AFL-CIO future gloomy

[hoosier]

Union Bolting AFL-CIO, Others to Follow
07.24.2005, 06:44 PM

The AFL-CIO succumbed to division Sunday, with its largest union deciding to bolt the 50-year-old federation and three others poised to do so in a dispute over how to reverse organized labor's long slide.

The four unions, representing nearly one-third of the AFL-CIO's 13 million members, announced Sunday they would boycott the federation's convention that begins Monday. They are part of the Coalition to Win, a group of seven unions vowing to reform the labor movement - outside the AFL-CIO if necessary.

The Service Employees International Union, with 1.8 million members, plans to announce Monday that it is leaving the AFL-CIO, said several labor officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Teamsters union also was on the verge of disaffiliating, and would likely to be the first to follow SEIU's lead, the officials said. Two other boycotting unions were likely to leave the federation: United Food and Commercial Workers and UNITE HERE, a group of textile and hotel workers.

"Our differences are so fundamental and so principled that at this point I don't think this is a chance there will be a change of course," said UFCW President Joe Hansen.

"Our differences have become unresolvable," said Anna Burger, chairman of the Change to Win Coalition which is setting itself up to be a rival of the AFL-CIO. "Today will be remembered as a rebirth of union strength in America."

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, expected to win easy re-election at the convention, said his team "bent over backward" to appease the dissidents "until it's given us a pain in the you-know-where." Addressing hundreds of unions members, the embattled president said disunity in the AFL-CIO puts workers at risk. But he said he held out hope that dissidents "might come to their senses someday."

[Coramoor]

Well, it's the unions that have driven the steel, car, and manufacturing industries into the ground. Maybe with a turn around they can do some good and revive those industries in the US.

[madmax]

Originally posted by Coramoor
Well, it's the unions that have driven the steel, car, and manufacturing industries into the ground. Maybe with a turn around they can do some good and revive those industries in the US.

You dont know shit. The unions didn't drive the steal, car or manufacturing industries into the ground. Low priced foreign labor drove those industries into the ground.

[DeltAlum]

Originally posted by madmax
You dont know shit. The unions didn't drive the steal, car or manufacturing industries into the ground. Low priced foreign labor drove those industries into the ground.

It was really a combination of both. At least the UAW saw the handwriting on the wall in the 70's and helped save Chrysler. Unfortunately, a lot of unions just kept plugging forward blindly.

Before you ask, yes, I've been in four unions and have also been a manager for years.

[madmax]

Originally posted by DeltAlum
It was really a combination of both. At least the UAW saw the handwriting on the wall in the 70's and helped save Chrysler. Unfortunately, a lot of unions just kept plugging forward blindly.

Before you ask, yes, I've been in four unions and have also been a manager for years.

There is a big difference between the UAW trying to compete with low cost Chinese steel and your "audio/video/production/director/engineering/whatever" union that is probably competing with another union shop that is hiring their labor from the same exact unions and paying the same wages.

When is the last time your TV station had to compete with a rival
station that was paying $1/hour? Probably never.


Back to the topic. What could the UAW have done to compete with low cost imports? What happenes when Chinese labor is actually cheaper than the minimum wage?

[Munchkin03]

Maybe this is just another reminder of the declining relevance of some unions?

[DeltAlum]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by madmax
There is a big difference between the UAW trying to compete with low cost Chinese steel and your "audio/video/production/director/engineering/whatever" union that is probably competing with another union shop that is hiring their labor from the same exact unions and paying the same wages.

When is the last time your TV station had to compete with a rival
station that was paying $1/hour? Probably never.

Max,

It happens all the time -- it's generally a unionized network affilliate vs. a minimum wage independent. Do a little homework before you make that kind of comment.

Or how about a highly unionized network vs. ESPN or a local Fox Sports Channel?

