December 1, 2004
When the AFL-CIO executive council gathered in Washington several weeks ago to assess the damage in the wake of President Bush's reelection, it was not the organization's president, John Sweeney, who grabbed the headlines, but Andy Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union.
Stern, who eight years ago succeeded Sweeney at SEIU, chose this opportunity to turn up the heat on his mentor. Arguing that the future of the labor movement is in peril and that the AFL-CIO is an antiquated body unprepared to meet the challenges of the 21st century, Stern and a group of like-minded union leaders pressed for a dramatic makeover in labor's structure and strategic priorities. Their insistence that the AFL-CIO must be transformed - or must get out of the way - has outraged old-time, tradition-bound unionists and has ignited an internal feud that threatens to split the movement into warring factions.
These are difficult times for labor, and not just because of the election. The union share of the workforce has dropped to 8% in the private sector, the lowest level in 100 years and less than one-fourth of the post-World War II peak. Industrial unions have suffered under the weight of globalization, while their counterparts in transportation, communications and utilities have been weakened by deregulation. On top of this, labor faces an inhospitable legal environment made worse by an antagonistic president and Congress.
Stern and his colleagues in what they're calling the New Unity Partnership argue that the growing crisis requires an aggressive response - including not just massive reallocation of resources into recruitment of new members but substantial restructuring as well. They have proposed collapsing the nation's 60-plus unions into no more than 20 powerful mega-unions, each with a clearly defined industry focus. This presumably would allow labor to translate growth directly into power within a market, in contrast to the current arrangement in which unions have multiple jurisdictions and often compete with each other for new members.
Stern has also suggested that the AFL-CIO's authority over its affiliates should be strengthened in order to orchestrate the mergers, and even to shift units from one union to another. This proposal has angered those labor leaders who embrace the tradition of national union autonomy on strategic issues related to bargaining and organizing. The International Assn. of Machinists has even authorized its president, R. Thomas Buffenbarger, to withdraw from the AFL-CIO if Stern's proposals are adopted.
Buffenbarger apparently sees this as more than a disagreement over strategy; he views it as a takeover attempt by a group of elitist intellectuals. Stern - along with his New Unity Partnership colleagues Bruce Raynor of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees and John Wilhelm of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union - represents a new breed of progressive union leaders, all with Ivy League degrees and experience as campus activists in the 1960s and early 1970s. Buffenbarger was quoted in the New York Times as saying that the Ivy League-educated union leaders talk down to the rest.
Other labor leaders have also voiced displeasure, including United Steelworkers of America President Leo Gerard, who has described the efforts of the NUP as presumptuous. Gerard's declaration that "I don't need a lecture about mergers" reflects a view shared by many more traditional leaders, including most of those from smaller unions who fear being gobbled up in any major restructuring.
It is not just the traditionalists who are uneasy; several high-visibility union officials with progressive credentials have also attacked the plan. Among them is Larry Cohen, who is expected to be the next president of the Communications Workers of America. Though he backs increased resources for organizing, Cohen supports equal attention to political initiatives such as labor law reform and rejects the restructuring idea as top-down engineering that would undermine union democracy. This position is shared by the American Federation of Teachers and other public-sector unions.
To date, opponents have offered no clear alternative to the NUP proposal other than the status quo - and Stern has threatened that if the basic restructuring concept is not adopted, he will secede from the AFL-CIO to "build something stronger." Or, the NUP may put up a candidate of its own for the AFL-CIO presidency at next July's convention.
Those who believe that unions play a productive role can only hope that labor leaders take this opportunity to engage in productive debate about the future. If instead they lock into narrow positions that provoke internecine warfare, the outcome can only be destructive. In the 1930s the legendary president of the United Mine Workers of America, John L. Lewis, orchestrated a split in labor and formed the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
The CIO focused on organizing and led a dynamic period of union growth. But that was during the era of Franklin D. Roosevelt - not George W. Bush - with friendlier labor law and widespread worker militancy fueling the expansion. A rupture in today's environment could well lead to the demise of unions rather than their rebirth.