Organized labor seems ready to start thinning out the herd of financial and insurance services that are offered to members.

A proposal by Laborers International Union President Terrence O'Sullivan would consolidate a number of labor-backed organizations under a single roof for the benefit of members. The proposal was heard last month at the AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting.

The stakes are huge for the potential money shift on Wall Street, where antennas were raised last month after AFL-CIO leaders reached a consensus on consolidating and expanding labor's financial services businesses.

It's an idea "so obvious," said Business Week, "that it's a wonder no one proposed it sooner: vastly expanding labor's lucrative financial-services businesses. After all, labor-owned companies already sell union members everything from life insurance to credit cards. But the companies don't work together and have never even tried to reach all of the country's 16 million union households."

A unified financial services organization under the AFL-CIO would combine the Union Labor Life Insurance Co., the AFL-CIO Building Investment Trust, Union Privilege (which currently offers a credit card, life insurance and mortgages) and possibly Amalgamated Life Insurance.

Less than 10 percent of union members currently take advantage of those services, said O'Sullivan, a chief proponent for the consolidation. Instead, members' insurance needs are provided by corporations, "most of whose interests are not the same as those in the labor movement and working people," O'Sullivan told the Construction Labor Report.

Combining those services, he said, the profits from the unified network could "grow the labor movement, rather than go to corporate America."

The AFL-CIO appointed a working group to look at the consolidation. Proposals call for the hiring of professional financial managers and capturing the hundreds of millions of dollars members currently spend with insurers, credit-card providers and investment houses.

As a comparison, AARP earns $300 million a year by offering services such as health insurance and travel by using its brand in partnership with for-profit companies.

"What's more," Business Week said, "managing hundreds of billions of union pension-fund assets - a key part of the plan - would magnify union efforts to influence proxy votes on CEO pay and other corporate governance issues."