I was working in Detroit in the 70's and helped cover the UAW and it's dealings with Chrysler. Met Doug Frasier, President of the UAW during it's glory years on a number of occassions. A very bright man. His wife is/was (don't know if she's still alive) a PhD.

If he hadn't realized that the UAW had to offer some concessions, Chrysler would have been gone -- and other US automakers might be as well. They might have taken the UAW down with them.

The unions have helped price a number of companies out of business. The smart ones have worked with management to make their industries survive.

[hoosier]

Very Old Labor
Being a wholly owned subsidiary of the DNC isn't working out for Old Labor.
July 26, 2005 - Opinion Journal

The AFL-CIO, the giant union consortium formed in 1955 by George Meany and Walter Reuther, is breaking apart this week in a dispute over how to revive labor's lagging fortunes. The tragedy is that neither faction is offering an agenda that will make workers more prosperous in our increasingly competitive global economy.

Instead, we are witnessing a fight over who gets to preside over a declining labor movement. Two of the largest and more successful unions, the Service Employees International and the Teamsters, are rebelling against the leadership of AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. The irony is that it wasn't all that long ago, in 1995, that Mr. Sweeney won his job with his own coup against Lane Kirkland, the Cold War hero and more moderate labor voice.

In the wake of the GOP takeover of Congress the year before, Mr. Sweeney promised to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into electoral politics to stop the Gingrich revolution. He staffed AFL-CIO headquarters with activists from the political left--environmental groups, culturally liberal outfits--and made the union consortium a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party.

A decade later we can see how that turned out. Democrats remain in the House and Senate minority, and union membership continues to decline across the American economy. The unionized share of the total U.S. work force has been sliding steadily for years, and was down again last year to 12.5% from 12.9% in 2003. In the more dynamic private sector, only 7.9% of employees now carry the union label.

Service workers President Andy Stern wants to arrest this decline by diverting more labor resources into union organizing, especially at such large employers as Wal-Mart. One of his rebel allies, Terence O'Sullivan of the Laborers International Union, wants to more aggressively use union pension funds and financial assets to influence corporate decisions and gain seats on corporate boards. Mr. Sweeney doesn't oppose either idea, but he also wants to pour cash into Congressional lobbying and Democratic coffers. Mr. Stern replies that this money will largely be wasted until unions increase their member ranks, and for our non-union money he's probably right.

What's missing on both sides, however, is a vision of economic opportunity that might actually make workers want to join a union in the first place. Tactics aside, both factions continue to believe in the idea of unions that arose in the Industrial Age: Greedy management versus the exploited working man, seniority over flexibility, fixed benefits and strike threats over working with management to keep a U.S.-based company profitable and innovative in a world of growing competition. On the political front, both factions favor trade protection, higher taxes and government help to enforce restrictive work rules. This is the agenda of Old Europe, where jobless rates are above 10%, and it merely offers more economic insecurity in the U.S. as well.

What the labor movement really needs is a new generation of leaders who understand the emerging competition to U.S. workers from the likes of India and China. Rather than oppose imports to protect textile jobs that can't be saved, such leaders would work to reform education so future Americans can compete in the knowledge industries that will grow the fastest. They'd also work to make pensions and health insurance transportable from company to company, so a worker wouldn't be trapped by benefits in a job or industry he didn't like. They'd be partners with management, not antagonists.

Without such a new vision, Big Labor will only continue its slide. All the more so given new Labor Department rules, recently upheld in court after an AFL-CIO challenge, requiring that unions disclose more details about how they spend hard-earned member dues. Some of the nation's largest unions will now have to disclose their spending by specific categories, such as political donations, grievance proceedings, or organizing. This sunshine will expose just how much labor money is being wasted on political activities that have little to do with improving workers' lives.

Union leaders seem genuinely to believe that their glory days will return if only they can defeat President Bush, or oust Tom DeLay as House Majority Leader. But their real obstacle is the reality of the modern global economy. Until they offer workers something more than class warfare, circa 1955, they will continue to decline.