Turn Up The Heat: Wilhelm Quits Immigration Committee

    The fax machine is humming...John Wilhelm, president of the hospitality industry division of UNITE HERE, resigned yesterday from the Federation's Immigration Committee. In a very tough letter to John Sweeney, Wilhelm blamed a "!6th Street focus" for creating divisions on immigration that Wilhelm says will now arise at the convention.

    A couple of thoughts as you read the letter. First, obviously, the timing of the letter can't help in whatever slim chances remain to find some compromise that keeps one or more of the Change To Win unions from leaving the Federation (though another wag who wrote me yesterday says there are a few unions who are pissed at Sweeney for trying to compromise too much with the insurgents...go figure).

    Second, Wilhelm's letter levels a similar criticism to that voiced by Firefighters president Harold Schaitberger when he abruptly resigned two months ago as head of the Federation's Public Affairs Committee: that the Federation's staff has too much power and has not consulted the elected leaders properly. What may give this criticism some legs is that Schaitberger is a supporter of John Sweeney's re-election. And it gives some sense that there are some broadly-shared concerns about how the Federation operates--but the broader consensus on some issues has been obscured by the choosing up of sides over the question of the re-election of Sweeney.

    And, obviously, this has some added significance because, for along time, Wilhelm was rumored as a likely candidate to run against Sweeney.

Here's the letter:

July 18, 2005

John J. Sweeney, President
AFL-CIO
815 16th St., N.W.
Washington, D.C.

Dear President Sweeney:

    I write to resign as Chairman of the AFL-CIO Committee on Immigration.

    The Immigration Committee you appointed after the 1999 AFL-CIO Convention has done an extraordinary job. I am grateful to all the members of the Committee for their consistent focus on human rights and on the future of the labor movement.

     The work of the Immigration Committee was, until this year, consistenly characterized by serious discussion and communication among Union leaders--of very different viewpoints, from very different Union experiences--seeking to find common ground. The Committee never approached finding consensus by finding the lowest common denominator. Rather, the Union leaders on the Committee consistently strove to lead the labor movement by finding a consensus all of us can unite around.

     The Committee was remarkably successful. The landmark Executive Council vote in 2000 put the labor movement where we belong: squarely on the side of immigrant workers.

    The fact that Executive Council vote was unanimous was a tribute to the hard work and discussion among the leaders on the Immigration Committee. That historic 2000 vote overcame years of division within the labor movement on the immigration issue, and put us where our heritage, and our future, dictate that we belong.

    By that same hard work, the Immigration Committee led the labor movement in the critically important job of finding the right path to protect immigrant wokrers after 9/11, including the historic Immigration Workers Freedom Ride in 2003, which united the labor movement with immigrant advocates, the religious community, and community organizations.

    This year, sadly, you and the AFL-CIO staff took control of the AFL-CIO's immigration work. That work suffers from the 16th Street focus.

    Rather than Union leaders working hard to overcome differences and find common ground, 16th Street has taken over. You have personally sent out two important position memos without consulting the Immigration Committee, both incomplete at best, both short-circuiting the necessary debate and discussion among principals that in the past has led to consensus on these difficult issues (after one memo you called to tell me it went out by mistake; the second memo drew no such call). You and I have twice this year agreed that the Committee should meet; you said that you would find dates and schedule a meeting but no such meeting has been scheduled. The AFL-CIO staff has authorzed all statements for the Convention that refer to immigration, without any discussion by the Immigration Committee (and I note that, sadly, your comprehensive resolution entitled "The Values That Unite Us As A People And A Movement" does not mention immigration).

    The predictable result is that we head into the AFL-CIO Convention with division on immigration, after five years of unity. On such an important and difficult issues, a process driven by 16th Street, instead of the Immigration Committee's succcessful five-year history of consultation and discussion among Union leaders from a cross-section of the labor movement, will inevitably have that result.

    That is why I resign as Chairman of the Immigration Committee. The Committee has been rendered irrelevant.

    Be assured that I personally, and UNITE-HERE, will continue to fund every way possible to support immigrant workers. I am confident that other Unions and Union leaders will do the same. To do anything to undermine the labor movement's unity on this is a disservice to immigrants, to human rights, and to our economic and political future.

Fraternally,

John W. Wilhelm
President/Hospitality Industry

cc: AFL-CIO Executive Council
     Immigration Committee
     UNITE HERE General Executive Board

Comments

[Guillermo Perez]

Did I miss something? Where's the division Wilhelm refers to? He may be right to complain about the failure to include committee members and about allowing staff to issue statements, but I'm seeing no disagreement of substance here (unless it's the failure to include immigrants in some comprehensive resolution that probably no one will ever read).

The biggest thing happening around immigrant rights currently that I'm aware of is the consensus support among big labor for the McCain/Kennedy immigration reform bill. The bill is a far cry from a major victory but many activists consider it a significant improvement for undocumented workers. To my knowledge, the AFL-CIO is also in favor of the bill -- if someone knows otherwise please correct me.

