Okay, folks, here's what's coming in. Bob Welch, Sweeney's executive assistant, and Stewart Acuff, organizing director, have held conference calls with respective staff members (there was a major foul-up with the first call with Welch so he's scheduling another one for 3:30 p.m.).
Field Moblization will be merged with the Political Department into a new department called Political Mobilization, with current Political Dept. head Karen Ackerman heading up the merged department; one of her deputies will be Mike Cavanaugh, who was the acting head of the Field Mobilization after Welch removed Marilyn Schneiderman last year. This is the area that took a huge hit. Every permanent position in the Field was defunded, except for a couple of positions working in Capital Strategies. At the management level, all deputy directors for regions were eliminated, as were all the regional coordinators.
A new region will be created--in the Southwest--to add to the other four regions. Gerry Acosta will head up the new region; Joe Alvarez, who heads up the Northeast region, is headed to a job at headquarters, with Paul Lemon being made acting director for the Northeast.
in addition, International Affairs will be folded and all the international work moved to the Solidarity Center, which will continue to be headed up by Barbara Shailor. A new department called Government Affairs will scoop up the previous departments of Legislative, Public Policy and Safety and Health. It's not clear to be at this writing what the staffing will be in those two departments but I'll pass it along ASAP. The magazine, American@Work, will be closed and public affairs will be downsized--that department was funded at $6.1 million last year so that number will likely come down some.
There is a potentially nasty fight brewing which could leave a badly wounded Federation. Welch announced that there is no longer a position called "field representative." Instead, new positions have been created--for which new job descriptions will be created and, this is the key, every person will have to apply for. But, there are no job descriptions ready for the new jobs and no one knows exactly how the map looks in terms of the regions. So, there still could be a fairly big fight between the staff union, The Newspaper Guild, and, as people refer to it, management. I can't help but note the irony that corporations often use reorganization and the creation of new titles to undermine union solidarity and union security. Not pretty.
There are 67 people in the field now and only 37 positions will exist in the new configuration. That's a net loss of 30 union positions just in the field. Four job titles will be in the organizing institute; they will be responsible for training lead organizers. Eight new positions will be called "senior organizers," who will be working with unions on campaigns. Twenty new people will be called "senior field representatives, who will work with state federations and central labor councils. And, finally, there will be Five "field campaign directors," with one in each of the five regions.
Keep in mind that all these cuts are from the General Fund of the Federation. There is also a Special Fund for organizing, which is not the subject of this round of cuts. A number of people, mostly on temporary contracts of one-year or perhaps a bit longer (PFT or Project, Fund or Temporary employee), are funded through the Special Fund (which totaled $12.7 million last year). And, on the call with permanent Guild staff members, the Guild rep declared that, under the contract, if a Guild permanent staff member loses a permanent job funded under General Fund money, he or she can bump a person working under a temporary contract even if it's funded from the Special Fund.
Also, curiously, Welch did not announce any cuts in other non-staff expenses such as support for outside organizations. As one person asked me, "these outside groups may be fine but why are we spending millions of dollars on them while our jobs are being cut?." However, a confidential memo to the staff that just whirred in over my fax machine says, "We will reduce and/or eliminate cash contributions to most of our important affiliated organizations: the AFL-CIO Working for America Institute, the constituency groups, ILCA, Labor Heritage, Alliance for Retired Americans, NSCERC and others; reduce our contributions to other worthy organizations, and eliminate the Center for Working Capital."
As one employee said, according to one report, "We have to make sure we drag this thing out so we can drag them through the nuthole so the longer people are on the payroll." There was also one suggestion that the Guild organize to challenge the cuts before the entire Federation Executive Council. But, it's not clear which national president would be willing to carry the water for the workers--keep in mind that, if you're looking at this as a political fight (more on that in a moment), neither side has any incentive to fight to keep the staff at its current level.
