Plain Dealer (Cleveland), February 27, 2005, Sunday

Copyright 2005 Plain Dealer Publishing Co.
Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

February 27, 2005 Sunday
FINAL Edition; ALL Editions

SECTION: BUSINESS; Pg. G1

HEADLINE: Labor pain: AFL-CIO at crossroads;
Leaders will huddle amid threats of a split

BYLINE: ALISON GRANT, PLAIN DEALER REPORTER

BODY:
Top labor leaders meet this week in Las Vegas at a time when unions consider themselves under siege.
The share of unionized workers is at its lowest in 100 years - under 9 percent of the private sector. "Right to work" laws are choking off collective bargaining in 22 states. The National Labor Relations Board seems poised to hem in "card check," unions' strongest organizing tactic.
Combined with the defeat of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and a string of workplace setbacks such as the narrowing of overtime guarantees, it's not surprising that labor circles are brimming with debate the likes of which hasn't been seen since the early days of the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
"And that was 70 years ago," said Herman Benson, the 89-year-old founder of the Association for Union Democracy.
Factions and rivalries have formed around plans for restructuring the AFL-CIO and around a possible challenge to federation President John Sweeney.
Questions that arose after the November election in public speeches, academic articles, Web sites and blogs will be concentrated in one place beginning Tuesday, when the AFL-CIO executive council gathers for its winter meeting.
At Sweeney's invitation, the federation's affiliate unions sent plans for rebuilding the AFL-CIO that will be reviewed by the executive council and possibly adopted at the federation's quadrennial convention in July.
Consolidation proposed
Andy Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union, has the most provocative platform, a proposed overhaul of the AFL-CIO, an umbrella organization with 58 affiliate unions representing more than 13 million workers.
Stern says workers have squandered their strength by being divided into multiple unions dealing with employers in the same industry. He wants to consolidate the number of national unions to 20 to make them a better match for the breadth of their regional, national, even international employers.
The SEIU, as well as the Teamsters and the Laborers' International Union, also wants to cut in half the amount unions contribute to the AFL-CIO, retaining more money to organize workers. Other unions including Unite Here, the merged union representing restaurant, hotel and garment workers, also are said to back the change.
Stern wants to use $25 million in annual royalties from the federation's Union Plus credit card to fight Wal-Mart; Sweeney says that may not be enough. Stern is also calling for a cross-union strategy to win a national health-care program.
He talks about pulling his 1.8 million members out of the AFL-CIO unless it makes significant changes.
"We are committed to working with other interested unions to once again give working people in America a fighting chance," Stern wrote in an e-mail. "Whether we do that as part of the AFL-CIO or as partners with the AFL-CIO unions depends on the decisions the other union members make in the next few weeks."
Stern is a one-time protg of Sweeney, who also was president of the SEIU. Sweeney summoned Stern, a crackerjack field worker, to Washington in 1984 to head a national organizing campaign. When Sweeney became president of the AFL-CIO, Stern captured the SEIU's presidency in a contest against Sweeney's handpicked successor.
Merger idea criticized
Sweeney agrees with Stern that the federation needs to be restructured and streamlined. But he said forced mergers are a mistake.
"We're a democratic organization. We're not a corporation," he said in an interview. "The first principle is union solidarity."
Sweeney held a conference call with reporters Thursday to highlight his views heading into the executive council meeting. He gave support to the idea of cutting contributions to the AFL-CIO by unions that invest heavily in organizing.
Among other priorities:
A major offensive for good jobs, though he did not offer details on how that would be accomplished.
Aggressive publicity to expose corporate practices such as low wages and poor benefits.
A full-blown campaign against Wal-Mart, "insisting that they raise their standards."
A major escalation of political work to gain control of the White House in 2008 and win state and congressional races.
Though Sweeney is widely popular, some union leaders are said to be trying, quietly, to push him aside.
John Wilhelm, head of the hotel workers' part of Unite Here, is mentioned as a candidate, though he has said publicly that the AFL-CIO would have to be restructured for him to be interested.
Ironically, Sweeney is facing a vein of discontent like the one he plumbed 10 years ago when he won election over Lane Kirkland in the first contested presidential race in the AFL-CIO's history.
"The labor movement is irrelevant to the vast majority of unorganized workers in our country," he said at the time. "And I have deep suspicions that we are becoming irrelevant to many of our own members."
Sweeney's critics today credit him with improving unions' prowess in political action. Yet President Bush was re-elected and Republicans gained seats in the House and Senate despite labor's all-out push for Democrats. And Sweeney's critics fault him for not being able to turn the tide in union membership, even though the AFL-CIO put more money into organizing.
A sense of crisis
The sense of crisis has unleashed a volley of ideas for changing the federation's framework and focus.
Teamsters President James P. Hoffa has a plan similar to Stern's, although it calls for incentives to encourage union mergers, not force them. He also wants more stress on swing states to increase their union density and help elect pro-labor candidates. There are rumors of a pullout by the Teamsters if Hoffa isn't satisfied with the AFL-CIO changes.
The Communications Workers of America emphasizes a strong shop steward system, member-based organizing of workers and a national strike fund big enough to have clout, but no mandated mergers.
"Mega-locals are not entities that will be sufficiently responsive to dues-paying members," said Steve Early, a national organizer and writer for the CWA. "They may be headed by good people now, but what happens 10 years from now? There are too many stories of unions decaying, calcifying, corrupting, when power is concentrated."
The International Association of Machinists' R. Thomas Buffenbarger has threatened to quit the AFL-CIO if Stern's consolidation holds sway.
Buffenbarger calls the fight for control of the AFL-CIO a waste of time and money. He says the labor movement has plenty of strengths but is weak at conveying its message. He would like to see a $200 million labor-owned cable network that projects a positive image of union members. And a health-care database could leverage the purchasing power of more than 50 million union members, he says.
The United Auto Workers supports realigning the AFL-CIO but says mergers must be voluntary. It, too, would dedicate royalties from the Union Plus credit card to strategic organizing. It named Wal-Mart and Toyota as targets. Unmasking the National Right to Work Legal Defense Fund and its financial backers should be a core mission, the UAW says.
Political power trumps everything else in importance, in the view of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. "To fight back - and win - working people need more power in our workplaces, our industries, the capital markets and - most of all - in the political process," the union's strategy paper says.
Keeping unions' purpose in sight
Labor educator Kate Bronfenbrenner said all the debate is good, but she warned against losing sight of what unions stand for in arguments over finances and restructuring.
In a climate of labor hostility, she said, unions should stress what they believe on social issues and why millions of unorganized workers should make the effort to join them.
"There's a lot of talk about money. About how much money goes out, but not what that money accomplishes," said Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University and a recognized authority on union organizing.
Yet the intensity of today's self-examination is healthy, she said - unprecedented in a labor movement that for years was reluctant to air internal issues.
"It's a great outbreak of glasnost," the CWA's Early said, a reference to the official policy of candor in publicizing problems in Russian society. "Whether it leads to perestroika [reform], we'll have to see."
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: agrant@plaind.com, 216-999-4758