It's hard for me to criticize Wilhelm on this stuff because he deserves the lion's share of the credit for having moved the AFL-CIO to reverse its historical position on immigrants (an ugly history that started with Sam Gompers and runs right on through Kirkland). If the current split includes a split over immigrant rights issues, I definitely want to hear about it. But this letter to me reads like an excuse to find fault with what has been nothing but historic achievements by Sweeney on this front (again, a lot of which I would credit to Wilhem's influence). Other than serving as yet another indication that UNITE-HERE is leaving the federation, I really don't see much of a story here.

[Josh H. Pille]

I've got to say that I've read and re-read this letter, trying to find substance. I'm left with the same impression that Guillermo has, much as I'd have it otherwise (Wilhelm is really one of my heroes).

The only real critique with a pretense of substance is the one that JT pulls out: the charge of a lack of democracy, transparency, AFL usurpation. But unlike when Schaitberger made the charge (immediately following a pretty egregious snubbing of the Public Affairs Committee on an issue of public affairs), I see no similar AFL screw up. In fact, Wilhelm's leveling this charge leaves a bad taste in my mouth; it seems to be a little disingenuous. Part of the whole CtW argument is that the AFL needs to be strengthened in relation to the affiliates; Wilhelm seems to be undercutting the CtW argument to score public relations points. Or he's just grasping at straws to find a reason to blast Sweeney to score public relations points.

I'm going to reserve final judgment, and defer to the decision-makers about how to handle the leadup to and playing out of the convention drama. But at first glance, I don't see how this helps anything.

[Tasini]

I think your points are good ones. And certainly the progress on immigration issues should be credited to both Wilhelm and Sweeney. The only thing I can assume is that there is something in the convention resolution that Wilhelm references that is of concern. Yes, convention resolutions are not usualy read--but they often can dictate how Federation policy evolves down the road. We will have to wait and see.

[Generalstrike]

This letter got me thinking. I have been one of those who still believes this is all a push simply to get Sweeney out and that CtW isn't going,(I believe that some days more than others!) So it seems to me that this is part of a carefully crafted plan-they are good organizers! to increase the pressure as we approach the deadline. If they had already decided to go, why would he bother to resign this position. His views have already been carefully and forcefully articulated. Look at what SEIU is doing to AFSCME in California right now-raiding their homecare units after talks broke down over turf between the two.
Like any good organizing drive the CtW's campiagn plan is firing on all pistons as "election" day approaches. Sending powerful messages to their opponents. I believe the consequences of leaving would be too great all of the CtW unions have as many weak units as the AFL bunch.
In the final hours agreement,Sweeney goes within a year and all leaders on the podium in Chicago hands in the air!!
Delusion? I hope not.

[Andrew Pollack]

This spat between Sweeney and Wilhelm over the Fed's immigration work is typical of what's wrong with the "debate" in general. Wilhelm complains -- correctly, given his role in this work -- that consultation has ceased and decisions made behind the Committee's back. Notice however what he DOESN'T say: no complaints about the lack of immigrant workers THEMSELVES in the work of the committee.

This gets to points that Bill Fletcher, Dave Jones, Kim Moody and others have made: this is a disagreement between officials with the same basic political and organizational perspective. The Immigrant Workers' Freedom Ride was a historic event, as are efforts by the Fed to challenge government restrictions on immigrants' rights. But there was no follow-up, and it never became a MOVEMENT.

There's a role in such a movement for everyone from International Union Presidents through regional and local officials all the way to the rank-and-file. But the more militant politics and action proposals that would eventually arise from such a movement are more than either Wilhelm or Sweeney could handle...
Andrew Pollack

[RoscoeRich]

I think everyone is reading a bit too much into things. The United Domestic Workers (AFSCME's homecare local) had signed a partnership wiith 434B (SEIU's homecare local) to work together on legislation and other things. When AFSCME got wind of this, the dispute started and the int'l put the UDW in trusteeship. The UDW leadership asked for 434B's help in fighting the trusteeship and leave AFSCME. That's when SEIU entered the picture. I don't think it has anything to do with the AFL stuff directly. However, it is indicative of the problems with labor -- two locals in the same sector try to work together and because of personal issues between Int'l leaders the effort is quashed. I guess the title of the song should be solidarity sometimes.

[Ty]

Andrew, for Wilhelm to say in a letter to John Sweeney that there should be immigrant workers on the AFL-CIO immigration committee would do very little either to better the lot of immigrant workers or to increase their role the leadership of the labor movement. However, for UNITE-HERE to lead the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride and for UNITE-HERE, SEIU, LIUNA and other unions to put significant resources into organizing immigrant workers into unions and training those workers as union leaders does both. (And that, I believe, is the "follow-up" you're looking for.)

Let's not forget that the two most prominent leaders in the movement for immigrant workers' rights grew up working in the fields with their immigrant parents: Eliseo Medina of SEIU and Maria Elena Durazo of UNITE-HERE.

To reflexively criticize all union leaders as "officials with the same basic political and organizational perspective" verges on anti-unionism. Sometimes we need to give credit where credit's due. And work our asses off to build on the accomplishments of good union leaders like Wilhelm, Medina, and Durazo.