s largest single
contributor. The painters’ union boasted that it gave 44
percent of its contributions to Republicans. The International
Association of Fire Fighters, despite its high-profile endorsement
of Democratic U.S. Sen. John Kerry in his 2004 presidential
campaign, gave 34 percent of its political-action-committee
contributions to Republicans.
At the firefighters’ urging, the AFL-CIO
adopted a resolution at its convention last week in Chicago
mandating “a nonpartisan political and legislative strategy
that bases labor’s support on union issues and worker issues,
not political parties.”
Says IAFF president Harold Schaitberger:
“We must build relationships with any candidate who is
willing to stand with us on our issues, regardless of party.”
For more on the two labor coalitions, go to
www.afl-cio.org or www.changetowin.org.
© 2005 Knight
Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
This article appears in Aug 4-10, 2005.
