It’s not been a quiet August over at 16th Street. Somehow, somewhere, the officers and their top staff are going to have to find upwards of $25 million in cuts out of the budget (which assumes $126 million in income in 2006-2006) to make up for the disaffiliations of the UFCW, Teamsters and SEIU. And that’s not even counting the probable disaffiliations of UNITE HERE and the Laborers.
These cuts would be the second big hit the AFL-CIO absorbs this year–in early May, the axe fell on
the Federation’s budget in the wake of the March Executive Council
meeting where the Change To Win coalition pushed, among other things,
its 50 percent rebate proposal.

A week or so ago, I head that the Membership Mobilization fund had been cut in half and that Karen Ackerman, the director of the newly created Political Mobilization Department (which merged Politics and Field Mobilization), heard about the cuts in her department by being cc’d on an e-mail to the accounting department. I asked Lane Windham over at the Fed’s public relations department about this and she says: that didn’t happen. But, she did say that various options are being weighed for the Executive Council’s consideration at its October meeting.

I don’t think the Ackerman story is accurate–I can’t imagine that Bob Welsh, Sweeney’s executive assistant and the Federation’s chief of staff, could be that….eh….impolitic–though he certainly didn’t show much finesse, not to mention union sensitivity in the way he handled the May staff cuts.

But, here’s the reality: it’s hard to see how the AFL-CIO ends up this Fall not being a shell of its former self, staff and resources wise. I know many of the good people over there (and, you bureacracy trashers, there are some excellent folks working at 16th Street) are talking to the Change To Win coalition about jumping ship.

I was perplexed why Executive Council members did not ask for a realistic budget proposal at its meeting just before the July convention–realistic meaning one that did not live in the fantasy world of income of $126 million when you know, at the very least, that SEIU is walking out the door. So, it will be interesting to see what budget the magician Welsh comes up with this time–realistic or not?

I’ll be reporting on the proposed cuts as they are verified–or at least, if they are solid rumors.