NYT: Teamsters Offer Plan to Reshape Labor Future

[DeepModem Mom]

Teamsters Offer Plan to Reshape Labor Future
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: December 9, 2004


The Teamsters union heated up the debate over reshaping the labor movement yesterday by proposing to slash the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s budget and finance a four-year campaign of political and union organizing in swing states to help elect a pro-labor president.

Worried about the steady decline of organized labor, the Teamsters, one of the nation's largest unions, recommended withholding half of the $90 million that individual unions give the labor federation each year and using it to recruit more members. The Teamsters proposal, echoing a 10-point plan issued last month by the Service Employees International Union, would reduce the federation's role and responsibilities as many labor leaders conclude that unions urgently need to focus on recruiting more members.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents 1.4 million workers, issued its proposal as some union leaders are voicing fears of a schism.

The service employees union, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s largest affiliate, with almost 1.7 million members, has threatened to quit the federation unless its 60 member unions agree to sweeping reforms, among them requiring most groups to spend 20 percent of their budgets on organizing. At the same time, the leaders of many smaller unions strongly oppose the service employees' proposal to force some of them to merge.

Seeking to create a middle ground, the Teamsters union, in a proposal approved by its board, said mergers should be encouraged because bigger unions could better stand up to giant corporations, but it opposed the idea of forced mergers....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/09/national/09labor.html

[ikojo]

1. "Organized" labor is their own worse enemy

30-40 years ago they failed to realize the importance of organizing the rising number of females entering the workforce at the time. They stuck to the old formulas for organizing. Women were ripe for unionization but they were ignored by the men who ran the big unions. Now people of my generation have been fed a steady diet of anti union propaganda, thanks to those union members in the controlled press.

It will be a long uphill battle to convince middle class workers that a union is the answer. I know that unionized workers do better than non union workers but from what I hear at work, not all share my opinions.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. Interesting, okojo -- I never thought about the failure to organize women

as part of the problem.

[ikojo]

3. Yes, it is part of the problem. Women as a class were ripe

for unionization and the protections offered. However, since women tended to work in "pink collar" type office jobs the unions virtually ignored them when they started entering the work force en masse. Women are 50% or more of the population but I suspect a lower percentage of women are unionized than men.

Had unions looked beyond the factory, which tended to employ men, I don't think we'd be where we are today as far as the number of people without health insurance and the number of people working but falling into poverty. Countries with STRONG unions do not have the problems that we find in the US. We have very weak unions, they are all bluster. They really don't challenge the boss. All they ask for is just a wee bit more out of his pocket and then they go sit down like good boys. When one union goes on strike ALL unions should honor that picket line because an injury to one is an injury to all.