Working Life

It’s kind of a natural thing for union people to stick up for the less powerful and weak. But, I think we shouldn’t extend our kindness to small and increasingly weak or irrelevant national unions. I say this today because a number of people (including AFL-CIO staffers) have written to me or posted comments expressing […]

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A thought to consider for people wringing their hands over the “split” in the labor movement: maybe this will be a really good thing. I’ve been ruminating over this for many weeks, sometimes writing pieces of it here and there. A definition first: reasonable people may disagree but I do not see the creation of […]

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So, folks, the crews have broken down their cameras and the clean-up crews are here at the Laborers International building on 16th Street in Washington, D.C. As I said earlier this morning, the launching of the Change to Win coalition may be a critical moment for the labor movement–or just a modest improvement. At least, […]

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Today may be remembered as a momentous day in labor history–or simply a modest advance in labor organizing. The insurgents will unveil the principles and program for the new coalition at a 12:30 press conference in Washington, D.C, at the Laborers building (conveniently located just across the street from the AFL-CIO…”hey, you, with the lipstick […]

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It wasn’t Las Vegas but yesterday’s Executive *Committee* meeting sure had the same feeling as the Federation’s March Executive Council meeting. The Executive Committee (which is a subset of the full Council and includes the largest unions but not just the largest unions…which has been a bit of a bone of contention, but that’s another […]

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Well, there should be a little flurry of interesting stuff this week in the AFL-CIO back-and-forth. Today, the AFL-CIO Executive Committee meets–the members will get to hear first-hand from Andy Stern what his board decided this past Friday on disaffiliating from the Federation. Then, Wednesday, as first reported here two days ago, the insurgent unions […]

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Not a surprise but yesterday the Service Employees Executive Board unanimously approved a resolution taking SEIU one step closer to leaving the AFL-CIO. Without any conditions, the resolution empowered the officers of the union to decide when to leave the Federation. As important, the resolution authorizes allocating additional money–SEIU has already kicked in $100,000–to seed […]

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My busy fax machine spit out this June 3rd letter from Joe Hansen to John Sweeney. It’s an interesting contrast at least in perception to the AFL-CIO’s comparison of the two competing visions of what needs to be changed in the labor movement. The AFL-CIO comparison states pretty clearly that there is not a lot […]

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The always-helpful Lane Windham sent along a comparison prepared by the AFL-CIO that examines the difference between the AFL-CIO Officers proposals versus the insurgents proposals. I’ve provided it here for people to peruse and appreciate Lane’s response to my request. You can also compare the AFL-CIO officers comparison to a comparison put out by the […]

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I came out to sunny Los Angeles to take part in a one-day conference on Wal-Mart put on by the UCLA Labor Center (more on that in a future post). But, while I’ve been out here, there’s been a very interesting behind-the-scenes maneuvering at the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. The apparent end result […]

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