Public Employee Press

The World of Work
2nd in a series
Labor's future:
AFL-CIO targets politics, organizing

As leaders clashed over the future direction of the labor movement, the AFL-CIO Executive Council decided in March to strengthen its political war chest.

Meeting March 1 through 3 in Las Vegas, federation leaders voted 2-1 for President John J. Sweeney’s proposal to double labor’s spending on legislative and political activities to $90 million over the next two years.

The proposal was backed by Gerald W. McEntee, president of DC 37’s parent union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, who is the AFL-CIO’s political action chair.

Sweeney and his supporters defeated a proposal pushed by presidents James P. Hoffa of the Teamsters and Andrew L. Stern of the Service Employees International Union to cut the federation’s budget in half and shift the other $35 million into union organizing. Instead, the Council decided to permit dues rebates of up to $15 million to help fund organizing drives.

Stern also wants to give the AFL-CIO power to mandate union mergers and bargaining coalitions to strengthen labor’s hand in negotiations with global corporations. He has argued that Sweeney’s approach will fail to revive organized labor, which represents 12.5 percent of the workforce, the lowest level in a century.

The political proposal “commits the Federation to an aggressive program to defeat the anti-union forces that control the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court as well as many state governments,” McEntee said in a letter to AFSCME leaders. The $15 million rebate fund for organizing should provide “critical support” for the efforts of national unions to sign up additional members, he said.

As Sweeney prepares to seek another four-year term at the summer convention, the group led by Stern claims to represent about 40 percent of the federation. Both sides agree that the AFL-CIO must take stronger steps to meet the challenges posed by the re-election of Bush and the continued decline union membership. Less than 13 percent of workers are represented by unions, down from 35 percent in the 1950s.

Stern ally John W. Wilhelm, a top leader of Unite Here, is weighing a challenge to Sweeney, 70. And Stern continues to hold out the possibility that SEIU will pull out of the federation.

“We are very alarmed about it,” said Paul Booth, an assistant to McEntee. A split in the labor movement “would play right into the hands of Karl Rove,” Bush’s top political advisor, Booth said. “Hopefully, common sense will prevail.”