(The Detroit Free Press published the following story by Sarah A. Webster on September 3.)
DETROIT — AFL-CIO President John Sweeney is expected to announce in Detroit today the formation of a newfangled national labor union that is specifically for employees who don’t have union representation at work.
Working America will serve as a voice for nonunion — and even unemployed — workers on labor issues such as jobs, health care and education, Sweeney is to tell the Detroit Economic Club during a luncheon at the Cobo Conference Center.
Unlike many unions, such as the UAW, Working America will not be industry- or workplace-based and will have no bargaining power. Instead, it will recruit members through a neighborhood-based, door-to-door campaign that the AFL-CIO tested in Cleveland and Seattle.
In August, the executive council of the AFL-CIO gave Sweeney authority to issue a charter to Working America on a provisional basis and to issue bylaws for the union, including an initial dues structure. Information about fees was not available Tuesday or on the group’s Web site, www.workingamerica.org
The goal of the new union, though, seems to be less about money and more about promoting a social and political agenda for working-class people. So Working America may be likened to the AARP, which collects dues to advance its platform for retired Americans.
The AFL-CIO’s push for the union comes as the U.S. presidential campaign heats up, and the union federation begins more loudly challenging President George W. Bush’s record on jobs, the economy and other workers’ issues.
“The overwhelming majority of working Americans rejects this anti-worker, antifamily agenda and is ready to overturn it, but lacks a movement to make its voices heard,” the AFL-CIO said on its Web site, referring to the new union.
On Tuesday, the AFL-CIO also launched a TV advertisement campaign opposing the Bush administration’s proposed changes to overtime provisions in the Fair Labor Standards Act, which could substantially reduce the amount of overtime pay available to certain white-collar workers.
Last week, Sweeney said there are “millions of people” who want a voice on labor issues but don’t have one. About 16 million workers are union members, but surveys have indicated that 40 million Americans would like to join a union.
“Working America will give them that chance,” Sweeney said.
The AFL-CIO has faulted labor laws for not protecting workers who attempt to organize and for causing workers who want a union to vote against one because they fear losing their jobs.
Workers may be especially sympathetic to the AFL-CIO’s creative new outreach effort now. Last month, Michigan officials reported that the state’s unemployment rate in July rose to 7.4 percent — its highest point in a decade. About 378,000 of the state’s 5.1 million workers were looking for a job in July.
Nationwide, 9.1 million workers were unemployed in July. Almost 300,000 found jobs between June and July, leading to a slight improvement in the country’s unemployment rate. Despite that, about 620,000 more workers were unemployed in July compared to the same period a year ago.
Many of those job losses have been in manufacturing and other union-heavy sectors, helping to push the decline in union membership. The number of workers who were members of unions fell by 280,000 last year, to 16.1 million members, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
Working America might help the AFL-CIO to recapture the attention of some of those workers and boost the labor movement’s political clout.
Sweeney said that the 65 unions that are part of the AFL-CIO are ready to unseat Bush and elect a “working people’s president.”
Twelve of the members have already endorsed U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo.
“In 2002, 93 percent of union members say they received election information from union sources,” Sweeney said. “We will meet that, and top it, in 2004.”