US: our major trade unions are set to leave the United States' main labour grouping, writes Thomas Edsall in Chicago
Four major US trade unions announced on Sunday that they will boycott this week's convention of the country's main union grouping, the AFL-CIO, and union officials said all four are likely to leave the AFL-CIO altogether, fracturing the federation that for 50 years has represented the US labour movement.
The four unions complain that the AFL-CIO leadership has failed to stem a steady decline in the percentage of workers represented by unions and believe AFL-CIO president John J Sweeney should have retired to let new leaders take charge. The dissidents say they want to restore the labour movement to a position of power in the political system and the economy.
"Today we have reached a point where our differences have become irresolvable," said Anna Burger, a top official of the Service Employees International Union and chair of the insurgent Change to Win Coalition.
Yesterday the SEIU's president, Andrew Stern, announced its formal withdrawal from the AFL-CIO.
The presidents of the Teamsters and the United Food and Commercial Workers signalled they are prepared to resign from the AFL-CIO. Unite Here, which represents hotel, restaurant and garment workers, is also on the verge of leaving the federation.
SEIU is the largest of the 56 unions in the AFL-CIO, and the four unions threatening to leave represent roughly a third of the 13 million union workers who are in the AFL-CIO and pay about a third of the dues to finance the federation's $120 million (€99.5 million) annual budget.
Mr Stern has led an insurrection calling for major reorganisation and strengthening of the powers of the AFL-CIO and for the retirement of Mr Sweeney, who was Mr Stern's mentor in the labour movement and his predecessor as SEIU president.
Mr Stern contends that in order to survive, unions must be merged into much larger, but fewer, organisations equipped to take on global companies and large chains, especially the convenience store chain Wal-Mart. In addition, Mr Stern contends union organising efforts must be segmented by industry sector to prevent inter-union competition .
The labour movement schism also threatens to leave this critical wing of the Democratic Party split for the election of 2006 and probably 2008. Organised labour contributes tens of millions of dollars and workers for Democratic election campaigns.
Mr Sweeney (71) has rejected calls to retire and attacked the convention boycott as "an insult (to) union brothers and sisters, and to all working people . . . It's fundamentally wrong to use working people's issues as a fig leaf for a power struggle."
For the past nine months, Mr Sweeney and his allies have been meeting leaders of the unions in the Change to Win Coalition in an effort to broker a compromise.However, they accused Mr Stern and other dissidents of a lack of respect while the coalition described the talks as fruitless.
Two other unions, the United Farmworkers and the Laborers International Union, have also joined the Change to Win Coalition.