The Financial Times
Efforts to revitalize the labor movement are running into serious obstacles, threatening any significant fightback after more than 20 years of trade-union decline.
That's the main finding of an internal report commissioned by the AFL-CIO.
There is "shallow support" in many unions for campaigns to recruit new members, the report said, citing ill-prepared organizers with poor management and leadership skills at all levels, a high turnover among union organizers and poor planning and evaluation of membership campaigns.
The report, coordinated by Cornell University industrial relations professor Richard Hurd, said that more often than not, "union leaders, staff and activists have struggled to respond to crises associated with the change process."
After the 1995 election of John Sweeney as AFL-CIO president, unions launched a highly publicized campaign to restore lost power and influence through membership drives. But figures show private-sector unionization continues to decline from 10.8 percent three years ago to only 9.7 percent in 1997.
The AFL-CIO strategy seeks to encourage affiliate unions to shift their resources from servicing existing members to recruiting new ones.
"There is a widespread resistance to change from staff," the report says. "They accept and even support the shift to organizing, but are concerned the quality of representational efforts on behalf of current members is suffering as a result."
The report also speaks of a disconnection between union organizers and other staff: "The most extreme criticism is that organizers do not care about current members, and this is given credence by the interview responses of some organizers who display a cynical attitude about the apathy in established units and the conservatism of staff."
The report found widespread reluctance among union leaders locally to risk loss of support among existing members by an over-commitment to organizing new ones. "The net result of political concerns is that the form of organizational change is not matched by the substance."
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