National Public Radio (NPR), Talk of the Nation, July 19, 2005, Tuesday

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National Public Radio (NPR)

SHOW: Talk of the Nation 2:00 AM EST NPR

July 19, 2005 Tuesday

HEADLINE: Future of the US labor movement

ANCHORS: LYNN NEARY

BODY:
LYNN NEARY, host:
This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Lynn Neary in Washington, sitting in for Neal Conan.
Ten years ago, John Sweeney took over as president of the embattled AFL-CIO with two main goals: to boost union membership and to ramp up labor's political influence. Now some labor leaders say he's failing on both counts, with labor enrollment at its lowest level in 100 years, and Republicans firmly in control of Congress and the White House. Infighting at the nation's most venerable labor federation has reached a fever pitch in recent months, with the five biggest and most influential member unions threatening to pull out of the AFL-CIO unless major changes are made at next week's national conference in Chicago. The dissident organizations include the Teamsters, the Laborers and the Service Employees International Union, which is headed by former Sweeney protege Andy Stern, now one of the most vocal critics of the AFL-CIO's current leadership.
John Sweeney will join us in the studio this hour to talk about the challenges to his leadership, the importance of next weekend's AFL-CIO conference and what needs to happen to maintain the relevancy of the labor movement.
Later in the hour we'll preview tonight's expected announcement of a Supreme Court nominee, and ask if anyone cares about the Rove-Plame scandal outside of Washington.
But first, disorganized labor and next week's showdown in Chicago. Do you have any ideas to boost union membership? Do you think labor groups are focusing on the wrong issues? We especially want to hear from the foot soldiers in all of this, union members. Join the conversation. Our number here in Washington is (800) 989-8255. That's (800) 989-TALK. And our e-mail address: totn@npr.org.
We're joined first by Richard Hurd. He's a professor of industrial and labor relations at Cornell University. He joins us from his office in Ithaca, New York.
Thanks for being with us.
Professor RICHARD HURD (Cornell University): Certainly.
NEARY: Can you tell us a little bit about this Change to Win Coalition and what changes they are pushing for?
Prof. HURD: Yes, this is a group of five of the larger unions, and they are trying to push the AFL-CIO and all of the affiliates of the AFL-CIO to place more emphasis on organizing and attempts to increase the size of the labor movement, and they're also promoting a set of policies that would strongly encourage mergers among unions to reduce the number of unions and have the remaining national unions focus on specific industries.
NEARY: Yeah.
Prof. HURD: Those are the two major changes that they proposed.
NEARY: What happens if they actually pull out of the AFL-CIO?
Prof. HURD: Well, it certainly creates the potential for infighting between unions, but I think that only time will tell how serious that kind of--that situation becomes. If indeed they leave the AFL-CIO and there is such bitterness because of their departure that other unions refuse to coordinate with them and they actually start competing with each other in organizing and even trying to take units from each other, then I think it could be very bad for the labor movement.
If they leave and are able to work out some accommodation where they can live in peace, coexisting with other unions, then I think that the ramifications are less serious.
NEARY: You said that only time will tell about how serious this is. Could this be just a tactic for trying to force some change within the AFL-CIO? Is that what you're saying?
Prof. HURD: I think that's unlikely at this stage. I believe when the initial proposals were put forward, there was very strong effort to push changes within the AFL-CIO and that effort will be pursued next week at the convention. But it looks increasingly likely that these unions are determined to pursue their agenda on their own if it becomes necessary.
NEARY: And how will that affect the AFL-CIO? What will happen?
Prof. HURD: Well, you'll have to ask President Sweeney for more details, but certainly losing some of the major affiliates will hurt the budget for the AFL-CIO and make it more difficult for the national federation to coordinate union activity.
NEARY: Is this unprecedented or have we seen this kind of dissent before?
Prof. HURD: Well, there certainly was dissent parallel to this in many ways 10 years ago when John Sweeney himself was elected when there were challenges levied against the old leadership in terms of their strategies. However, the differences in strategic perspective between the two camps this time are not quite so serious as they were 10 years ago, but the ramifications may be more serious because a split could occur. The last time we saw a major split in the national labor movement was actually in the mid-1930s when a group of unions left the old American Federation of Labor to form a competing federation that focused on organizing workers by industry, but the environment was quite different then.
NEARY: Yeah. And why would you say labor right now seems to be in such a weak position?
