Organized Labor: As the July AFL-CIO leadership elections approach, organized labor is taking stock of its current position and not liking what it is seeing. Although agreement exists that major changes are needed, there are no indications that the labor movement can fix its problems in the currently hostile political and economic environment.
1) Unions are suffering badly from a persistent decline in membership and political influence, especially since Republicans solidified control of the U.S. government in the 2002 and 2004 elections. A January AFL-CIO executive committee meeting in Washington highlighted the divisions that now threaten to explode the coalition of unions. At that meeting, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney was essentially given a vote of no-confidence by the leaders of the labor federation's two largest member unions - James Hoffa of the Teamsters and Andrew Stern of the Service Employees International.
2) Although frequently rivals of one another, Hoffa and Stern both agreed that Sweeney had failed in his promise to use the labor federation's resources effectively to recruit new union members. Their remedy is a diminution of the AFL-CIO. The federation's role and funding, they agreed, must decrease in favor of individual unions' organizing efforts. Unions would cut in half the money they pool into the federation.
3) Sweeney is not to blame for unionism's decline, as social and economic pressures are burying the once ubiquitous institution. But labor leaders complain that Sweeney has built up the budget for political activity at the expense of labor organizing, and they feel this is part of the reason the AFL-CIO is losing members. Sweeney's proposal for a $60 million political budget (including state and federal lobbying efforts butnot staff salaries) has brought complaints, especially from Stern. Stern is also not satisfied with a proposed doubling to $22.5 million of the budget for recruiting new members, organizing, and targeting key companies such as Wal-Mart. He has threatened to take his union out of the AFL-CIO if he doesn't get his way.
4) The situation has become more complicated in the last week. Sweeney now appears to be a lock for re-election. But Stern is signaling that he is totally dissatisfied, and that he will remove his union from labor's largest umbrella organization.
5) There is a partisan political angle to unions' demise as well. In an ideal world, many on the Right would welcome labor unions as an important part of the free market. But organized labor has incurred the Right's lasting wrath by attaching itself so closely to Democratic Party politics, especially after the rise of the new Left in the Democratic Party during the Vietnam War era. Today, nearly every penny unions spend on politics goes to Democrats, and union leaders embrace every part of the Democratic agenda, not just those related to labor.
6) Through its 527 organizations, American organized labor spent well over $100 million in the 2004 cycle trying to defeat President Bush. Meanwhile, the 200-plus labor PACs gave 86 percent of their contributions, or $46.4 million, to Democrats. Only $7 million went to Republicans.
7) As a result, most Republicans are left with no incentive to please organized labor, and every incentive to cut off the sources of its money and influence. Sincetaking power in Washington in 1995, GOP leaders have worked to undermine unionism's economic foundations and weaken unions in general so as to hurt the Democrats. Only occasional carrots are dangled their way, such as drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), which would create thousands of unionized jobs.
8) The Bush Administration has pursued an aggressive anti-union agenda by trying to outsource to the private sector roughly 800,000 government positions - many of them union jobs - to the domestic private sector. The Department of Labor has also fought both private and public sector unions by enforcing existing labor laws and regulations that had long been ignored - such as requirements that unions disclose in detail how they spend members' dues and that union leaders disclose conflicts of nterest. The Administration is also seeking to enforce the famous Beck decision, a federal case that ruled workers in union shops may keep any portion of their dues that is dedicated to activities other than collective bargaining - i.e., political causes. Actions such as these, many Republicans believe, are good strategy because they have prevented even larger political expenditures by labor unions.
9) Last month, the Labor Department warned labor unions to halt any plans to manipulate the investment positions of their pension funds in order to punish businesses that support Bush's Social Security reform agenda. On the surface, the department maintains that it has grounds to address the matter because the pension funds hold union members' retirement money and should be invested not for political reasons but soas to maximize returns. But this move, too, is clearly intended to cripple union influence.
10) The crusade against labor has not been limited to the federal level. Right-to-work laws - which forbid the practice of requiring union membership as a condition for employment - are now in effect in 22 states. Several states have instituted "paycheck protection" laws that bar state employees' unions from automatically receiving dues straight from employees' paychecks - with the result that many of the employees decide to keep their money and not pay. Paycheck protection may be up for a referendum vote in California vote this year.
11) Aside from such raw politicking, labor unions - particularly private-sector industrial unions - have suffered among rank-and-file workers as well. By embracing theentire Democratic program - including its social-progressive elements in regard to gun control, abortion and homosexuality - organized labor has alienated many workers, including current members, who would otherwise welcome union calls for economic protectionism, better working conditions, and higher wages.
12) Labor leaders are scrambling to fix their leaky ship. In addition to an increase in the organizing budgets of individual unions, leaders are discussing tactical concerns. One suggestion Stern takes seriously is for unions to look toward so-called "mega-churches" - mostly conservative congregations of evangelical Protestants - as organizational models. The labor movement, the leaders reasoned, could become as welcoming as these churches if they would only adopt their tactics. But there is a reason union halls ceased to be the center of workers' social lives that they once were. The fact that union leaders believe they face problems of tactics and allocation of resources rather than deeper substance bodes ill for the future of American unionism.
