Five Unions to Create a Coalition on Growth

[Rose Siding]

Five labor unions that are highly critical of John J. Sweeney, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., are planning to announce this week that they are forming a coalition aimed at unionizing large numbers of workers, several union officials said yesterday.

Labor leaders said they were planning this move because they want to form an aggressively pro-growth coalition and because they believe the A.F.L.-C.I.O. is doing too little to organize nonunion workers.

This new coalition will be formed by the Service Employees International Union, the Teamsters, the laborers, the food and commercial workers and Unite Here, which represents hotel, restaurant and apparel workers, two union officials said. These officials insisted on anonymity because they feared some union leaders would be angry at them for disclosing the plan before it is announced Wednesday, after union leaders meet in Washington.
...
The union officials said the new coalition - tentatively called the Change to Win Coalition - would not compete with the federation. Rather, they say, it will complement the federation to give new energy and excitement to the flagging labor movement. Just one in 13 workers in the private sector is in a union, down from one in three a half-century ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/13/national/13service.html?

[Gman]

1. This is so typical of these unions

and mainly SEIU. Sweeney comes from SEIU so they're gutting their own. But for Linda Chavez Thompson in her EVP position with AFL-CIO, AFSCME would be right there with SEIU in busting up the federation. These people don't have a clue what unity means. And, is anybody surprised the Teamsters is right there with this bunch. The Teamsters should never have been allowed back into the AFL-CIO. This is even laughable since the Teamsters are notorious for endorsing Republicans.

What a sorry bunch. THey do not serve their members well. This is all about a huge feud with Sweeney and not about organizing new members.

[GettysbergII]

5. The unions are doing no worse of a job representing workers interests than

the democratic party is. Both have become too chummy and beholding to international corporations and the elite. Sweeney in fact is so tight with the ruling class that he's a member of the Council of Foreign Relations(CFR) and gives speeches about the global economy to the Trilateral Commission.

http://www.trilateral.org/annmtgs/trialog/trlgtxts/t53/swe.htm

As a teacher and a member of AFT, as I watch the rightwing (after a quarter century propaganda campaign, dismantle Public Education before my eyes, it irks me to no end to find out that former AFT presidents Sandra Feldman (1997-2004)and Albert Shanker (1974-1997) were members of both the CFR and the Trilateral Commission. The fact of the matter is that a national labor strike should have been called in this country a long time ago. Certainly the day that the NCLB Act was signed into law, the AFT should have called for us to walk off the job.

[PittPoliSci]

6. Great post!

:hi:

[Gman]

7. Oh really? I really didn't realize that

I didn't realize Sweeney was so involved with international organizations. Frankly, I'm appalled because that was one of the biggest bitches about Lane Kirkland.

When Reagan fired the air traffic controllers, Kirkland was more worried about international relations than calling a national strike like he should have done.

[GettysbergII]

13. Where did labor get these rightwing leaders????

You got it! Kirkland, like the rest of the union sweethearts, was sure a sold out piece a shit that turned the AFL-CIO into the AFL-CIA.

http://www.explore-biography.com/biographies/L/Lane_Kirkland.html
Lane Kirkland
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Joseph Lane Kirkland (March 12, 1922 - August 14, 1999) US union leader, AFL-CIO President.

Biography
Kirkland was born in Camden, South Carolina and rose over his career to head the 16 million member American Labor movement.

In 1941, Kirkland entered the United States Merchant Marine Academy, graduated 1942, and became an officer on U.S. merchant ships during World War II. After the war, he worked in the Research Department of the AFL. He received a B.S. degree from the prestigious Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

Kirkland married Edith Draper Hollyday in June 1944, with whom he had five daughters. A year after their divorce in 1972, he married Irena Neumann.

From 1979 to 1995 he was president of the American Federation of Labor – Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). During his tenure, union membership in the United States declined precipitously. The unions suffered some of their most serious defeats, including the 1981 air traffic controllers's strike and the 1985 Hormel meat packer's strike. On the international front, Kirkland's support of the Solidarity movement in Poland contributed to the decline of communism.

The AFL-CIO continued to be highly supportive of U.S. foreign policy during the 1970's and 1980's. The Free Trade Union Committee, which had supported the Vietnam War under Kirkland's predecessor George Meany, was reconstituted as the Free Trade Union Institute (FTUI). The FTUI cooperated with the National Endowment for Democracy, which received CIA funding, to support pro-government unions and subvert anti-government unions in Latin America and Europe.