Prof. HURD: Well, I think that labor's particularly weak now both because of the continuing economic change which has created challenges for some time, but also, I think, a primary problem is that we have a government in Washington that is probably the most antagonistic to the labor movement in the modern era, and they are pursuing policies that make it extraordinarily difficult for unions directly in the federal sector and indirectly throughout the rest of the economy, and that emboldens employers to pursue anti-union strategies, which makes it very hard for unions to gain a foothold and it's hard to organize new workers in this kind of political and legislative environment.
NEARY: Well, in the long run the kind of dissent that's going on now, is that good, is it necessary to get fresh ideas out there, or at this time when unions are in such a weak position, is it dangerously diverting for the labor movement?
Prof. HURD: It's probably both. I think it's extraordinarily important that labor do soul searching and think about the strategies and the priorities and look at ways to institute change that is dramatic enough to confront the kind of real challenges that labor faces, and you have to give credit to the Change to Win Coalition unions that they're at least pushing for some kind of dramatic change.
At the same time, there's danger involved because if labor ends up feuding amongst itself seriously, then the people that benefit are the corporations and the enemies of labor in the political environment.
NEARY: All right. Thanks so much for joining us today.
Prof. HURD: Certainly.
NEARY: Richard Hurd is a professor of industrial and labor relations at Cornell University and he joined us from his office in Ithaca, New York.
And we're joined now in Studio 3A by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.
Thanks so much for taking time out of your schedule. I know you're busy preparing for next week's AFL-CIO constitutional convention in Chicago.
Mr. JOHN SWEENEY (President, AFL-CIO): Oh, thank you very much for having me.
NEARY: We've just been hearing about this Change to Win Coalition, the dissent going on within the AFL-CIO. Let's start by having you assess the situation for us.
Mr. SWEENEY: Well, the change process that's going on was started by me several months ago. Change is good. I think the debate that we're having is a debate that's necessary, and how the federation changes to better represent workers, how do we grow and how do we become even more effective with political mobilization, and that's what really is the crux of this whole debate that's going on. It's not about who. It's about where are we headed and how do we address the issues that we're confronted with. And as you just heard from Rich Hurd, the labor movement organized three million workers over the past 10 years. I'm sorry, four million. We lost in the past four and a half years three million good manufacturing jobs with good benefits as a result of trade policies and other issues that our government is enforcing. There's--people are angry. They're frustrated. They want to grow the labor movement. They want to make it even more effective, and that's what this debate is about and hopefully...
NEARY: You said this change was coming from you, but we have five labor unions here in a coalition threatening to actually pull out of the AFL-CIO. This is more than just reform from within the union, I would think.
Mr. SWEENEY: Well, they have made proposals on change and we have had discussions with them about their proposals, and we've narrowed the gap between--that existed between the two sets of proposals. But I'm still hopeful that they're going to remain in the federation and that we're going to resolve these differences during the course of the time before the convention.
NEARY: What are the differences? Maybe we could define what the differences are that--what they're asking for...
Mr. SWEENEY: Well, some of the major concerns for both of us is how do we organize more workers and how do we reallocate our resources for organizing, and at the same time maintain a strong, effective political program because public policy has impacts on the laws that are important for the rights to organize workers. It's the affiliates, the individual unions who do the organizing, and we have set goals and standards where an individual union should be committing 30 percent of their resources to organizing. If that was happening, we'd have $500 million a year dedicated to organizing new workers, and that's the direction that we have to move if we're really going to grow.
But it's not just that. It's also that we have to change the labor laws and make a more level playing field for workers who want to join or want to express themselves in terms of whether they join or form a union.
NEARY: We're talking with John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO. We're gonna take a call from Roger in San Francisco.
Hi, Roger. Go ahead.
ROGER (Caller): Yes. Thank you for this opportunity and, John, it's an honor to talk to you.
Mr. SWEENEY: Thank you.
ROGER: I think the problem with unions today, and I really think it's better if unions stay together rather than split apart...
Mr. SWEENEY: I agree.
ROGER: ...is that we've lost sight of our roots. And the second thing is that we are facing something terrible in this country and that is the outsourcing of jobs. We're going to find ourselves completely dependant on other nations for our--all kinds of products, from electronics to everyday use products in homes. In fact, if you look around your home today, there's hardly anything made in America. So I think unions really have to get back to their roots and remember how...
