Heat From CLCs: Four More Cents

    I hear that this morning at a special meeting of the Executive Council (which started at the ungodly hour of 7:30 a.m...ungodly for those who have been out late at night and up early in the a.m...), a motion was passed to add 4 cents to the per capita rate of the affiliates that would be specifically targeted to support Central Labor Councils and state federations that will need financial support to make up for the money lost because of the disaffiliation of the SEIU and Teamsters.

    This comes as I hear of an increasing groundswell from the CLCs to form their own network. They've collected a list of e-mails that goes 18 pages long and are planning on setting up a listserv to communicate amongst themselves. I wrote about the agitation that started pre-convention.

    The word is also out on the floor that the Federation's officers are doing their best to squelch any move on the part of CLCs and State Federations to allow SEIU and Teamsters' locals to remain inside the local FEderation structures. National presidents have been dispatched to put out the word: if you let SEIU and the Teamsters stay in, our locals will disaffiliate from those bodies...or the central labor body president who does not shun the disaffiliated local will be unelected....

    I repeat my consistent mantra--this is absurd, it's unnecessary punishment and it's the classic "cut your nose off to spite your face." Lord, if a union wants to support a local council with its good money and energy, why not let 'em.

    The extra four cents comes just as the Federation convention will debate this afternoon Resolution 14, which I wrote about extensively this past weekend; the amendment to the Constitution was introduced by the Change To Win coalition and it would allow unaffiliated, legitimate labor bodies, to belong to Federation central labor councils and state federations. This has been a challenge to Sweeney's position that unaffiliated locals may not participate in the Federation's local bodies. It will be interesting to see whether the Laborers or Farmworkers--the only two coalition unions to decide to attend the convention--send anyone to the microphones to advocate for the amendment's adoption.

    I doubt it passes but the debate but it might be a gauge to see whether there is indeed widespread unhappiness among local labor bodies. In any event, the extra four cents per capita proposal will try to smooth some of those ruffled feathers.

    And Jesse Jackson is in the background, exhorting people to reach out and work together..."Keep Hope Alive"...standing ovation.

Comments

[Carl]

What happened to the CLC's having something like 60% of the vote on the floor? I would assume its more now since SEIU and IBT aren't there, so why can't they just ram through an amendment to the constitution allowing disaffiliated unions the ability to maintain affiliation with the central bodies. This is f'ing ridiculous to undermine the bodies that are actually getting good work accomplished. I was recently at a meeting at the WSLC on fair share health care, and the two major unions working on it were SEIU and UFCW. So they will no longer be able to participate, and the WSLC is going to lose 40% of its budget and have to cut staff. What possible legitimate reason could there be to lock out unions that want to coordinate on the local level? All for an old white man dick waving contest.

[Anon]

The issue is that CLC delegates take marching orders from their International. I just did an informal poll of a few CLC delegates and their reasons for voting down the local affiliation proposal had everything to do with their International position (USWA, AFT, AFSCME, et al)and nothing to do with what is best for their councils. In the build up to the convention, some may know that several internationals offered to pay full freight for any CLC delegate to attend-- since most are broke and can't afford to send officers to a $200/night festival of platitudes. Well you get what you pay for...

[Adam Chervin]

There isn't already a CLC listserv?!?! God, we're pathetic.

[LaborDude]

This exact type of reaction is what helped the CTW Unions figure out that the AFL-CIO isn't the right vehicle to energize the labor movement and grow it.

[D Flinchum]

"One immediate political consequence is that the AFL-CIO will no longer be able to coordinate get-out-the-vote drives that include Teamsters and SEIU members and their families. Under the law, the AFL-CIO can only mobilize voters who are in member unions." Thomas Edsall in the Washington Post on July 26, 2005.

[benton]

But you could have just as easily asked "what legitimate reason could there be to disaffiate from AFL and thus turn our backs on coordinating with our brothers and sisters at the local level?" SEIU knew it would come to this if they left. They left anyway. But I agree with your last sentence completely.

And can a delegate from a CLC be a member of a non affiliated union? Afterall, Sweeney is in OPEIU now.

[Solidarious]

Sweeney's obviously not there by choice, though, benton.

And the fact remains that ultimately there's an outcome to be seen here, and no one wants to recognize it:

SEIU and the rest of CtW are playing the classic game of "If I can't have it, they can't have it either." If it isn't apparent now, wait until they give up workman's comp just like they did in IL when they win the CA home care workers, or when they burn out this latest crop of organizers and cry foul when they can't find more to abuse and throw away.

