A Revolt by the CLCs and State Feds

    Maybe the Federation's top officers are going to need to hire a mass police force or enforcement bureau. Because the word at the convention is that many big Central Labor Council and State Feds are not going to be kicking out SEIU and Teamsters' locals.

    I chatted with my buddy Mark McKenzie, a firefighter and long-time president of the New Hampshire AFL-CIO. He said that he has 5,000 SEIU members in New Hampshire, about 25 percent of his per capita payments. "It would be an enormous loss. I don't know what we're going to do. I think SEIU wants to work with us. This is a fight that's happening at the national level. This is not our fight."

    Mark said he would follow the rules but I didn't get the sense that he's going to go out of his way to boot his SEIU and Teamsters affiliates out of his council. He also pointed to Maine, where a referendum is on the state ballot to turn Maine into a right-to-work state. The Maine state federation secretary-treasurer is from SEIU--would it make sense to force such an important player from the state fed just as a life-or-death struggle begins in Maine over union rights?

    And, as I was talking to Mark, the head of a big city central labor council wandered by. He was pretty adamant--"It's the national's fight. It's going to be up to them to make me throw anyone out of my council. And I talked to a lot of other big city council presidents and with only one or two exceptions, all of them said they are not going to throw SEIU or Teamsters or anyone else that leave the Federation out of their council."

Comments

[D Flinchum]

As I noted in an earlier post, how closely the AFL-CIO can work on political campaigns with CtW internationals that are not affiliated with the AFL-CIO may be a LEGAL matter, not an AFL-CIO constitution matter. Last I checked state feds and CLC's are part of the AFL-CIO.

[Michael Funke]

Jonathan,

I'm sure small CLCs like ours here in Central Oregon are also going to be looking at ways to remain as inclusive as possible. SEIU and UFCW are our largest affiliates. We want and need to work with them and this fight at the top is far removed from our day-to-day work. Good work on this blog, btw.

Michael Funke

[Anon]

There has been much confusion among the CLC delegates over the last two days given that the debate has been between leadership and in few cases filtered to the local level. Several delegates began with a "throw the bastards out" frame, but seemed open to a non-voting seat at the table after some discussion about our on-going and working relationship to UBCJA.
The decisions made regarding local affiliation will determine if our organization survives in its current form. We have just lost (at a minimum) 25% of our revenue which translates into the loss of 50% of our staff. Our programatic goals will be curtailed greatly and it is unclear what our local political program will look like (already several unions have withdrawn their membership from AFL-CIO lists). This has always been a national fight. I hope it stays that way, but I already see Internationals prepping delegates to bring the battle home. The irony is that membership has always been open-shop for state and local. Now apparently, with no commitment to mandatory local affiliation, we are supposed to cut our ties with the "insurgents."
I feel like we should get T-shirts printed: "The AFL-CIO held a convention and all CLC's are left with is this lousy peice of paper with our charter."

[BadgerWI]

It seems to me that either you in an organization or you're out of it. In my view, it's absurd for CTW unions to say they don't want to affiliate with the national AFL-CIO but are open to affiliating at the local and state levels.

Of course, to be consistent, I would support a requirement that all national AFL-CIO unions also be members of local councils and state federations. However, to make that requirement meaningful, we would need to make many of those organizations truly effective. Too many local labor councils are weak and ineffective, in part due to arbitrary geographic and historical boundaries.

CLC's need to be re-established as meaningful metropolitan organizations, rather than arbitrary county or city wide organizations

[E.F.Bennett]

This from a retired Pres. Molders Foundry workers local 158, Pres. Skagit San Juan Island County CLC, Officer/member AFSCME/WFSE, We are all Members of AFL-CIO, You are with Them or against them. You cannot belong to clc's and not the AFL-CIO. To do so would make you a BLOOD SUCKING FREE LOADING LEACH. you would realize benefits of the AFL-CIO with out paying your dues. And I say remove them from our sides like a thorn until they come to their senses. Stay in the cirlce negotiate the problem and move on to defend labor.

In Solidarity
E.F. Bennett