Kirkland to Quit in August in Bid to Stop Opposition : Labor: Thomas Donahue, No. 2 at AFL-CIO, will take reins, but move might be too late to get him elected.

Trying to blunt a dissident group’s historic effort to seize control of the American union movement, embattled AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland announced plans Monday to resign on Aug. 1 to open the way for his longtime second in command, Thomas R. Donahue, to take the organization’s reins.

The move was designed to boost Donahue’s chances of winning election in late October--to a two-year term in the top job--against a powerful challenge from the growing opposition group.

Meanwhile, the dissidents were getting ready to officially announce today the three candidates heading their slate. The ticket includes a Latina labor leader who, if elected, would be the first woman or minority to reach the top elected ranks of the AFL-CIO.

Many union observers said the last-ditch maneuver by Kirkland, 73, and Donahue, 66, probably came too late to defeat the challenge from the dissidents, who now claim the support of unions representing 60% of the AFL-CIO’s 13.3 million members.

They said Donahue alienated many of his would-be backers by rejecting their previous overtures for him to challenge Kirkland.

“The leaders of the dump-Kirkland movement had reached out to Donahue on at least three occasions and he turned them down. Now, at the last second, he’s seeking their support? I don’t think they’re going to listen to him,” said Matthew Tallmer, editor of two Washington-based newsletters that track labor issues.

Donahue, in a prepared statement, said he had announced earlier that he would retire this fall from the AFL-CIO based on Kirkland’s previous plans to run for a ninth consecutive term. The two men have served together at the top of the AFL-CIO for 16 years. With Kirkland’s decision to bow out, however, Donahue said he now thinks he has the “unique capacity” to unite the union movement.

To do that, however, Donahue would have to defeat his old friend John J. Sweeney, the 60-year-old president of the 1.1-million-member Service Employees International Union. As rumored for weeks, Sweeney--who was hired by Donahue at the SEIU in the 1960s--will be named the opposition group’s candidate for president.

Also slated to be placed on the ticket are Richard L. Trumka, 46, president of the United Mine Workers, who would run for Donahue’s current secretary-treasurer post. The opposition group’s ticket would also be led by Linda Chavez-Thompson, 50, a Latina who is slated as a candidate for a newly created position at the AFL-CIO, executive vice president. She currently is an international vice president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and, like Trumka and Sweeney, serves on the AFL-CIO’s 35-member executive council.

However, before she could take on the new AFL-CIO elective post, Chavez-Thompson would need the support of two-thirds of the 80 AFL-CIO unions voting at the federation’s October convention.

Kirkland, in his retirement announcement, said his decision stems from “personal preferences” and his wish to put “the future direction of the AFL-CIO in the hands of one who places the solidarity and best interests of labor as a whole above other considerations.”

Although Donahue appears to face an uphill battle for victory to a two-year term in October, his prospects for gaining the presidency for the last 2 1/2 months of Kirkland’s term appear brighter. The voting in August will be confined to the 35 members of the AFL-CIO’s executive council, where Donahue and Kirkland are still believed to command the support of the majority.