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Think againReuniting to win: How local union movement overcame AFL-CIO splitBy
TIM NESBITT
A surprising thing happened after the defection of four major unions
fractured the national AFL-CIO last summer. Back home, in state after
state, our local unions held together. Or, if they began to disassemble
themselves, as happened here in Oregon, they soon found a way to reassemble
themselves and are now close to full strength again.
This is what I hoped would happen. But, for many months last year, it
is not what I expected would happen. And the fact that the fissures from
the national split ultimately did little or no damage to the AFL-CIO’s
institutions at the local level tells an important story about the importance
of old-fashioned solidarity and the endurance of well-organized state
federations and central labor councils. It’s a story worth remembering
as we prepare for the battles of 2006. Here’s my summary.
Chapter I, November 2004-June 2005. As the debate about the future of
the AFL-CIO takes hold, leaders of central labor councils and state federations
weigh in with a strong reminder that solidarity at the local level is
the key to success at the national level. The Oregon AFL-CIO Executive
Board adopts a resolution in December 2004 stating, “All politics
is local. And all organizing, even in a global economy, begins in local
workplaces …if we didn’t have a local union movement, we would
have to create it, state by state.”
But, as consensus develops within the AFL-CIO for strengthening its
local institutions, dissent polarizes its unions over structure and strategy
at the national level. When defection at the national level appears likely,
the Service Employees International Union offers a local option for the
continued affiliation of breakaway unions at the local level, which the
AFL-CIO rejects as unworkable.
Chapter II, July-August 2005. SEIU, the United Food and Commercial Workers,
the Teamsters and UNITE HERE boycott the AFL-CIO convention in Chicago.
Then, they announce their disaffiliation from the national AFL-CIO. But
they all say that they would like their local unions to remain part of
the AFL-CIO’s state federations and labor councils. The AFL-CIO
dismisses that approach as “pick-and-choose solidarity” and
directs its local labor bodies to expel the breakaway unions. The Oregon
AFL-CIO sheds 40 percent of its affiliated members within a week after
the national convention. The Northwest Oregon Labor Council follows suit,
losing close to 25 percent of its members. Similar actions are taken in
other states, including Washington. But local leaders in most states take
a wait-and-see approach, reluctant to diminish their state federations
and labor councils in the face of growing political threats.
Chapter III, September-November 2005. Leaders of the AFL-CIO and national
unions on both sides of the split realize that they need state federations
and labor councils to wage effective campaigns in high-stakes political
contests at the local level. There are key governors’ elections
in Virginia and New Jersey, a government spending measure in Colorado,
and a ballot initiative in California that threatens to restrict the freedom
of unions to engage the political process. Recognizing these threats,
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney announces three successive grace periods
to allow locals of the breakaway unions to continue to participate in
state federations and labor councils. Our campaigns are victorious in
all four battleground states. And Sweeney eventually reaches an agreement
with the breakaway unions to adopt the local option idea, now called “Solidarity
Charters,” through December 2006.
Chapter IV, December 2005. SEIU rejoins the Oregon AFL-CIO. UFCW rejoins
the Northwest Oregon Labor Council. Oregon’s union movement, although
not completely healed, is back to fighting strength. And the national
AFL-CIO goes a step further with the local option approach as a way to
rebuild the union movement from the bottom up: It offers special charters
not just to the breakaway unions, but to any non-AFL-CIO union that chooses
to affiliate with a state federation or labor council.
Epilogue. What produced this re-unification of our union movement at
the local level?
Certainly, personal solidarity was a critical factor. At labor councils,
in particular, union members march under common banners; they picket together;
and, they campaign door-to-door and over the phones to talk to each other’s
members. These kinds of relationships — and the institutions that
sustain them — are not easy to dismantle. Further, at the national
level, union leaders recognized that all politics is local — and
that our best federations and labor councils do their most effective work
in high-stakes electoral campaigns at the local level.
The unraveling that occurred at the national AFL-CIO stopped short of
untying the bindings of solidarity forged at the local level. In most
state federations and labor councils, the center held. And now it appears
that our local institutions may offer new centers of growth for a more
inclusive union movement. Re-uniting to win at the local level, it turns
out, is as important as changing to win at the national level.
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