House of Labor:
The Teamsters kick off their annual conference next week in Las Vegas, and five leaders of a reformist faction of the AFL-CIO will meet to plan the next phase of their revolution. Several union officials said they expect John Wilhelm of UniteHere to announce his candidacy for AFL-CIO president, but others close to Wilhelm say he hasn't decided whether to run. (Much of the "expectation" here is probably more accurately labeled as "hope.")
Teamsters honcho James Hoffa, Wilhelm, Bruce Raynor of UniteHere, Andy Stern of SEIU, and Terrence O'Sullivan of the Laborers will address the Teamster audience in a "show of solidarity," according to a Teamster spokesperson.
Stern's long-standing threat to take his union out of the AFL-CIO remains the group's most powerful trump card, but even Stern's allies are not convinced he will ultimately take that step.
With or without Stern, with or without a candidate to take on current AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, expect to see the dissident unions begin to lay out their action plan for the two months leading to the AFL-CIO convention in July, where Sweeney's re-election will be ratified (if he's not opposed) and his reform proposals in all likelihood adopted.
Today, at the AFL-CIO headquarters on 16th Street, all the major conference rooms are booked, which led outsiders to speculate that the first round of AFL-CIO lay-offs is imminent.
That's not exactly true: the six unions representing the AFL-CIO's central staff will get a close look at the labor body's reorganization plan. No one will be fired today, but the unions will get to see what types of positions won't be funded in the future. The AFL-CIO plans to devote more resources to organizing and political mobilization, which will require it to trim costs in other departments.
In other, perhaps more important labor news, hundreds of health care laundry workers at Angelica Textile Services, the largest linen cleaning company in the U.S., plan to strike Thursday in seven states unless the management agrees to significantly revamp its health and safety practices.
The nation's largest health care union, the SEIU, promised that some of its workers would honor picket lines, potentially affecting as many as several dozen hospitals in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York.
A union official admits that striking linen launderers could leave as many as a 100,000 patients without clean sheets, but said the unions had no other leverage to bargain with.
Workers at seven Angelica plants plan to strike unless the company agrees to a solution. If the strike begins, workers at several other Angelica plants would join them. All the Angelica plants in the Los Angeles area would be affected.
The union seeks a "fair living wage," better health care, and uniform, enforceable safety guidelines.
The company has said in the past it has contingency plans for a strike, and its stock price rose slightly yesterday even after the unions announced their plans.
Angelica workers are employed at more than 1,000 hospitals with a combined 170,000 beds.