AFL-CIO’s Future

Steven Greenhouse, (The New York Times) reports on some of the issues likely to confront delegates to the AFL-CIO convention in early March (Union Support Plan to Cut AFL-CIO Contributions).  According to Greenhouse,

"Many of the nation’s largest labor unions, including the Teamsters and Service Employees International Union, are pushing a plan to cut in half most unions’ contributions to the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and instead devote the money to organizing workers, several labor leaders said yesterday."

Delegates will also have to consider the future of current president, John J. Sweeney,

"Union officials say Mr. Stern [Service Employees Union] and Mr. Raynor [UNITE HERE] have told other labor leaders that while they believe Mr. Sweeney is doing the best he can to reverse labor’s decline, it is time for new, more forceful leadership. Mr. Sweeney is viewed as a consensus builder, who acknowledges that he has not succeeded in persuading many unions to increase their organizing as much as he had hoped."

The article also features comments by one of our own, Prof. Charles Craver (George Washington University).

""What we’re seeing is a little what we saw before, when some labor leaders thought it was time to get rid of Lane Kirkland," said Charles Craver, a labor relations expert at George Washington University, referring to Mr. Sweeney’s predecessor. "There’s a feeling that the organization has not been moving forward. John Sweeney has tried very hard to turn things around, but if you look at the bottom line, there is no significant change. The decline has continued unabated.""

Kudos to Prof. Craver!