The New York Times, May 31, 2005, Tuesday

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
The New York Times

May 31, 2005 Tuesday
Late Edition - Final

SECTION: Section A; Column 1; National Desk; Pg. 13

HEADLINE: A Summer of Discontent for Labor Focuses on Its Leader's Fitness for His Job

BYLINE: By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

DATELINE: WASHINGTON, May 27

BODY:
At 71, after nearly half a century in the union movement and after a decade leading the nation's main labor federation, John J. Sweeney is facing his toughest time ever.
The percentage of American workers belonging to unions continues to fall, President Bush is seeking to weaken collective bargaining rights for 700,000 federal workers, and many unionized companies are cutting back once-unassailable benefits, like health insurance and pensions.
But for Mr. Sweeney, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., the biggest battle may be a nasty internal struggle -- the federation's largest union, the Service Employees International Union, is threatening to secede if, as many expect, Mr. Sweeney wins a new four-year term this summer. And several other major unions have hinted that they, too, might leave the A.F.L.-C.I.O., a federation of 57 unions and 13 million workers.
''We need to make far-reaching changes and have a leader committed to such changes, and that leader is not John Sweeney,'' said Andrew L. Stern, president of the service employees union, which has more than 1.7 million members.
Mr. Stern seeks to push Mr. Sweeney into retirement, but Mr. Sweeney is digging in -- and is voicing anger with Mr. Stern, a one-time protege, saying his divisiveness is weakening the movement.
But Mr. Stern's critique of Mr. Sweeney has strong support from four other unions -- the Teamsters, the laborers, the food and commercial workers, and Unite Here, which represents hotel, restaurant and apparel workers. The five dissident unions represent more than a third of the membership of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations.
With such unrest, many union leaders agree that the labor movement is at a crossroads: one path might lead to disastrous division and hasten labor's decline, while the other might lead to a revival.
Mr. Sweeney's simple response to his critics is: ''I believe I'm the right person to lead the changes we need.''
What has split organized labor into pro- and anti-Sweeney camps is a debate over the best direction for labor and who would be best to lead the movement and reverse its decline. Mr. Sweeney's opponents say that he is tired and not charismatic or forceful enough. They also say he has not gotten labor to put nearly enough money and energy into rebuilding its membership rolls through organizing campaigns; the percentage of private-sector workers in unions has plunged to 7.9 percent from 35 percent in the 1950's.
Despite the criticism, Mr. Sweeney is favored to win re-election. No challenger has emerged, and his backers say he has the support of more than 70 percent of the delegates to the federation's convention in July. Mr. Sweeney received a major lift on Thursday, when the United Auto Workers -- which has given some backing to Mr. Stern's criticisms -- endorsed the incumbent.
That endorsement, union leaders say, makes it less likely that John W. Wilhelm, who heads the hotel and restaurant division of Unite Here, will make good on a threat to run. Mr. Sweeney has faced opposition only once, in 1995, when he was first elected to a two-year term; since then he has won two four-year-terms.
''It looks like I have the votes,'' Mr. Sweeney said in an interview on Friday. ''Like any election, I run as if it's the toughest election of my life.''
But Mr. Sweeney's opponents still hope to press him to step aside.
''John's style of leadership is consensus building, but the labor movement in 2005 doesn't need consensus -- it needs dramatic change to grow,'' said Bruce Raynor, who is the overall president of Unite Here and an ally of Mr. Stern's. ''John can win vote-wise, but do you count that as a win? If you win and drive the labor movement apart, that's not a win.''
Usually soft-spoken, Mr. Sweeney can be gruff with critics, business leaders and conservative politicians, giving speeches characterized by fiery words but a flat, unexciting style. He has dedicated his life to the labor movement, often telling audiences how he, as a boy in the Bronx, attended union meetings with his father, a bus driver.
He rose to become president of New York's largest union of doormen and janitors, then became president of the Service Employees International Union -- and he admits to feeling pained that the union he once headed is threatening to secede.
