Up early here my friends to do a little radio interview with our friends at Air America…but figured I’d get a bit of biz done, and, then, I’ll get back with you later.
John Sweeney gave his keynote address yesterday. Obviously, it was not a happy day for him–compounded by the rush of reporters leaving the Navy Pier in the middle of his speech to get to the press conference (a cab ride away) announcing the disaffiliation of SEIU and the Teamsters. I felt for the guy, having to stand before the delegates and announce that he was a proud member of the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU); his whole life has been spent as an SEIU member (he comes out of New York and, for the non-labor people here, was president of SEIU) and, yet, now that SEIU has disaffiliated, he has to run for re-election as an OPEIU member. That must hurt.
I also received this release from Cecil Roberts, the president of the Mine Workers. Cecil and I still have a bit of business to catch up on regarding that other Roberts out there–Supreme Court nominee John Roberts…been meaning to get to that…good stuff.
The morning papers are full of the disaffiliation news. Well, something does get the media to pay attention. The local Chicago Tribune (registration required) has a package, starting with an above-the-fold piece by Barbara Rose and Stephen Franklin, which has a local flavor to it (Steve is a long-time labor reporter for the Trib…and the organizer of the ill-fated attempt for us labor hacks to have dinner at a local eatery…he claims he was on deadline). Then, the duo go back on the specific disaffiliation press conference and dissect some of the implications, with another piece by the paper’s Washington report on the effect on the Democrat Party.
Over to the nation’s capitol: Thomas Edsall has a piece (registration required) that also touches on the implications for the Democratic Party. On the op-ed page, Harold Meyerson pens a fairly grim outlook, focusing on a man in the middle, Laborers President Terry O’Sullivan who has his foot in both camps.
Over to The New York Times, Steve Greenhouse has a news analysis piece (a nice above-the-fold placement if not the glamorous right-hand column of his Monday piece), which focuses on the different ambitions of Sweeney versus Andy Stern.
The Wall Street Journal actually has a front-page piece (though below the fold) headlined, “Two Unions Quit AFL-CIO, Casting Cloud on Labor.” Since you actually need a paid subscription to the voice of capitalism, I’ll give you the lead paragraph “The labor movement was hit by its biggest rift in decades as two of the nation’s largest unions voted to cut ties to the AFL-CIO — effectively removing 25% of the federation’s members and throwing the future of unionized labor into doubt.” Interestingly, and perhaps not surprisingly, the Journal’s poll asking readers what they think is the reason for labor’s decline has 59 percent saying “changes in the economy and the workplace” and only 4 percent “employers’ crackdown on union membership” (yeah, I cast my vote with the 4 percent to get those numbers up).
