New York Times, December 5, 2004, Sunday

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
The New York Times

December 5, 2004 Sunday
Late Edition - Final

SECTION: Section 1; Column 1; National Desk; Pg. 34

HEADLINE: Between Union Leader and His Protege, Tension Over Direction of Labor Movement

BYLINE: By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

BODY:
Twenty years ago, John J. Sweeney, then the president of the Service Employees International Union, was so impressed by the drive and intelligence of a little-known union official from Pennsylvania that he asked him to move to Washington and become his organizing director.
The official was Andrew L. Stern, who, quite predictably, succeeded Mr. Sweeney as the union's president. But rather unpredictably, he has called into question the whole structure of the house of labor, which Mr. Sweeney has headed for the past nine years.
Eager to reverse labor's decline, Mr. Stern has called for a sweeping overhaul of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., proposing to cut its budget by more than 50 percent and to use the savings to vastly increase organizing by its member unions. And he has warned that the service employees, the largest union in the A.F.L.-C.I.O., may quit the labor federation unless it embraces far-reaching changes -- changes that would have to be pushed through by the man who was his mentor, Mr. Sweeney, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.
Adding intrigue, some union leaders say Mr. Stern is seeking to push Mr. Sweeney into retirement, although he denies that, or having any interest in succeeding Mr. Sweeney in organized labor's top job.
At the moment, these two union leaders have only kind words for each other, but when they were interviewed separately last week, their frustrations with each other showed: Mr. Stern's frustration that Mr. Sweeney has not done more to halt labor's slide and Mr. Sweeney's frustration that his former protege is seeking to slash the federation's budget, is threatening to break away and appears to be undercutting him.
''We haven't seen a resurgence of organizing,'' Mr. Stern said, adding that Mr. Sweeney's efforts to use his bully pulpit to spur far more organizing by individual unions have fallen short. And Mr. Sweeney ever so diplomatically indicated his displeasure with Mr. Stern's threat to secede, saying, ''My goal is to keep the federation united.''
What happens over the next few months between these men could go far to determine the shape of the American labor movement.
Mr. Stern, who heads the nation's fastest-growing union, with nearly 1.7 million members, insisted that the two men were making common cause. ''I would say we're allies in what we want to accomplish,'' he said, noting that he and Mr. Sweeney each favor bold steps to stop labor's decline.
But many labor leaders say it is strange behavior for an ally to threaten to quit, to upstage Mr. Sweeney and to implicitly criticize his performance.
''In terms of what Stern has proposed, there's a lot of overlap between what Sweeney and Stern want, but my sense is the Sweeney people aren't happy with how it's been done and that it has made Sweeney look bad,'' said Richard Hurd, a professor of labor relations at Cornell University.
With an elan rare for labor leaders, Mr. Stern has promoted his 10-point plan for change with a glossy brochure, a sophisticated Web site and a blog. His plan calls for having the A.F.L.-C.I.O. spend more on politics, for merging its 60 unions into fewer than 20 and for using the $25 million in yearly profits from its credit card to mount a nationwide campaign to pressure Wal-Mart to improve its wages and benefits. He wants unions to keep half the dues money they currently give to the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and to use that to create a $2 billion war chest over five years for organizing.
Mr. Sweeney praises his former protege.
''What Andy is proposing are some very good ideas,'' he said. ''I don't completely agree with every single proposal, but every single one of them merits discussion. Some of them, there will be great support for and for others, there will be healthy debate. I don't interpret these as Andy taking a swipe at me. I'm too big for that.''
If Mr. Sweeney and Mr. Stern agree on anything, it is that labor unions and workers are in a bad way. Wages are stagnant, millions of workers are losing health insurance, corporations are hacking away at pensions, and just 8.2 percent of private-sector workers are in unions, the lowest level since 1901.
