(The following story by Melanie Trottman appeared on the Wall Street Journal website on August 17, 2010.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Laborers’ International Union’s decision to rejoin the AFL-CIO after a four-year split is a fresh win for AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka’s effort to win back unions that defected to the rival Change to Win federation formed in 2005.
Mr. Trumka, who took over as head of the AFL-CIO last fall, is wooing other Change to Win unions ahead of the fall congressional elections.
Terry O’Sullivan, president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, said “a united union movement can better focus Congress – and particularly the U.S. Senate – on helping to lead our nation, rather than being locked in inaction.”
The LiUNA move, which is effective Oct. 1, follows a decision by Unite Here to rejoin the AFL-CIO last September. LiUNA says it has about 500,000 members.
Mr. Trumka has also reached out to Teamsters President James Hoffa about making a return to the AFL-CIO, and said in a recent interview that he’d be pleased if Change to Win re-affiliated with the AFL-CIO.
A spokeswoman for Change to Win said Monday that the group is not considering merging with the AFL-CIO.
A spokeswoman for the Teamsters said the union is currently focused on growing and on the labor movement, and has had “a lot of success” through Change to Win’s strategic organizing center. The union has organized about 100,000 new workers in the past two and a half years, she said.
The AFL-CIO still remains the much larger of the two federations. Change to Win has four members: the Teamsters, SEIU, the United Farm Workers of America and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. The AFL-CIO says it has 56 national and international union affiliates.
The formation of Change to Win in 2005 was led by the Service Employees International Union under its then President Andy Stern. Mr. Stern stepped down as SEIU president earlier this year.
Last week, Change to Win’s longtime chair, Anna Burger, retired from her post. Ms. Burger also retired as secretary-treasurer for the Service Employees International Union, ending a 38-year career with the union just four months after she pulled out of a race for the SEIU presidency.
The new SEIU president, Mary Kay Henry, has said that the SEIU remains committed to Change to Win, but also that she’ll work to strengthen ties with the AFL-CIO’s members and help “forge a united labor voice.”
Nelson Lichtenstein, director of the center for the study of work, labor and democracy at the University of California at Santa Barbara, said he doesn’t think the existence of the two federations will undermine labor’s political agenda, especially if the two groups collaborate. Still, a merger would mean that “the danger of cross signals is ended,” he said.