The split in the AFL-CIO is a big deal. The main question is what was the SEIU/Teamsters problem with John Sweeney?
We all know that union membership is declining and has been for a long time. That AFL-CIO approach hasn't had much effect. Sweeney has put together the best and most comprehensive political operations the unions have ever seen in the past decade, but it hasn't slowed labor's declining political influence.
The split, as near as I can tell, and perhaps over-simplified, is a dispute over how much of labor's resources should be put into political activism, and how much into organizing.
I'm a member of 3 unions. I come from a union household. My parents were UAW. My father was a shop steward. My mother, late in life, worked as a dispatcher in IATSE's largest local.
I say this split is most welcome. The biggest mistake labor has made in the last two decades is getting so involved in politics.
I am sick of getting monthly glossy newsletters from my unions telling me about their latest diversity programs, their latest stand on foreign policsy, or the WOT, or Social Security, or executive pay, or media consolidation, or
contraceptive equity, of all things.
Why on earth do they feel they have to have an opinion on every damn issue in American politics?
I want my union to concentrate on organizing unrepresented workers, and on our contracts. I want them to stay out of all politics except where it directly affect our right to organize.
A lot of my union brothers and sisters disagree with me on issues; some are pro-life, some are anti-gun, some think the 10 Commandments should be hung up in every school in the country. Fine. I still want them in my union, fighting the boss for more money so they can donate to the right-wing church of their choice.
It's a huge mistake for unions to become a center for progressive politics. Unions are about
bargaining collectively, not about access to contraception or fair housing or the war in Iraq, regardless of how these issues may affect working people.
Like the Commerce Clause, which justifies federal legislation on just about anything, nearly every issue can be made to have some relation to working people. That shouldn't be a reason to take a stand on every issue.
We need to focus on organizing, and as little else as possible.
I would go so far as to say that unions should even back off the free trade debate. When it comes right down to it, who really cares what 8% of the private workforce really cares about anything? Until we get back to basics, we won't have a big enough voice to impact any issue.
Not all workers are progressive, and they shouldn't have to sign up to endorse things that really have nothing to do with their jobs.
So, if this split will get labor out of politics and back into fighting management, not the GOP, however much those two overlap, I welcome it.
There are political battle that need to be fought, but before labor takes a position on any issue, we should be damn sure that it's focused on what will get us more money, better working conditions, and more members.
Labor shrinks its tent by getting involved in progressive causes.