So, next week, the Change To Win coalition holds its founding convention in St. Louis (it will be a quick one-day affair on Tuesday. Sept. 27th–and yours truly will be there typing away and posting). This past week, the Laborers executive board authorized disaffiliation from the AFL-CIO–with the final decision yet to come on whether to pull out. I’ll say more about this in a moment but here’s a more interesting tidbit.

I hear the National Association of Letter Carriers might be thinking of leaving, too. I heard a buzz from the union’s local level a couple of weeks ago that they had been told that the union’s national leadership was not happy with 16th Street and was considering leaving. Wasn’t sure that was just an isolated rumble but I’ve heard now from a completely different source at the national level that, yes, in fact, the Letter Carriers may be in play.

This is not a huge union–maybe 200,000 active mail carriers who work for the U.S. Postal Service. So, its disaffiliation would not have much of a financial or organizational impact on the AFL-CIO. It would be more psychological.

Back to the Laborers: no particular surprise here. The Laborers has been a stalwart part of the Change To Win coalition going back to the March AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting. You may remember that Terry O’Sullivan, the Laborers prez, had been rumored to be a possible compromise candidate for AFL-CIO president in the pre-AFL-CIO convention days. He has tried to maintain a foot in both camps. It may be that the Laborers don’t figure there is a reason to stay in the AFL-CIO as the Change To Win coalition sets up shop as a competing federation that may soon equal, or surpass, the AFL-CIO’s size.