The New York Times, September 13, 2009, Sunday

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
The New York Times

September 13, 2009, Sunday

HEADLINE: Labor Leader Is Stepping Down Both Proud and Frustrated

BYLINE: By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

BODY:
After 14 years at labor's helm, John J. Sweeney will step down from his post this week, having failed to achieve his No. 1 goal: significantly expanding labor's ranks.

Mr. Sweeney, however, the Bronx-born son of a bus driver and a housekeeper, can boast of another achievement: as president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., he transformed labor into a political powerhouse that helped elect President Obama and many other Democrats.

Not surprisingly, after eight years out in the cold under President George W. Bush, Mr. Sweeney and labor are now eager for Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats to show their gratitude by enacting some major union-friendly legislation. But so far, Congress has not delivered.

Mr. Sweeney, 75, said he was holding out hope that Mr. Obama would push through a health care overhaul as well as legislation that would make it considerably easier to unionize. Both bills have been slowed by intense Republi-can opposition and hesitation among moderate Democrats.

''We realize this is a historic time, and we have to get the health care reform now,'' he said. ''We can't wait an-other 10 years.''

He said Mr. Obama had told him and other labor leaders that the momentum created when health care legislation passes would build momentum for the pro-union legislation.

Mr. Sweeney's longtime No. 2, Richard L. Trumka, is set to be elected president Wednesday at the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s convention in Pittsburgh, a day after Mr. Obama speaks there. Mr. Trumka is running unopposed.

In a lengthy interview, Mr. Sweeney made it clear that he was stepping down filled with both pride and frustra-tion.

He insisted that he had embraced the right strategies to turn things around for labor: prodding individual unions to spend more on organizing workers; creating alliances with the clergy, students and civil rights groups; and champi-oning the cause of low-wage workers.

When he won the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s presidency in 1995, he said that on his watch the union movement would or-ganize millions of workers in a surge of unionization like that in the 1930s. In fact, union membership declined by 170,000 during his watch, to 16.1 million, although it rose somewhat the past two years.

In discussing what went wrong, Mr. Sweeney sounded as if the world had often conspired against him -- and all of labor.

Sitting in his conference room, which looks across Lafayette Park to the White House, he said, ''We had eight years of an antiworker administration,'' a comment on the years under Mr. Bush. ''We had some very bad trade policies, and that drastically affected manufacturing industries,'' long the heart of labor.

For instance, the United Automobile Workers was so hurt by Detroit's woes that its membership has dwindled to under 500,000 from 1.5 million in 1979.

''Based on the optimism that supporters of the labor movement felt in 1995 when he was elected, I think it's hard not to be disappointed with the results,'' said Richard W. Hurd, a professor of labor relations at Cornell University. ''How much of that you can trace back to John Sweeney is a whole other question.''

Many unions ignored his pleas to intensify organizing efforts. Corporations mounted expensive, sophisticated campaigns to beat back unionization drives. The number of manufacturing workers has plunged nearly one-third, falling by 5.5 million, this decade.

Professor Hurd said Mr. Sweeney had been gaining momentum during President Bill Clinton's second term. ''The narrow defeat of Al Gore in the 2000 election was incredibly disappointing to labor because, until then, labor was mov-ing in a positive direction,'' he said. ''Starting with the Bush presidency, the environment shifted dramatically, and it became very difficult for unions.''

Randel K. Johnson, senior vice president for labor at the United States Chamber of Commerce, said Mr. Sweeney was too quick to blame corporations for labor's troubles. ''He continues to have an out-of-date message,'' Mr. Johnson said, ''while demonizing employers inaccurately.''

The current economic downturn has meant layoffs for many union members and reduced ranks for many unions. Mr. Sweeney said, ''I think the recession is going to drive people to the conclusion that they can't resolve their problems by themselves and they have to look to organizing.''

He draws a lesson from his childhood. ''Because of the union, my father got things like vacation days or a raise in wages,'' he said. ''But my mother, who worked as a domestic, had nobody. It taught me from a young age the difference between workers who are organized and workers who were by themselves.''

Charles B. Craver, a professor of labor law at George Washington University, said Mr. Sweeney's vision was too locked in the past. ''They continue using blue-collar techniques to organize 21st-century workers,'' he said.

Many workers are eager to have a collective voice at work, Professor Craver said, even though they balk at be-ing associated with anything called a union.

Mr. Sweeney said one of his most important strategies had been reaching out to workers, many of them immi-grants, not typically allied with unions -- day laborers, taxi drivers and car wash workers.

Indeed, a major part of his legacy is having shifted labor's stance toward immigrants from an antagonistic one that viewed immigrants as stealing union members' jobs and lowering their wages to a sympathetic one that viewed im-migrants as workers whom employers often preyed upon, pulling down labor standards for other workers.

Under Mr. Sweeney, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. reversed itself and supported legislation that would give citizenship to il-legal immigrants.

Mr. Sweeney originally promised to serve at most 10 years as president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., a federation of 56 unions representing about nine million workers. But in 2005, several union presidents urged him to serve another four-year term, viewing him as the best person to stabilize labor when several major unions quit the A.F.L.-C.I.O.

At the time, some officials said labor would benefit from having a more charismatic leader, better at wooing young workers.

Mr. Trumka, 61, the former president of the United Mine Workers, shares Mr. Sweeney's dream of reviving la-bor. He is a more dynamic speaker and is more confrontational and impatient than Mr. Sweeney.

Mr. Trumka, raising the same high hopes that Mr. Sweeney once did, will face many of the same problems: jobs moving overseas, continuing corporate hostility and the indifference that many young and white-collar workers feel toward unions.

Still, Mr. Sweeney said he had done many things to pave the way for a turnaround under Mr. Trumka, like help-ing elect a Democratic president, getting more unions to focus on organizing and pushing for legislation that would make it easier to unionize.

Mr. Sweeney declined to discuss any errors he had made.

''Everybody makes mistakes,'' he said. ''There's always room for improvement. I'm very satisfied with what I ac-complished.''

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GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Richard L. Trumka, left, is set to succeed John J. Sweeney, right, as president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.(PHOTOGRAPH BY CHARLES DHARAPAK/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

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