By Mark Gruenberg
PAI Staff Writer

(PAI) - The Service Employees International Union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and later the United Food and Commercial Workers Union left the AFL-CIO on July 25.

The disaffiliation by three of the federation's largest unions, who have four million members combined, disappointed and angered AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney, a former SEIU President. Before the pullout, the AFL-CIO had nearly 13 million members.

"Pulling out…dishonors the founders and members of my union," Sweeney said in his keynote address to the federation convention at Chicago's Navy Pier.

"It is a grievous insult to all the unions that helped us," he added, referring to SEIU's past struggles to win bargaining rights, helped by other federation unions. The pullout also insulted "the unions who came here to discuss and debate difficult issues and make historic changes" in the federation, said Sweeney.

But Teamsters President James Hoffa and SEIU President Andrew Stern took a sharply different view of why their unions left the House of Labor.

"It's a new era. This is not the (19)30s any more. Companies, not countries, run the economy," Stern said to a packed press conference in Chicago after his board's vote.

"The loose structure of the AFL-CIO is not the way to go in the 21st century. It (the labor movement) is not about independence. It's about interdependence," he declared.

To further that goal, the unions in the dissenting "Change to Win" coalition - the Teamsters, SEIU, the Laborers, the Farm Workers, UNITE HERE and the non-AFL-CIO Carpenters - met in Chicago to start sketching out such joint efforts.

"We're talking about hiring permanent skilled staff to form a core in organizing, then have our unions work with those people to go out and organize," Hoffa said. Emphasizing organizing in "core industries" is the top priority of the coalition, including the two unions that left.

Hoffa expanded on the Teamsters' views in a statement: "In our view, we must have more union members in order to change the political climate that is undermining workers rights in this country. The AFL-CIO has chosen the opposite approach.

"Today's decision means that we have chosen a course of growth and strength for the American labor movement based on organizing new members. Striking workers, no matter what union they belong to, can always count on the Teamsters for support and assistance. That is our history and tradition and we will never waver from our proud role as defenders of America's working families.

"We will continue to work with our brothers and sisters in the building trades, in state federations and central labor councils to achieve justice for all working people."

In a separate interview with Press Associates Union News Service, Laborers President Terry O'Sullivan - whose union, though part of the coalition, is staying in the AFL-CIO for now - said one advantage the new group would provide is more and better research, coordination and capital strategies to support joint organizing campaigns.

"Bruce Raynor's got 80 strategic researchers and Andy's got 200," O'Sullivan said of the presidents of UNITE HERE and SEIU. "We have a handful in the building trades. We've never had national campaigns against national contractors. Now we can complement local and regional organizing" by locals and councils "with a national campaign," he added.

Dues were also a factor in the Teamster and SEIU pullouts. Hoffa and Stern each said his union sends $10 million yearly in per capita dues to the AFL-CIO. Each pledged to use the money for organizing, instead. Hoffa said IBT would probably split the money, which he called "new money," 50-50 between organizing and paying for the Change to Win structure. Stern was not specific.

And Hoffa reiterated his previous proposal that the AFL-CIO rebate half of any union's dues to those unions that create and engage in strategic organizing campaigns. The AFL-CIO Executive Council rejected that earlier this year.

"They said 'no.' Their idea is to keep throwing money at politicians. We say we have to grow and we say now it's time to change," he declared.

Sweeney and his allies held a strong majority in the AFL-CIO even before SEIU and the Teamsters withdrew. He viewed the situation differently.

In his opening speech, but before the dissenters' votes, Sweeney called the pullout "a tragedy for working people. Because it's at a time when our corporate and conservative adversaries have created the most powerful anti-worker political machine in the history of our country, a divided labor movement hurts the hopes of working families."

After the two voted to leave, he added the pullout "will injure working people, who deserve better. I have trust and confidence that the people in this hall" - the remaining unions - "will work harder to overcome this obstacle."