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Reuniting doesn't feel so good, as Change-to-Win's attempt to link with AFL-CIO fails

Date Posted: May 26 2006

The nation's old and new labor federations aren't playing nice.

The fledgling Change-to-Win (CTW) Federation proposed a plan last month to develop a link with the 51-year-old AFL-CIO, in an effort to find ways for the two federations "to work together at the local level on issues of common concern."

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney mocked the idea, saying in an April 19 letter that the "last thing we can imagine doing - less than a year (after CTW unions) voluntarily left the federation - is investing time and resources into 'co-founding' yet a third labor federation, with all the bureaucracy, expense, and additional staffing that would entail."

He told he New York Times that there's "obvious irony" in the idea to "essentially recreate the AFL-CIO as it existed prior to" the formation of the Change-to-Win Coalition.

That prompted a return salvo from Change-to-Win federation chair Anna Burger, who said she wanted to correct Sweeney's public "mischaracterizations" of the CTW proposal, called the "Alliance for Worker Justice."

The CTW proposal, she wrote, would not require the "creation of a bureaucracy, staff, and new resources," but would "enable us to bring the best of all our organizations together at critical times. It also recognizes our differences and would enable us to implement our different strategies." Specific issues could include working conditions, health and safety and political action.

Lane Windham, a spokeswoman for the AFL-CIO, then told the Associated Press that the breakaway unions "could stay involved by staying in the AFL-CIO."

This disagreement is an extension of the lack of a meeting of the minds that drove the Change-to-Win unions away from the AFL-CIO last year, which then lost about one-third of its membership. The Service Employees International Union, Teamsters and United Food and Commercial Workers Union broke away from the AFL-CIO on July 25, 2005. They were joined by the Carpenters, Laborers, Farm Workers and UNITE-HERE (Needletrades and Restaurant employees).

Change-to-Win unions protested the direction of the AFL-CIO, especially its inability to grow America's unions and the spending of dues money on political action, rather than organizing, among other grievances. "It's a new era. This is not the (19)30s any more. Companies, not countries, run the economy," said Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern when the break was made.

The AFL-CIO's plan to keep unions on the same page is through the use of "solidarity charters," which allows local participation by the disaffiliated unions with AFL-CIO unions on issues of mutual interest.

Despite the rebuff by Sweeney, Burger said the CTW will continue to deal "in good faith" with the AFL-CIO "where it is possible… and we will not allow perceived institutional rivalries to divert us from that course."