Facing such a crisis, Mr. Stern and Mr. Sweeney badly need each other. If Mr. Stern is to persuade the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s 60 unions to embrace his plan for aggressive change, he needs Mr. Sweeney to build a consensus. If Mr. Sweeney is to achieve his goal of making labor grow again -- a goal frustrated by the many union leaders who have done little to increase organizing -- he needs Mr. Stern as a battering ram to break through union leaders' resistance to change.
''We complement each other,'' Mr. Sweeney said. ''There is no question Andy has good ideas. He has done a great job at S.E.I.U. I think I have some skills and some strengths that can develop some of his great ideas and build consensus around them.''
At times, Mr. Stern acts like his own worst enemy. After he warned that he might quit and seek to build something better unless the A.F.L.-C.I.O. embraced reform, some union leaders began calling him arrogant, divisive and a prima donna. Some said his style was undercutting his efforts to win support for his ideas.
But Mr. Stern said he felt a duty to speak out about labor's woes.
''I don't believe I have all the answers,'' he said. ''But I do have an incredibly strong opinion based not just on the experience of our union, but the experience of other unions in how we can best change workers' lives. It's my obligation to say what I believe is right for helping workers get some changes in this country because things are looking worse and worse for this generation and for my kids.''
In his view one of labor's biggest problems is that many unions are too small to stand up to giant corporations -- two-thirds of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s 60 unions have fewer than 100,000 members. Convinced that there is strength in numbers, Mr. Stern -- a University of Pennsylvania graduate who first became involved in the union movement when he took a job as a social worker -- is labor's most fervent advocate of mergers.
''We don't look at this movement, as it's currently structured, as giving workers the best chance they have to succeed,'' he said. ''They are trapped in organizations that were formed generations ago when the economy was different. Workers are paying the price for our failure to confront some of these structural problems. The purpose of the labor movement is not to keep as many unions as possible and as many officials with the title president after their name.''
In the interviews, Mr. Sweeney and Mr. Stern praised each other for what they accomplished while heading the S.E.I.U. In Mr. Sweeney's 15 years at the union's helm, its membership grew by 500,000 and in Mr. Stern's eight years as president it has grown by nearly 600,000. The union represents nearly 900,000 health care workers and 220,000 janitors and other building service workers.
The two men echoed each other in saying they had ''different styles.'' Mr. Stern is hot, Mr. Sweeney is cool. Mr. Stern, 53, states new ideas with crispness and machine-gun rapidity, while Mr. Sweeney, 70, speaks slowly, after careful deliberation. Mr. Sweeney is a consensus builder, Mr. Stern a charge-ahead consensus breaker. ''I think I have a little more patience than Andy does,'' Mr. Sweeney said.
But the tensions are unmistakable. Viewing it as retaliation and as an attempt to discourage internal debate, Mr. Stern's supporters are angry that Mr. Sweeney fired the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s director of field mobilization, Marilyn Sneiderman, whose husband, director of the S.E.I.U.'s Justice for Janitors campaign, helped to write Mr. Stern's 10-point plan.
Mr. Sweeney made clear that he feared that Mr. Stern's call to slash the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s budget could hobble the organization.
''We need a strong federation,'' Mr. Sweeney said. ''The federation has to include services that don't get a lot of attention, the work we do on education, on safety and health, on communications and media. These are all important parts of our program.''
In coming months, Mr. Sweeney plans to study proposals for change submitted by many union presidents and union members. He will make recommendations, including presumably some of Mr. Stern's, to the federation's executive council.
''Andy has chosen to be the lightning rod to help push for change,'' said Professor Hurd, of Cornell. ''Whether or not labor leaders agree with his proposals, if they don't do something dramatically different, the future for organized labor might be drastically bleak.''


URL: http://www.nytimes.com

GRAPHIC: Photos: Andrew L. Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, left, talked about his proposal for labor and said of his former mentor, John J. Sweeney, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., ''we're allies in what we want to accomplish.'' Mr. Sweeney, above, said, ''What Andy is proposing are some very good ideas.'' But the picture was not all rosy. (Photo by Thor Swift for The New York Times)
(Photo by Hillery Smith Garrison/Associated Press)