(The International Brotherhood of Teamsters issued the following news release on December 8.)
WASHINGTON — The Teamsters General Executive Board today endorsed a bold plan presented by General President James P. Hoffa to restructure the AFL-CIO to focus more resources on organizing. The plan would unite the broadest coalition of AFL-CIO affiliates at the same time as it would dramatically streamline the AFL-CIO so that greater resources could be focused on growing the labor movement.
The Teamster Plan includes the following key elements:
* Streamline the national AFL-CIO by eliminating those functions that are duplicated by the affiliates or which are more appropriately done by the affiliates;
* Reduce the effective per capita tax by half for those unions that allocate a minimum of 10 percent of their national union dues revenue to organizing, and devote rebated resources to organizing in core industries;
* Create incentives to accelerate the merger process in order to create economies of scale and free-up more resources for organizing;
* Reform AFL-CIO jurisdictional dispute mechanisms to establish area standards in key industries and sectors to inhibit unions from growing their unions by undercutting contract standards established by other unions;
* Streamline AFL-CIO state and local field operations and structures by eliminating bureaucratic duplication of effort and resources between central and state bodies and the national AFL-CIO;
* Cut the size of the AFL-CIO Executive Committee and give it real governing authority so that the largest AFL-CIO affiliates, not the AFL- CIO leadership alone, are able to have a real impact on policy; and
* Develop a strategic political and organizing plan for “swing states” to increase union membership and political influence in order to produce a pro-labor White House and Congress in future elections.
“Combined with other important proposals — such as focusing our political efforts on building a movement for national health care and a worker’s right to union representation, expanding our efforts in new sectors and globally, developing stronger shop steward structures, and many others — we believe our restructuring proposals will allow us to build a more unified and more effective labor movement,” Hoffa said. “We hope that these proposals will contribute to the process that will lead to a stronger labor movement as we head into the coming AFL-CIO Convention and we look forward to discussing them with our brothers and sisters throughout the movement in the weeks and months to come.”
For a copy of the Teamsters proposals go to http://www.teamster.org