WP: Labor's Divisions Widen As Membership Declines

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Labor's Divisions Widen As Membership Declines

By Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 7, 2005; Page A02


LAS VEGAS -- AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney last week won the latest round in a bitter internal clash over the future of the labor movement by insisting that more money go for future campaigns to unseat Republicans than for trying to shore up the federation's sagging membership.

That showdown pitted Sweeney, AFSCME's Gerald McEntee and the Steelworkers' Leo Gerard against such powerhouse dissidents as the Teamsters' James P. Hoffa, the Service Employees' Andrew L. Stern and the Laborers' Terence M. O'Sullivan.

Since the merger of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations 50 years ago, labor has been in a relentless downward spiral, and factions have bitterly squabbled for years over how best to reverse the trend. Today, the most urgent question among labor leaders and experts is whether a victory by either Sweeney's forces or the dissidents will be enough to pull organized labor out of a nose dive that began when Sweeney, 70, was a 20-year-old student at Queens College.

"These are the darkest days that I have ever seen for American workers across the United States," said McEntee, one of Sweeney's strongest allies....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11958-2005Mar6.html