NEARY: What do you mean by their roots? What are you saying?
ROGER: Well, we fought hard. I'm retired from Stationary Engineers Local 39 here in San Francisco. But we fought hard for certain rights, for health care and we set up all kinds of educational opportunities for our union members to upgrade their abilities. But I think that we're--somehow too many labor people have been playing around with Republicans. It's incre--I've never met a conservative that had any use for unions, and I think there's been a mo--some thinking in the labor movement that you can play with them, you can work with them. You cannot work with them. You can...
NEARY: All right, Roger. If you can hold on, I'm going to ask John Sweeney to respond to the points you're making after we take a short break.
We're talking with John Sweeney, the president of the AFL-CIO, about the future of organized labor, and we're taking your calls at (800) 989-TALK. We especially want to hear from union members. And you can send us an e-mail at totn@npr.org. I'm Lynn Neary. It's TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.
(Soundbite of music)
NEARY: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Lynn Neary in Washington. Neal Conan is out today.
The AFL-CIO meets in Chicago next week to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the merger between the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations. But instead of unity, the big talk is about a split, the threatened pullout by five major union who are demanding a shift in the labor movement's focus and energy. We asked representatives of this dissident coalition to join our conversation today; all declined. We are talking about those issues with AFL-CIO head John Sweeney, who joins us here in the studio, and we want to hear from you. If you're in a union, what are your questions for John Sweeney. And if you're not in a unionized industry, do you think a union would be helpful to you? Give us a call at (800) 989-TALK, and our e-mail address is totn@npr.org.
Before the break we were listening to Roger in San Francisco making a couple of points that I'd like you to respond to, Mr. Sweeney. First of all, Roger was talking about the fact that he feels the labor movement has lost sight of its roots, perhaps some of the labor movement are toying with the Republican Party, flirting with the Republican Party, and also a very serious concern for labor, the question of outsourcing.
Mr. SWEENEY: Well, as Roger has raised some very important issues, there's no question about it, that we should be very mindful of our roots and what has been done by members and leaders in the past in building the American trade union movement. But we also have to be aware of the fact that the challenges facing working people today are enormous. Working people are under the worst attack in 80 years, and it's coming both from the administration in Washington as well as many of their followers who are governors of states around the country, and corporations are taking their lead from the administration in terms of how they deal with workers.
The AFL-CIO has to--while mindful of our roots, we have to change the way we do business. We have to be more effective in growing, and we also have to mobilize the grassroots activists more and more in campaigns. Our unions are bipartisan. Twenty-five percent of our members are probably Republicans, but the problem we have these days is finding moderate Republicans who will support workers and their priorities and their families' priorities, and that's an awesome challenge for us, but that's what we're working on.
NEARY: And on the issue of outsourcing?
Mr. SWEENEY: Outsourcing is really a major, major problem, and the impact that it has had on good jobs in our own country and the--it's a part of bad trade policies and also bad tax policies when it comes to companies moving to other parts of the world, and it's where corporations are looking for the cheapest possible deal. It's not where they're improving the standard of living in our trading partners' countries, but they're exploiting workers as a result of all this, as well as the negative impact it's had on workers in our own country.
NEARY: All right. Thanks so much for your call, Roger. Thank you for calling, Roger.
ROGER: Right. And if I could say one last thing?
NEARY: Go ahead.
ROGER: The unions will be stronger united than divided. If you divide, they'll pick you off. Just stay strong and stay together and be more aggressive. Get out there and get new members. That's where the hope lies. American people are waking up to what's happening to them. Pretty soon, all kinds of jobs will be lost in this country. Not just union jobs. But thank you very much for the opportunity.
NEARY: Thanks for your call.
Mr. SWEENEY: Thanks, Roger.
NEARY: John Sweeney, you've put a lot of emphasis on political organizing, and some might say even to the detriment of attracting more members. Are the failed presidential campaigns of Al Gore and John Kerry a measure of--or a reflection of labor's declining influence?
Mr. SWEENEY: Well, on one hand you've seen the labor movement probably wage its strongest campaigns in 2000 and 2004, and that's measured by the turnout of voters from union households as a percentage of the total turnout. It's also measured by the number of rank-and-file workers who are active in issues campaigns as well as political campaigns. And in the last election there was a quarter of a million workers who were working in different states around the country on their issues, on their priorities, and yet it wasn't enough, and we have to build a stronger coalition with other organizations as well as the labor movement who support progressive candidates and hold these candidates accountable on the issues that are important to workers.
