June 11, 1998
A.F.L.-C.I.O. Organizing Director Is Ousted
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ASHINGTON -- The A.F.L.-C.I.O. president, John J. Sweeney, has dismissed the federation's organizing director in a move reflecting concerns about recruiting new members, labor officials said Tuesday.
The likely replacement for the director, Richard Bensinger, the officials said, is Kirk Adams, a regional field coordinator for the A.F.L.-C.I.O.
The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Sweeney acted on Monday in consultation with several union presidents who sit on the federation's organizing committee. An A.F.L.-C.I.O. spokeswoman declined to comment, and Bensinger did not return telephone calls.
Bensinger, a high-energy organizer from Colorado, was never shy about saying that he thought that labor's decline over the past two decades was attributable to union leaders' laziness.
Though admired among his fellow organizers, his direct manner rubbed some officials the wrong way.
Rich Gibson Director of International Social Studies Wayne State University College of Education Detroit MI 48202
http://www.pipeline.com/~rgibson/index.html http://www.pipeline.com/~rgibson/meap.html
Life travels upward in spirals.
Those who take pains to search the shadows
of the past below us, then, can better judge the
tiny arc up which they climb,
more surely guess the dim
curves of the future above them.