Jul. 24, 2005 - 19:51 MDT

IS IT ?

It is just like Momma and Poppa fighting in sight and hearing of their kid to me.

An article in The Denver Post of today by Ron Fournier of The Associated Press sounds the knell perhaps. In full:

Labor unions strike at each other

As the group marks 50 years at a meeting this week, four of its most powerful affiliates may be out the door over a lack of modernization

CHICAGO -- "Labor's toughest negotiatiors are turning their bruising tactics on one another, playing a high-stakes game of chicken inside the AFL-CIO at a perilous time for the long-fading union movement."

"A politically charged feud over the future of organized labor will come to a climax this week when nearly 1,000 delegates gather to celebrate the 50th year of the AFL-CIO."

"Four of the federation's 56 affiliates, representing about one-third of its dues paying union members, are threatening to leave Chicago before the convention begins Monday and, eventually bolt the AFL-CIO itself."

"A division in organized labor threatens the Democratic Party, which relies on the AFL-CIO's organizing powers on Election Day, and could affect the livelihoods of 13 million workers represented by the federation's affiliates. Whether the civil war jolts organized labor from its slumber or hastens its decline is a subject of intense debate."

"Divided we fall," said Gerald McEntee, president of a government workers union who hopes to keep the AFL-CIO intact."

" On the flip side, Andy Stern of the Service Employees International Union is leading an effort to overethrow his former mentor, AFIO president John Sweeney, and radically overhaul the federation. He has formed a coalition of seven reform minded unions, including the four threatening to quit the AFL-CIO if their demands are not met."

"Workers need organizations that are new, modern and full of dynamic thinking for the 21st century, and to date the labor movement has not been able to change in a way that employers and the economy have been changing," Stern said.

"He and his allies argue that the AFL-CIO has failed to adjust to globalization, the decline of industrial-based jobs and the rise of the service economy. In addition to ousting Sweeney, the dissidents want to shift the federations focus from politics to recruiting new union members."

"Sweeney counters that the AFL-CIO has reformed and will keep doing so. In the run-up to the convention, he bowed to several of Stern's demands, save one: Sweeney has refused to resign his post and is assured of re-election this week."

"While pledging to work through the weekend to avoid a split, Sweeney has started to look ahead to an AFL-CIO without Stern and his allies."

"It's always painful to lose members, but we will maintain a strong federation with a substantial number of affiliates "if the dissidents leave," Sweeney said."

"Barring an unexpected breakthough, Service Employees International Union delegates are expected to vote today to leave the convention, according to officials familiar with the situation, which they describe as changing by the hour. Three other dissenting unions could follow suit -- the Teamsters, along with food and commercial workers and hotel, restaurant, retail, textile and laundry employees."

"We're getting down to the eleventh hour," Teamsters president James P. Hoffa said Saturday."

"Even if they storm out of the convention, the dissident unions may delay their formal departure from the AFL-CIO for several weeks."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

To me it is somewhat like getting the news that a valued family is in terminal cancer. Maybe a miracle drug will show up in time, but who can bank on that ?

It took so very, very many years for labor to get together and become a force for the welfare of the worker that it is sad to contemplate it coming to an end.

One thing that has struck me is a lot of folks are willing to work way more than forty hours a week for whatever their employer chooses to pay them, thinking that they will always be able to find better wages for their work somewhere else or they are secure in their job. They seem to feel they are the elite and don't have to worry. Wonder how many of the middle level "elite" at Enron made out like burglars ?

It is sad that so much has been lost in the last ten years. Jobs no longer here, but gone overseas, lower wages because of competition from "undocumented aliens," with the excuse that Anglos won't do that kind of work. But in reality they will if they are paid a fair wage.

Companies selling pieces of themselves off to outfits who will change the labor situation to suit themselves, most always to the detriment of the working stiff.

In history, there was a patriot who said, "We must hang together or most assuredly we shall hang separately." (or words to that effect). I wonder, is effective collective bargaining is moving off the stage, giving up the fight ? I wonder, IS IT ? . . . . . . . . . . . .