[benton]

I also believe there is a CLC list serv. I suspect though, that AFL Field Mobilization or someone has the keys to that listserv. So it isn't likely to be a useful tool for organizing to pass a resolution that the AFL-CIO leadership is going to oppose.

[a.non]

Solidarious-

You were making sense before, now you're just showcasing your ignorance re: SEIU. I won't get into the details, but I'll leave you with the fact that homecare workers in the state of Illinois are eligible for worker's comp. Why spread third-hand lies? Because you're a green organizer who didn't know what he was getting into with an ax to grind? And do you have any knowledge about the homecare industry in CA, specifically what AFSCME (or should I say UDW) or SEIU's contracts are? I didn't think so. Please do your research before you run your mouth.

[Solidarious]

First of all, the fact that someone has workman's compensation through the state implies that they have an employer. In IL they (SEIU) signed a contract that didn't allow them any sort of rights as employees with an employer and furthermore, made it impossible for them to bargain for it in the future by saying that they don't desire recognition. There's plenty of copies of that agreement floating around, complete with SEIU bigwig signatures on it. Not that AFSCME would have offered them anything better, just saying...

Second, why do I have to be green? Because I think that making new organizers in the AFLCIO apprenticeship program work for 70 days straight because it can be done is wrong? Because having a life, having a brain, and having a backbone are things that I think are important in being an activist? I think that people say the things that you say because they've given a lot of their core principles away at the expense of making headway in the organization. And in truth, the sad fact is that you can be an organizing director and still be a really bad organizer. You just have to know people to do it. I've seen them come and go, and that remains a constant.

I'm not going to say how long I've been in it, but I will say that I've worked in at least 35 cities on not just new organizing drives but on internal organizing as well. I'm also an experienced researcher with loads of library and classroom time on both ends, as teacher and student. But I'm also important in someone else's life, and knowing that both myself and that person work in a movement that can be so incredibly insensitive to the needs and ideas of its activists scares me, because caring is at the essential core of what it means to be radical. Emotion fuels my desire to make the lives of other better, and you don't have to be a twenty year vet in the movement with no life and three divorces under your belt to realize it. Work me to a bloody stump, but do it for the workers because you CARE, a.non.

SEIU and AFSCME are running campaigns just to fight one another. What sense does that make strategically? How does it help worker solidarity to repeatedly raid organizing drives of "competing" unions? What sense is there in competition if your motto consists of solidarity and brotherhood? Why force another union to waste money, and you yourself as an international waste money, to combat some imaginary enemy?

I think the real reason that the "new organizing model" unions dislike dissent is because it is essential to the spirit of rebellion that they have to crush in order to make newer kids into willing movement slaves. I think that in order to do that you have to tell people that they aren't important unless they're working themselves to death and that if they dissent, they're not for the movement, especially when they love it. That is the cause of this infamous organizing shortage, because there's a plethora of willing kids dying to get in.

But this post is now way too long. If you want to seriously discuss this, my email address, unlike yours, works. Email me and we can discuss my personal history at your leisure, which is a courtesy I extend to anyone on this board (within reason... my blood type will remain a mystery to you all :)

Solidarious.

[Solidarious]

sorry... corrected my email with this post

mailto:solidarious54@gmail.com

[steve]

I can't believe that all Democrats that Gerry McEntee and John Sweeney are so eager to elect will be happy with Sweeney's insistence that the CLCs ban participation from SEIU and IBT. They rely on a grassroots operation coordinated through State Feds and CLCs. And how does a California State Fed possibly survive fincially and put a grassroots program togehter without SEIU. Its bad enought that there is a competing federation at the national level, but at least the impact is largely inside the beltway. Why would Sweeney insist on dividing workers in their communities? He needs to take a deep breath and not destroy those parts of the movement that work.

[Dick Reilly]

Okay, so the die is cast. The disaffiliated unions will no longer be able to participate in Central Labor Councils. And the CLCs cannot simply ignore what's happened and go on with business as usual - as much as they'd like to. And in major urban areas - say like Chicago - this will have devastating consequences, considering the key roles both the SEIU and Teamsters have played in the work of the Chicago Federation of Labor. What prevents the disaffiliated CtW unions - assuming more will withdraw from the AFL down the road - launching an initiative to create alternative central labor bodies where there may be interest, and inviting both local CLC affilitates and unaffiliated unions - think the Cook County Nurse Assoc. - now an afflitate of the California Nurses Association - to participate in joint projects, while leaving the CFL to twist in the wind?