A bit more on the structure in the organizing department still under Stewart Acuff (who told people on his call, when asked if he was staying, "whether you like it or not, yes"):
There will be a Strategic Campaigns effort headed up by Sam Leubke, who now heads up the Organizing Institute--this will deal with campaigns against Wal-Mart and the like. The Organizing Institute will continue to exist but in a smaller verson, headed up by Sarah McKenzie (the OI still will rely on people working on short-term contracts). Voice at Work will be lead, as it is now, by Andy Levin--six positions there and I don't think that's a huge change. The final piece will be called Industry Committees which will try to get affiliates to develop campaigns in broad sectors, combining collective bargaining, and the two mini-depts of Strategic Campaigns and the Center for Strategic Research--Ken Zinn has been tapped to lead the new area.
ANALYSIS
The Bottom Line: there is a lot of upset and uncertainty right now. No one is sure if they will have a job three months from now...though I guess that could be said of "management" since the outcome of the July convention will determine who holds the keys to 16th Street. The thinking is still Sweeney but there's a hell of a lot of time to go for deals to be cut.
And, in some way, this is what these cuts were about: trying to win an election. Give back money in the form of rebates to national unions and make some changes in the Federation operations that can satisfy some. Acuff said as much to his people: the Federation is a political organizations and this is political. And, to his credit, even though not everyone shares his view and/or with ten years of leadership folks believe there is already a clear record, Sweeney has now said, "this is what I think the Federation should look like and do."
Some of the new look makes sense (though I say that without knowing some of the particulars of what every department will lose or gain)--the notion on trying to figure out how to push campaigns that have an industry focus is a good one. It's now something that, at least, conceptually, there is broad agreement between the various positions taken by Sweeney and some of the "insurgent" unions. So, you have to give credit to Sweeny for saying, "I listened and here is a change."
But, what isn't apparent here is that we've changed the psychology of the Federation. Nothing much will change if we don't alter the inclination of too many unions to talk about organizing but not really organize, or to talk about solidarity but not be willing to sacrifice some independence for the sake of working on a board strategic campaign.
we can't keep saying that we're changing the way we organize workers by focusing on industry campaigns. we (at the AFL) have been pushing that line for years now, and it seems that we've dragged as many affiliates to that particular party as we're going to get.
it's not that i don't think its a good idea, and it's not that i think it's a disingenuous claim (not exactly)-- it's just not new. go back to questions 4 & 8 of your list of q's for Sweeney. it's all premised on an industry focus. the problem has never been that the right people at the AFL didn't buy in to that view; that view has actually been something that sweeney's folks and stern's folks have had in common.
the problem is twofold: first, that too many other* affiliates don't want to take responsibility for an industry, and second, that the AFL has no real power to make them do so. on the first point, again, sweeney & stern would be in agreement. it's the second point that seems to be the real problem in the works.
*(other = unions outside a) those with whom the AFL is working on projects [IBT, UAW, UFW, GCIU, UFCW, USWA, some trades], and b) those unions that already get it [SEIU, UNITE HERE and a few others])
so if we at the AFL are going to keep selling the "industry focus" line and the "strategic campaign" line, great, it's important and a key to winning. but if we think we're going to get a bigger buy-in from the sidelined affiliates if this remains totally voluntary, someone has to explain to me how it's going to work.
hey, i like the refocusing on organizing, and i may be in a minority of AFL staff who thinks its fine to get rid of some of those "other" departments in order to crystallize that focus. i just don't but that this restructuring alone will make us any more successful.
in short, an AFL-CIO with great rhetoric and little power to knock heads together may be a worse thing than no AFL-CIO at all.
Posted by: Josh H. PIlle | May 03, 2005 at 05:16 PM
The beginning of the end for the AFL-CIO began with the Air Controllers Strike. We should have had a nation wide strike , We are too soft and deserve what we are getting.
Join the Labor Party.
Posted by: tom sedor | May 06, 2005 at 10:38 PM
Only a general strike will save organized labor in the United States.
join the Communist Party USA.
Posted by: Doug | May 07, 2005 at 11:52 AM