Adding personal drama to the feud, Mr. Sweeney was long Mr. Stern's mentor when Mr. Sweeney led the service employees union and Mr. Stern was its organizing director. Mr. Sweeney hired Mr. Stern, attracted by his vision, forcefulness and impatience -- his blow-through-the-obstacles streak. Now Mr. Stern is using those traits to undercut him.
''I've long been an admirer of Andy's,'' Mr. Sweeney said. ''But I really resent this attitude, that 'if I have differences and I don't get my own way, I'm leaving the federation.'''
In June, Mr. Stern's executive board is expected to give him a green light to quit the A.F.L.-C.I.O. if he chooses. Such a walkout, especially if other unions join in, would badly hurt the federation, costing it more than 10 percent of its dues money, creating a public relations disaster and probably resulting in unions raiding each other's industries.
Mr. Stern, whose union has added 600,000 workers in the past decade, has repeatedly said that if the A.F.L.-C.I.O. does not embrace enough change, he will seek to build something better, presumably an organization outside the federation that would seek to attract workers and sympathetic young people.
Frustrated that the number of workers in unions has fallen while overall employment has grown, Mr. Stern faults Mr. Sweeney for not getting labor leaders to spend far more on organizing and for doing too little to get small unions to merge to form larger, stronger ones.
Mr. Sweeney thought he had met Mr. Stern more than halfway last month when he announced a platform encouraging union mergers and pressing unions to spend more on recruiting nonunion workers. Mr. Sweeney and his backers seem puzzled and angry that Mr. Stern still appears intent on walking.
Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said Mr. Sweeney was the man to unite labor and push it forward.
''He's an excellent leader, a man of vision,'' Mr. McEntee said. ''Facing Bush, the Supreme Court, the House and the Senate being in the hands of what I would consider right-wing conservatives, we need a united labor movement now more than ever. I'm truly concerned that some unions might leave. We can't be as strong as a federation with them gone. Nor can they be as strong if they leave.''
Even many Sweeney critics praise him for transforming the federation's political arm into a formidable lobbying and election machine; it is often viewed as the Democrats' leading get-out-the-vote operation. Mr. Sweeney's backers praise him for getting 20 unions to become more aggressive in organizing workers, though Mr. Stern questions why it took so long and insists there is still far too little organizing.
Indeed, Mr. Stern and his allies have hammered Mr. Sweeney for not backing their proposal to spend $60 million -- half the federation's budget -- on organizing and on giving rebates to individual unions to organize. Mr. Sweeney, who proposed spending $22.5 million on such efforts, said devoting half the federation's budget to unionizing would prevent it from fulfilling its responsibilities in politics, collective bargaining and other areas. He said the budgetary changes Mr. Stern proposed would force him to lay off 100 staff members, after he already laid off 100 of the federation's staff of 420.
Mr. Sweeney's backers say that the federation's spending $60 million instead of $22.5 million on unionizing would not make a big difference since individual unions spend more than $300 million a year on organizing.
Mr. Sweeney said that the decline in union membership was not his fault. ''We've gone through some horrible times, losing close to three million manufacturing jobs just during the Bush years, and many of them were good, middle-income, good-benefit union jobs,'' he said. ''We haven't done enough organizing to keep up with those job losses.''
In explaining his decision to run again, Mr. Sweeney talked of growing up in a home where three things were paramount: family, faith and his father's union. He spoke as if he was on a mission and discussed past divisions that were ultimately healed, as when the United Auto Workers quit the federation in a dispute over the Vietnam War.
Mr. Sweeney said he still hoped to keep the service employees in the fold. ''It's a worry that any affiliate would think of seceding,'' he said. ''But I will do my damnedest to try to avoid that.''
Some labor experts called it an inopportune time for infighting. ''Given that labor's on the defensive, a split right now would really hurt them,'' said Richard Hurd, a labor relations professor at Cornell University. ''If labor comes out of this bitterly divided and the aftermath is internecine warfare, where unions go after each other, then it only plays into the hands of the enemies of labor.''