House of Labor:
From the Change To Win coalition: "The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America announced today that it is joining the Change to Win Coalition, the labor reform movement created on June 15, 2005 by the Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers, the Service Employees International Union, UNITE HERE! and the Laborers' International Union of North America."
So the C2W coalition now has 6 million members. That announcement came on the same day as the AFL-CIO executive committee, in a voice vote, overwhelmingly approved the Sweeney's "Winning for Working Families" plan.
We could easily waste your time with our own thoughts, but Jonathan Tasini's are more pithy and, well, he already wrote them down, so, by all means, read them: LINK
A correspondent of ours poses this question:
"I went online to the Department of Labor website at LINK and checked LM-2 reports for the past four years and found that from 2000 to 2004, four of the five unions indeed lost members. The food workers lost 42,000, the hotel workers 7,402, UNITE 23,400, and the teamsters 74,000. These aren't disastrous losses, but neither do they recommend any of the unions involved as organizing geniuses. Even the carpenters union, which condemned the AFL-CIO for lack of organizing before abandoning the federation four years ago, lost 10,752 members."
" . . . . Why do these five unions, with a combined net worth of nearly $500,000,000 need to ask the AFL-CIO for rebates in order to spend more on organizing. Specifically, why are the carpenters and UNITE (which now includes the hotel workers) sitting on nearly $200,000,000 each while their membership numbers shrink? Explanations, anyone?"
A senior official for one of the C2W unions responds: "Where are the numbers for the IAM, UAW, Steel, AFSCME? When you look at that side of the ledger you find that most have effectively surrendered on the organizing front and have no new strategy. Wasn't it Leo Gerard who in Las Vegas said that he owes his members an apology for spending $100 million in unsuccessful organizing? The only strategy they seem to have is one to punish any union(s) that leaves by developing a raiding program. Hardly the fight we need to be waging to build worker power. Collectively we have failed. Some of us want to do something about it and our position papers make clear what. While we are changing to win others are not changing at all. . . . . Finally with respect to the question of assets and rebates it is apples and oranges and not relevant. What is relevant is what have the other unions of the AFL-CIO done to demonstrate a capacity and desire to organize and win. C2W unions each have had to meet unique circumstances, UFCW the West Coast strike, the IBT a costly government presence etc. Yet each of us is prepared to commit substantial resources to a new strategic approach to meet the global challenge workers face. Where are the others?"