As readers of this blog know, I’ve been holding fast to the belief that everything that can be done must be done to calm the waters between the AFL-CIO and Change To Win coalition. I maintained for a long time and still believe that, once the emotionalism of the AFL-CIO convention in July receded, smart people would get down to the reality of trying to organize the 90 percent of people who don’t belong to unions.

And evidence that a positive trend is picking up speed abound every day. First, came the pact between the CWA and Teamsters to jointly represent airline workers. Then, just this week came a peace agreement between SEIU and AFSCME that seems likely to halt any damaging raiding. And, now, a considered and detailed dialogue between John Sweeney and Anna Burger about the Solidarity charter proposal that Sweeney proposed as a way of keeping the Change To Win unions working with AFL-CIO unions.

The exchange started with Burger’s September 6th letter to Sweeney in which she restates CTW’s “willingness to resume discussions to determine how to overcome the barriers to our participation in the Solidarity Charter program.” In the letter, she outlines the concerns, which I’ll let you read for yourself.

At the end of her letter, Burger suggests a “90 day ‘moratorium’ on any action at the state and local level, including, removing leaders from office, revoking membership, or disaffiliating from state or local bodies.”

Sweeney responded on September 14th with a respectful letter in which he attempts to answer Burger’s concerns. He ends the letter by pledging not to seek enforcement of the AFL-CIO’s Constitution regarding participation in local and state labor bodies for a period of one month through ending October 15th.

For this post, I don’t want to get into who is right or wrong in terms of the questions raised by Burger and Sweeney’s answers. I wish Sweeney had agreed to a longer time period for the moratorium–these issues may be a bit more complicated than a period of one month can solve.

But, the main point to take away here is this: there is dialogue going on here. Slowly, but surely, there is a recognition at the AFL-CIO that there is another Federation out there, and that it makes no sense to pretend otherwise. From CTW, it likely has heard from various corners that local union leaders wants to figure out a way to continue to work with AFL-CIO unions via the local and state labor bodies–and, where those bodies are good and effective, that makes sense to me.

So, let the dialogue and building of cooperation continue–even as the two federations pursue different programs and strategies to build power.