Working Life

The United Farm Workers has jumped on board the insurgents’ campaign. The official announcement was going to be held up until 3 p.m. so Arturo Rodriguez, the UFW’s president, could notify John Sweeney before it became public. But, it’s started to leak out so the dam is bursting…and the embargo was off (so I can […]

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Just a few minutes ago, the Executive Council passed a resolution about the Iraq War. It does not call on the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq. As I discussed recently, there is a fair amount of pressure coming from various local unions and state labor bodies that the AFL-CIO convention should pass a strong anti-war […]

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I was just handed an amendment being proposed by the AFL-CIO officers that could be fairly construed as a backsliding on diversity. Close readers here will remember that there is a struggle over the creation of a new Executive Committee, which would be a subset of the full Executive Council–the Executive Committee exists but was […]

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Catchy, huh? Well, that’s what greeted me at the crack of dawn here from someone in the know in the insurgents’ camp. Big caution here: It’s only Friday and two days is an eternity in labor movement politics. But, on the other hand, a number of people tell me the percentages are quite high that […]

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It’s just as warm and humid here in Chicago so it’s not much of an escape from the thick soup in New York. But, you don’t want to hear a weather report. Alright, down to business… This is the time when the pressure heats up a bit and we see whether any movement is made. […]

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Well, that’s kind of the message we’ve been bombarded with for the past decade or two: the solution to future employment is to get retrained and get smarter because, guess what, you’re too dumb and unskilled in the great “New Economy” of the future. This has been one of my pet peeves for lo these […]

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I just received from the AFL-CIO’s Lane Windham a letter John Sweeny sent to John Wilhelm yesterday in response to Wilhelm’s resignation as chair of the Federation’s Immigration Committee. Sweeney expresses regret at Wilhelm’s resignation but also says that Wilhelm mischaracterizes the current state-of-play on immigration. As Sweeney sees it, UNITE HERE has departed from […]

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My phone and e-mail were all abuzz yesterday with one question: is it going to really happen? The “it” being, of course, the pull-out of one or more unions from the AFL-CIO. I had calls from reporters who wanted to know what my crystal ball shows. I’ll be honest, I can’t tell you for sure. […]

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The fax machine is humming…John Wilhelm, president of the hospitality industry division of UNITE HERE, resigned yesterday from the Federation’s Immigration Committee. In a very tough letter to John Sweeney, Wilhelm blamed a “!6th Street focus” for creating divisions on immigration that Wilhelm says will now arise at the convention. A couple of thoughts as […]

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A friend sent along this little missive yesterday from out in Los Angeles and asked me to post it. The writer is Julie Butcher, general manager of SEIU Local 347, which represents 12,000 public employees in Southern California. The upshot: she wants the labor movement to change but isn’t sure that disaffiliation is the right […]

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