NEARY: Has it been a mistake to put that much emphasis and perhaps spend that much money on political campaigns?
Mr. SWEENEY: All of our money goes to educating and mobilizing workers. None of the AFL-CIO's money goes to individual candidates or party contributions, and the individual unions in some cases do support candidates of their choosing of those who they have endorsed. But it's bipartisan support, both parties with, in this day and age, more of it going to the Democratic Party.
NEARY: We're talking with John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO. If you'd like to join our discussion, the number is 1 (800) 989-8255. And we're gonna go to Marcus in Cleveland, Ohio.
Hello, Marcus.
MARCUS (Caller): Hi. How are you?
NEARY: Good.
MARCUS: I'm a union member. I'm a member of Branch 40 of the National Association of Letter Carriers. And it seems to me these days that the union has become more impotent. Number one, if you look over and watch the news or whatever, you see companies being able to get out without paying any into their retirement systems. They're talking about rolling back family medical leave. There's so many other things. And the new Americans--we talk about all the immigrants that's coming here. You know, are you making--having a focus of trying to get those minorities, 'cause most of them are minorities, Latinos, Latin Americans, Hispanics or whatever, to join the union, you know, and help them get a living wage?
Mr. SWEENEY: All of the issues that you raise, Marcus, are important issues and just dealing with the last one that you raised in terms of immigrant workers, the AFL-CIO, the labor movement strongly supports strong reform of our immigration laws and giving these folks citizenship, giving them the protection of the labor laws that other workers in our country enjoy, and going after the exploitation of workers. These workers are real potential for organization. In many of the industries that they work in, there are very, very active organizing drives, and a lot of our growth has been among the immigrant workers and the low-wage workers.
We also, in addition to focusing on the issues that are important--and when you say impotent, it's not about the labor movement being impotent, it's about the policy-makers and the present leadership of the Congress that have really not supported any pro-working family issues or agendas. I mean, you take a look at health-care as an example.
MARCUS: Exactly.
Mr. SWEENEY: There are 45 million people today without health care. You take a look at all of the problems that we've seen in private-sector pension funds and the bankruptcy of--in different industries. An industry like the airline industry as an example. And we need legislation and we need the protection of a PBGC, as an example, that will guarantee...
NEARY: What's a PBGC?
Mr. SWEENEY: Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.
MARCUS: Guaranty...
Mr. SWEENEY: We need--that entity has not been able to deal with a whole industry. It was structured to deal with individual employers, but we need legislation or regulation that will protect the pensions of workers when a whole industry is impacted by some of the changes that are taking place. But there's any number of these areas that directly impact on workers' lives that have to be addressed, and we need an administration in Washington that's going to measure up to that.
NEARY: Right. Thank...
MARCUS: Right, and we need to be able to call those congressmen on the carpet who have their really cushy benefits up there, but they don't want nobody else to get those kind of benefits.
NEARY: All right. Thanks so much for your call, Marcus.
Mr. SWEENEY: And folks like yourself have to--who are active have to make those calls as well.
NEARY: All right. Well, the dissident group or the dissenters within the AFL-CIO, the kinds of things that they're asking you to do, how are you responding? I mean, we've heard that they want you to put more emphasis on organizing, on getting members in rather than on the politics. Are you going to respond to that positively?
Mr. SWEENEY: Sure, and we are responding and we are planning to reallocate our resources and put more money into organizing. But they also have to respond and have to show that they're measuring up to the task themselves in terms of how much of their own resources they put into organizing and how much growth they've had in their own unions over the past several years. I mean, this is not about one individual union, it's about the whole labor movement, and there are tremendous opportunities for organizing in just about every industry that's out there, and individual unions have to measure up to those challenges.
We are having discussions with the individual unions about their proposals and trying to find some common ground. It's gonna require the support of all of the AFL-CIO. It's not just about one union making a proposal and if they don't get their way they pick up their marbles and they leave the game. This is about a federation and unity is important for that success.
NEARY: Well, what will it mean if these five unions pick up their marbles and leave the game and leave the AFL-CIO? What does that say about where the labor movement is now in terms of its strength and where will it be in the future?
Mr. SWEENEY: Well, there's no question about it. It could be very painful. But I prefer to talk about what can we do to keep these unions in the federation, and that's what I'm planning to do. That's what I have been doing and will be doing throughout next week during the convention. And...
