Labor Organizes a Comeback

In contrast to the exuberant optimism of two years ago, the AFL-CIO’s biennial convention here this week was a somber accounting of losses and missed opportunities--and an angry call to arms.

The pained expression worn by President John J. Sweeney at the podium was due, he said, to a torn ligament in his knee. But it easily could have stemmed from his decision to openly confront labor’s failure to sustain a comeback under his watch.

“While the labor movement stood still, the American economy grew strong and millions of new jobs were created,” Sweeney, who was elected in 1995 on a promise to revive the sagging movement, told reporters. “And for the most part, those new jobs have been nonunion jobs.”

Although aggressive efforts by some unions added 2.5 million members to the federation since Sweeney’s election, the gains were offset largely by job losses in manufacturing and other heavily unionized sectors. Unions represented one in three workers in 1955, Sweeney said. They now represent one in eight.

Some say the best opportunities to grow have passed, because workers are less willing to join unions during a recession, and because unions can expect little help from the Bush administration.

Still, the dominant mood at this four-day pep rally, which ends today, was not defeat but anger. Several union leaders said, perhaps wishfully, that the anger will translate into bold, aggressive action that finally could turn the movement around.

Union officials were particularly upset because they said some business and political leaders have taken advantage of the country’s mood after the terror attacks to promote tax breaks and trade deals while demanding labor concessions.

“We buried our dead and raised money for the survivors, and the other side jumped into action,” said Bruce Raynor, the newly elected president of UNITE, the garment workers union. “The anger is growing, and it will continue to grow,” he said. “Employers will overreach. They will get careless and reckless, and whenever that happens, it infuriates workers and helps us.”

The terrorist attacks were a constant presence at the convention, where a memorial wall listed the names of hundreds of union members killed at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, from flight attendants to dishwashers at the trade center’s top-floor restaurant, Windows on the World. Capitalizing on their hero status, New York firefighters took prominent roles, even leading a march on a nonunion hotel on the Las Vegas strip.

As they raised the status of blue collar union members, however, the attacks decimated some of the federation’s most successful unions. Especially hard hit was the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union, which began a remarkable turnaround by reorganizing casinos here a decade ago.

Now hundreds of those same Las Vegas workers have been thrown out of work by the post-terrorism tourism slump. A sign of the hard times: A table soliciting donations for local unemployed hospitality workers was next to the memorial wall.

Hotel workers union President John Wilhelm, who orchestrated the Las Vegas revival, said his union has lost one-third of its membership and has had to cut nearly one-fifth of its staff. Wilhelm took a 20% pay cut. But he said the union’s organizing department was not touched, and he insisted the union would continue to recruit new workers. “If we don’t organize,” Wilhelm said, “we might as well close up the union because we won’t have the ability to rep our workers.”

Many unions still lack that commitment, said Sweeney, who began his term six years ago by urging all 65 unions affiliated with the federation to devote at least 30% of their budgets to organizing. As federation president, he noted, he has no control over how unions spend their resources, but can only encourage and cajole.

Although less than a dozen unions have reached 30%, an increasing number are moving resources toward hiring organizing directors and training organizers to go up against sophisticated employer consultants in union campaigns. Several have devoted half of their budgets to such efforts, and others are combining efforts in campaigns, such as the multi-union effort at Los Angeles International Airport, said AFL-CIO Organizing Director Mark Splain.

Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union and co-chair of the federation’s organizing committee, said unions must plan strategically to attain the kind of growth that’s needed. He said Los Angeles janitors won a contract last year that forced regional building owners to recognize the union at their Orange County locations.

“There’s no way the numbers add up [to significant gains] 100 at a time. You need to get to thousands at a time,” he said. “We’ve got a new generation of leaders now who didn’t grow up when things were good. There’s a whole new attitude. The question is, will it be fast enough to make a difference?”