From the Community Labor discussion list:
Dissident unions get organized
September 26, 2005
BY FRANCINE KNOWLES
Labor unions that split with the AFL-CIO earlier this year will meet in St. Louis this week, and leaders say they’ll lay the groundwork for growing organized labor’s depleted ranks and creating greater economic opportunity for workers.
The dissident Change to Win Coalition, representing 6 million workers in seven unions — four that disaffiliated from the national AFL-CIO because of disagreements over organizing — will host its founding convention there Tuesday.
Local leaders among the 900 delegates who will attend say they expect more than speeches.
“I think we have to have plans. Not just rhetoric, action,” said Tom Balanoff, president of the Service Employees International Union Illinois State Council and a convention delegate. “That means we have to put resources into our efforts.”
Seventy-five percent of the resources of the new federation’s $16 million budget will be committed to organizing, said Anna Burger, chair of the coalition.
In total, the federation expects $35 million to be devoted to organizing. That’s because unions that have defected from the AFL-CIO have also committed to devoting their previously paid AFL-CIO dues to organizing, said Change to Win spokeswoman Stephanie Mueller.
The coalition includes unions representing laborers, carpenters and farm workers, as well as the four unions that disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO: the SEIU, the Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers and Unite Here. United Here represents hotel, restaurant, apparel and textile workers.
The coalition plans to create a strategic organizing center, equipped with researchers. It will “focus on creating and building multi-union large campaigns that we will be working on together,” Burger said.
The coalition also plans to create organizing committees to focus on core industries. The committees will be responsible for developing organizing plans and bargaining strategies “to lift up standards in core industries,” she said.
“We will be building campaigns that really will make a difference. I think you’ll see more organizing going on that each international union is driving, and you’ll see larger campaigns that we are collectively driving,” she said.
She wouldn’t provide examples, but said more will be detailed at the convention.
As the group meets, much is at stake for workers, Burger said.
“The reality is working people are in a crisis in this country,” she said. “… Many work one or two or three jobs at poverty wages. … Many working people wake up worried about whether they can get their kids to and from school between their two or three jobs. They worry about whether they can afford breakfast or bus fare if a kid gets sick.
“They need a loud voice. We need to organize them so they can have a loud voice and have an equitable share of the prosperity of our country.”
As part of its plans to create greater economic opportunity for workers, the coalition said it is teaming with community groups, including Rainbow/PUSH and the Black Leadership Forum, in rolling out a multi-industry training program to train workers to rebuild the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast.
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