At Splinter, Hamilton Nolan writes—AFL-CIO Budget Is a Stark Illustration of the Decline of Organizing:
A leaked copy of the AFL-CIO’s internal budget for 2018–2019 shows that America’s largest organized labor federation now dedicates less than a tenth of its budget to organizing—down from nearly 30 percent a decade ago—illustrating a broad philosophical shift in the union world’s priorities.
In 1995, the AFL-CIO—a coalition of more than 50 major unions, making up the bulk of organized labor in America—found itself in much the same position as it is today: subjected to years of hostile political forces, facing steadily declining union membership, and with a core of activists demanding change in the form of more resources dedicated to organizing new union members.
That year, John Sweeney, the head of one of the most successful organizing unions in America, took over as president of the federation on a “New Voice” platform, vowing to re-energize the labor movement. (Also elected that year as secretary-treasurer was Richard Trumka, the current AFL-CIO president.) Sweeney’s administration created a dedicated Organizing Department, set up an Organizing Institute to train new organizers, and made it known far and wide that new organizing would be a top priority.
A centerpiece of this platform was a goal to have member unions and the AFL-CIO itself dedicate 30 percent of their overall budgets to organizing. At its 2002 national convention, the federation passed a resolution to this effect. At the same time, the federation ran a strong lobbying campaign to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which would have made it much easier for unions to organize workers. Though the push to pour money into organizing was controversial among some member unions, the long-term commitment had at least a momentary quantifiable effect: after declining for much of the 2000s, a small rise in union membership in 2007 was followed by a sharper rise in union density in 2008, accompanied by the largest annual membership gain in a quarter of a century—more than 420,000 new members.
In 2009, the Sweeney era ended and Richard Trumka took over as head of the AFL-CIO. A decade later, the budget priorities of America’s largest union coalition have shifted drastically. Splinter obtained a copy of the 18-page AFL-CIO 2018–2019 budget report, covering the year that will end on June 30, 2019. A source says that this budget was circulated to the federation’s top leadership in August of last year. [,,,]
The document projects $113 million in total revenue for the fiscal year, and about $123 million in spending. The distribution of that spending, though, is a bold depiction of the federation’s move away from its Sweeney-era prioritization of organizing. Now, total organizing spending—listed under “Economic Power & Growth”—accounts for less than a tenth of the budget. [...]
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On this date at Daily Kos in 2008—McCain's Campaign Led by Tainted Lobbyists:
John McCain talks straight, but he acts crooked. Mr. Reform strays from the straight path by following crooked lobbyists for their money, money that comes from corporations and brutal foreign governments.
McCain's been embarrassed several times the last few weeks by lobbyists connected to his campaign. Last week he was forced to fire two lobbyists who had worked for the brutal military junta in Burma/Myanmar, the oppressive goons who are killing people through their refusal to let aid workers in to the country and help the millions of Burmese affected by the cyclone. This morning we learned about a lobbyist working for McCain who also worked for the governments of Serbia and Qatar.
McCain also had to dismiss one of his top operatives in Virginia, Craig Shirley. Shirley's has long been involved in shady dealings on behalf of the GOP, including hyping the orchestrated "rescue" of US soldier Jessica Lynch from a hospital in Iraq, and the scurrilous Willie Horton ad used against Michael Dukakis in 1988. Shirley was simultaneously an official with McCain's campaign and involved in an independent campaign against Democrats. The McCain campaign is spinning his dismissal as a matter of principle, when in fact Shirley was breaking the law by being on both sides of what should be a divide, the candidate campaign, and an independent operation that is legally prohibited from coordinating its activities with the campaign.