Frustrated with the AFL-CIO's direction, the presidents of five major national unions representing about a third of U.S. union members on Wednesday formed a coalition aimed at restoring power to the waning labor movement through a series of aggressive, coordinated organizing campaigns.
The move was widely viewed as the first step toward a split in the 50-year-old AFL-CIO, a federation of 57 national unions that has been losing membership and power for decades. Four of the five union leaders have openly discussed leaving the larger body, complaining that its leadership is stodgy and defeatist.
But they said Wednesday that they had no immediate plans to bolt and wanted to keep the focus on their new group, called the Change to Win Coalition.
"This is a historic occasion for working people," said Bruce Raynor, president of Unite Here, a garment and hotel workers union that won a key strategic victory this week in its contract settlement with major Los Angeles hotels. "I hope and believe it will spark a change in the labor movement that will change the face of America."
Other members of Change to Win are the Service Employees International Union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers and the Laborers' International Union of North America. The group includes some of labor's most innovative and successful unions and represents 5 million workers, about 35% of the AFL-CIO. The 1.8-million member SEIU is the largest union in the giant federation.
If a split indeed goes forward, the implications for local labor are huge. The dissident unions represent more than half the members of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, including thousands of militant, recently organized immigrant workers. The county federation, a local body of the AFL-CIO, would be financially crushed if it lost dues from those unions.
AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney, who has been trying to hold the national federation together through months of acrimonious debate, urged members of the new group not to leave.
"Workers are under the biggest assault in 80 years," he said in a statement issued after the announcement of Change to Win's formation. "Now is the time to use our unity to build real worker power, not create a real divide that serves the corporations and the anti-worker politicians."
Sweeney's strongest ally in the federation, Gerald McEntee, president of the 1.7-million member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, was more blunt in criticizing the new group.
