So, we’re back after a very mediocre boxed lunch….again, this will be a rolling, updated report.

At the break, there were two press briefings. In the press room. Bruce Raynor and John Wilhelm (left) answered questions from about 20 workers. One point that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention: on immigration, they both underscored their belief that all the CTW unions would have a similar position on immigration, given that Wilhelm chaired the committee in the AFL-CIO that brought about a change in the labor movement’s immigration positions, and all the CTW unions supported the change.

Then, Anna Burger and Edgar Romney held a press briefing (see pic). Burger announced that Greg Tarpinian, the executive director of Labor Research Association in New York, will become the executive director of Change To Win. Tom Woodruff, as I reported some weeks ago, will head the new federation’s strategic organizing center; Woodruff is also the organizing director and executive vice president at SEIU. Mary Ann Collins, deputy staff director at SEIU, will serve as deputy director of the field operations.

Woodruff answered a question on organizing: “50 million workers are in jobs that can’t be off-shored and can’t be digitized–six million are in the CTW unions now so 44 million are to be organized.” As for the relationship with the AFL-CIO, Burger said, “We have different strategies…we will partner where it makes sense.” On politics, she said, “We will oppose candidates whether they are Democrats or Republicans who are against working families…Some Democrats and Republicans will have problems with us because of CAFTA.”

And we just had an introduction of the newly elected top officers–officially (elected by the Leadership Council): Anna Burger as chair of the new federation who, according to jim Hoffa, made history as the first woman to head a major labor federation in the U.S., and Edgar Romney, who Hoffa said also makes history as the highest ranking African-American of any labor federation in U.S. history.

2:15 p.m.: Now, the delegates are considering the resolution on Sector Coordinating Committees. Essentially, this is one of the centerpieces of the debate that has been going on: coordinating bargaining and organizing by sectors. The resolution creates committees in: airline catering, food manufacturing, food services, Gaming, health care, hotels, laundry, non-food retails, package handling and delivery, printing, property services, retail food, transportation, warehousing/distribution and waste. Eh…there isn;t any opposition that I can tell to this idea.

The one caveat to the resolution: it carves out the construction industry and says, you guys go and figure out your coordination. This is likely connected to the complicated politics of the AFL-CIO Building Trades Department to which the Laborers still belong–having not yet disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO.

2:25 p.m.: the story of the effort to organize Smithfield Foods, a really brutal story that I’ve been following for a while–down in North CArolina, more than 5,000 workers slaughter 32,000 hogs a day under brutal conditions. As one worker told the group, “my husband and I were both arrested by company police and they threw me into a company cell.”

They’ve now moved to a resolution on diversity. I missed the discussion here in order to interview some workers (see upcoming post).

Tom Woodruff is now giving a presentation on the Strategic Organizing Center which will work to review organizing plans, advise and support campaigns, develop and run campaigns. For example, in retail there are 10.5 million workers. “This is a crusade to determine whether there will be a middle class,” he said.