Inside America's labor movement, AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney has emerged as a hero.
His sweeping overhaul of the national labor federation--launched after he won his dissident election campaign in 1995--has energized union militants, impressed former opponents and captured enormous media attention.
But the revolution led by Sweeney, who stands unopposed for reelection today at the AFL-CIO's convention in Pittsburgh, so far has made scant headway in changing American economic life.
Notwithstanding the labor clout demonstrated in the Teamsters' strike against United Parcel Service of America, it's not clear whether the union movement is about to start growing again after years of stagnation.
What's more, the AFL-CIO's revitalization efforts could be complicated by ongoing investigations that have started to look at the labor federation's political finance practices. In particular, a federal grand jury in New York is looking into the AFL-CIO's alleged participation in an illegal diversion of Teamsters union funds.
Sweeney, 63, a ruddy-cheeked native New Yorker, gets high grades, even from his rivals, for invigorating and raising the profile of the once-slumbering AFL-CIO. "The AFL-CIO is a more potent force than it was two years ago. His energy has rubbed off on a lot of people," said Thomas J. Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Still, the main long-term problem for Sweeney as he enters his second two-year term is the same one that faced him when he first was elected: the declining percentage of workers belonging to unions.
During the first year of the Sweeney administration, 1996, the portion of American workers in unions slid to 14.5%. That was off from 14.9% in 1995 and down from a peak of 35% in the 1950s.
Much of the loss over the years has been due to the disappearance of jobs in traditionally unionized industries. But on top of that, many workers are rejecting the opportunity to vote for unions at their companies, whether out of personal conviction or because of fierce antilabor campaigns by employers.
Organized labor won only 47.3% of the elections among workers deciding whether they wanted union representation, according to the latest figures from the National Labor Relations Board, which cover the 12-month period ended in September 1996. The percentage of union victories was the lowest in five years.
