MARKETPLACE (Minnesota Public Radio), September 27, Tuesday

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MARKETPLACE

SHOW: Marketplace 6:30 AM EST SYND

September 27, 2005 Tuesday

HEADLINE: New labor federation holds its first convention in St. Louis

ANCHORS: KAI RYSSDAL

REPORTERS: JOHN DIMSDALE

BODY:
KAI RYSSDAL, anchor:
Organized labor is trying to start a new chapter in its somewhat disorganized history. The seven unions that recently broke away from the AFL-CIO gathered today in St. Louis to establish a new federation. Delegates picked Anna Burger to run the new organization, the first woman to head a major labor federation. She has nearly six million union members behind her and she's hoping for more. MARKETPLACE's John Dimsdale reports now from St. Louis.
JOHN DIMSDALE reporting:
The unions that left the AFL-CIO last July took with them $16 million in annual dues. The federation's new leader Anna Burger said three-fourths of those dues will be devoted to a priority the renegade unions claim got short shrift at the AFL-CIO, organizing new union members.
Ms. ANNA BURGER (President, Change to Win): Organizing is our core principle. It is our North Star, uniting workers by industry; not one shop at a time, but whole companies all at one time; wholesale, not retail.
DIMSDALE: The breakaway unions call themselves the Change to Win federation. It includes janitors, hotel maids, food and farm workers and truck drivers. Their leaders say they represent a new generation of employees, more diverse than the old labor movement dominated by men with blue collars and white faces. Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees Union, told the convention the new federation will speak for the working poor, particularly in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Mr. ANDY STERN (President, Service Employees International Union): We're here to say to pledge again that no one, no one ever again who works their whole life will die in rising floodwaters simply because they don't have money to pay for gas.
DIMSDALE: The new coalition has announced an aggressive campaign to train and organize cleanup workers in the Gulf region. At Cornell University, the director of labor education, Kate Bronfenbrenner, says Katrina's floods have given the Change to Win federation a timely cause.
Ms. KATE BRONFENBRENNER (Cornell University): Hurricane Katrina brought forth, kind of laid bare this issue of race and class and, I would, add gender in America. And I think that this is a point where the American labor movement and the CTW unions have a chance to get up and say that race and class and gender matter.
DIMSDALE: Union leaders of all stripes say they hope to reverse the Bush administration's emergency suspension of the Davis-Bacon rule. It requires federal contractors to pay workers prevailing wages. The White House says the suspension is needed to ensure a quick hurricane response, but unions call it a boon for the president's corporate friends and an attack on workers.
This Change to Win convention has highlighted deep divisions inside the labor movement on other issues. The upstart unions, including Teamsters president James Hoffa, complain the AFL-CIO has lost its focus on what should be labor's top priority.
Mr. JAMES HOFFA (President, International Brotherhood of Teamsters): Wal-Mart! Can we organize Wal-Mart? We've got to! We've got to organize Wal-Mart, and we can do it! We are going to be a lean, mean, organizing machine. That's what we've got to do.
DIMSDALE: The president of the AFL-CIO, John Sweeney, says the split in the union ranks can only hurt workers, but the new federation insists both sides can cooperate. Bruce Raynor, the president of the hospitality and textile union, cites a recent action against Yale University, where carpenters, service employees and laundry workers supported the university janitors' strike for better wages.
Mr. BRUCE RAYNOR (President, Hospitality and Textile Union): We have to make that not once in a while, but an everyday occurrence that unions support each other. The Change to Win unions will do that as part of this federation. But we also intend to have solidarity with the rest of the labor movement that are not part of the Change to Win coalition. We believe in labor solidarity.
DIMSDALE: Raynor and the other renegade union presidents pledged to work at the local level with AFL-CIO unions, although they also say they would welcome any of those unions into their new movement. In St. Louis, I'm John Dimsdale for MARKETPLACE.