(The following article by Steven Greenhouse was posted on the New York Times website on June 16.)
WASHINGTON — The likelihood of a schism in organized labor increased yesterday when five major unions formed a growth-oriented coalition and the presidents of four of the unions hinted strongly that they might quit the AFL-CIO.
The presidents of the Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers, and Unite Here yesterday joined an earlier threat by the Service Employees International Union to end their affiliations because they are so unhappy with the labor federation.
“We believe that this labor movement needs to be born again,” said Bruce Raynor, president of Unite Here, which represents hotel, restaurant and apparel workers. “The labor movement as personified by the current AFL-CIO structure has been unsuccessful in standing up for working families.”
The four unions represent nearly one-third of the members of the AFL-CIO, a federation of 57 unions and 13 million workers, and if they quit it would greatly weaken the federation, hurt its budget and cause fighting within labor.
At a news conference in Washington, the leaders of the five unions forming the new coalition – the fifth is the Laborers’ International Union of North America – said they were banding together to promote aggressive union organizing because they believed that the federation and most of its unions had done too little to organize nonunion workers.
“The basic principle that brings us here today is that American workers cannot win a better life unless more workers belong to unions,” the union presidents said in a statement. “If the labor movement doesn’t adopt dramatic changes today to cope with the new economy, it will find itself marginalized into oblivion. We come together today to prevent that.”
The statement was signed by Mr. Raynor; John W. Wilhelm, president of Unite Here’s hotel and restaurant division; James P. Hoffa, the Teamsters president; Joe Hansen, president of the food and commercial workers; Andrew Stern, president of the service employees; and Terence O’Sullivan, president of the laborers’ union.
Several union leaders said the threats to quit were largely meant to pressure John J. Sweeney, the president of the AFL-CIO for the last decade, not to seek another four-year term. Mr. Sweeney has expressed confidence that he will be re-elected next month at the federation’s convention in Chicago.
In an unusual move, Mr. Sweeney issued a statement yesterday criticizing the coalition before the union presidents had announced it. The new group, called the Change to Win Coalition, will have its own bylaws, constitution, budget and staff.
“Workers are under the biggest assault in 80 years,” Mr. Sweeney said. “Now more than ever we need a united labor movement. The clearest path to growing the union movement and helping more workers form unions is by exercising our greatest strength – solidarity. Now is the time to use our unity to build real worker power, not create a real divide that serves the corporations and antiworker politicians.”
The five union presidents said the issue was not personalities or Mr. Sweeney, but rather principles to help unions grow. Several union presidents said they would press the Chicago convention to adopt accountability standards, like requiring all member unions to do a specific amount of organizing and to have the capacity, in terms of money and trained organizers, to grow.
Mr. Sweeney said there are few differences in principle between the sides. He said he was getting the federation and its members to spend more than ever on organizing.
But Mr. Hoffa, of the Teamsters, said Mr. Sweeney’s organizing efforts did not go far enough. The five unions, he said, have called for using $72 million of the federation’s budget for organizing, versus the $22.5 million that Mr. Sweeney has proposed. Mr. Sweeney has said that many of the federation’s other activities would be crippled if it spent so much on organizing.
A Sweeney supporter, Gerald W. McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, criticized the new coalition. “Forming this coalition is a step in the wrong direction because it’s the first step toward a truly divided labor movement,” he said. “Splitting the AFL-CIO will mean less power for workers.”