NEARY: Are you in discussions now prior to the convention or will...
Mr. SWEENEY: Yes, yes. I said earlier that we have been meeting and talking about these issues and trying to find some ways to get agreement among them on their various proposals and how they might be modified.
NEARY: All right. Let's take another call from--we're gonna take a call from Mark, and he's in McLean, Virginia.
Hi, Mark.
MARK (Caller): Hi.
NEARY: Hi. Go ahead.
MARK: I just have a comment about unionization and the growth of unions and that being that in the airline industry, the union that represents me seems to be focused more on the big issues, which, I mean, are huge--the pensions and so on, throughout, you know, a bankruptcy--an ugly bankruptcy, but I know there's also a movement among my group of workers that feel that we're not really represented by our unions because it's focused on the top 5 or 10 percent seniority, and the less junior workers don't get the same representation.
NEARY: What is it that you and these co-workers feel the unions should be doing for you, specifically, that they're not doing?
MARK: We just don't feel that we get the same focus of representation on issues, and this is, you know, more of a--my comments are more about unionization being focused on the big picture of growing unions in general and maybe perhaps part of that growth is inhibited by other workers not seeing that the unions actually work for the employees that are already under their jurisdiction.
NEARY: Good point, Mark. Thanks for your call. And I just want to remind our audience that we are talking with John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, and you're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.
John Sweeney, what about that listener's comment, the fact that perhaps one of the obstacles to getting more membership in unions is that workers don't feel unions are effective in representing them?
Mr. SWEENEY: Well, I think when a worker singles out a concern or an issue over whether the most senior people are getting more attention from the union than the less senior, the caller didn't identify which union, but as far as I can assess, the unions in the airline industry have very strong contracts. Those contracts are to protect all the workers and not just groups of different categories of workers, and there's no question about it, especially during a time like this, workers in the airline industry need strong unions with strong contracts, and that's probably the greatest benefit that those workers have in terms of their union membership, and especially in a time like this. They need a strong union that's going to go through the litigation and whatever the battle is going to be over the pension rights of these workers, and it's a real time of crisis, and it's not a time for disunity or for going non-union. It's a time for strengthening the union that they belong to.
NEARY: Let's see if we can get one more call in. John in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Hi, John.
JOHN (Caller): Hey, how you doing?
NEARY: Good. Go ahead.
JOHN: Yeah. Just an outside viewpoint, somebody who's never been in a union. It seems to me when you look at industries like the airline industry and the automotive industry and you see the unions, you know, demand higher pay increases and bigger and better health-care benefits and they lock these companies into contracts, it seems like--and especially paying no regard to market conditions, as to what's going on with competitors who may be non-unionized, it just seems that the very workers have gone from fighting for workers' rights, which is where unions started so we wouldn't have kids cleaning out smokestacks in the '20s, to just demanding more and more and more, and they're breaking the backs of the very companies that are feeding them.
NEARY: John Sweeney.
Mr. SWEENEY: Well, if you take the two examples that you mentioned in terms of the auto industry and the airline industry...
JOHN: Look, I just want to point out one thing. I apologize for interrupting. But when you look at what American auto dealers are having to do right now, where they're having to do things such as every American auto dealer is switching to employee pricing to try to get people in the door to buy American products because their prices were so inflated, when you compare it to the Japanese products, you know, such as Toyota, Scion, Mazda and the other ones, it's sad when what would be an internal benefit to an employee now has to be offered to the public to get the price down on the products, so that it attracts American consumers back to their product.
NEARY: All right. Thanks for your call, John. I'm going to ask John Sweeney just to respond to that final comment of...
Mr. SWEENEY: Well, I don't see it being too sad that the companies are offering the employee discount to all of their consumers. I think it's a good indication of very successful companies marketing their product, and I think they're still going to make a substantial profit. And I think consumers are very happy over this.
I also think that in both cases, both your reference to the airline industry and the auto industry, they've been affected in different ways by public policy; the auto industry by our trade policies and the airline industry by deregulation, and those are moves that have really made a dynamic change in the fate of both industries.
NEARY: All right. We've been talking about the future of the labor movement with John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, which kicks off its 25th Constitutional Convention in Chicago next week. Thanks so much for being with us, Mr. Sweeney.
Mr. SWEENEY: Thank you. Good to be with you.
NEARY: It's TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.