Kirkland died in Washington, D.C..

External links
Articles

* Lane Kirkland (1922 - 1999) AFL-CIO history page.
* Free Trade Union Institute the foreign arm of the AFL-CIO from 1977.
* Lane Kirkland: The AFL-CIO's last cold warrior by Jim Smith
* Freedom's Labors: Lane Kirkland worked for more than his union by Fred Siegel. Wall Street Journal. OpinionJournal.com. Tuesday, March 8, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST. Accessed April 3, 2005.

Books

* Lane Kirkland : Champion of American Labor by Arch Puddington. 352 pages. Publisher: Wiley (January 14, 2005). ISBN 0471416940.
* Taking Care of Business: Samuel Gompers, George Meany, Lane Kirkland, and the Tragedy of American Labor by Paul Buhle. 224 pages. Publisher: Monthly Review Press (August 1, 1999). ISBN 1583670033.


http://rightweb.irc-online.org/groupwatch/ftui.php

Free Trade Union Institute

Acronym/Code: FTUI

Updated: 9/89

Categories:

Labor

Background:

The Free Trade Union Institute (FTUI) was created in 1977 when the AFL-CIO resurrected and renamed the moribund Free Trade Union Committee (FTUC). The purpose was to increase U.S. influence with European trade unions, especially in Spain and Portugal. (16) It was almost defunct in 1983 when Congress began funding the newly-created National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and FTUI has been the largest grantee ever since. (3) NED's purpose is "to encourage the establishment and growth of democratic development in a manner consistent both with the broad concerns of United States national interests and with the specific requirements of the democratic groups in other countries which are aided by the endowment."(14) FTUI is one of four core grantees of NED. The other three are the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), National Republican Institute for International Affairs, and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. In 1988 NED received over $20 million from the U.S. taxpayers. (15) Congress authorizes U.S. Information Agency (USIA) funds for NED which in turn gives money to FTUI and other grantees. FTUI then funds overseas projects which are usually managed by AFL-CIO's three regional labor institutes: American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), Asian-American Free Labor Institute (AAFLI), and the African-American Labor Center (AALC). (2)

FTUI says it "supports programs that provide assistance for democratic education, training in basic union skills, and organizing assistance... sponsors exchanges between trade unionists... and supports research on labor rights and human rights..."(4)

Both NED and FTUI have received widespread support from both U.S. political parties, the business community, and even the right wing, as can be seen by supporter Senator Orrin Hatch (Utah)--a labor opponent in the domestic sphere. A Hatch aide explained why his boss decided to back the AFL-CIO's intl operations, saying the AFL-CIO worldwide "has tremendous leverage for political activity compared to say, CIA covert operations, which often fail."(5) In congressional hearings, Senator Hatch stated "I have seen the excellent work of the labor institute over the last several years, and frankly, they have carried a large share of the burden in sowing the seeds of democracy abroad."(6)

In an undated memorandum from the early days of NED's operations, FTUI executive director, Eugenia Kemble, instructed NED executive director, Carl Gershman to "avoid advertising" projects in certain countries where recipients would "either be endangered or embarrassed if specific budgets were published or announced."(7)

NED was embarrassed in November 1985 when one of these FTUI projects was disclosed. FTUI had awarded $1. 4 million to two right-wing groups in France. It is still not clear why NED thought democracy was in trouble in France. More than half a million dollars had gone to a student group that had fewer than 1,000 members and was an offshoot of an organization known for its violent and criminal predilections. (9)

Funding:

FTUI is the largest grantee of NED receiving $24. 6 million from 1985-1988. (8) A very small portion of FTUI's funding comes from the AFL-CIO. (2)

Activities:

Philippines: The largest recipient of FTUI funds between 1983-1988 was the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP), which historically was tied to the Marcos government. (8) NED states that FTUI is helping "to strengthen the TUCP" and that "the TUCP supports a media relations and communications program, voter awareness and civic action campaigns on topical issues and training in democratic ideology and technical organizatioal skills for workers."(15) After the assassination of opposition Senator Benigno Aquino in 1983, TUCP received a $3 million grant. According to Bud Phillips, AAFLI administrator in the Philippines,"Our help saved the free trade union movement... . Imagine if you have US$100,000 to give out to families in US$500 chunks. Your stock goes way up, faster than the stock of any of the militant labour groups." When Joseph Lee, U.S. labor attache in Manila asked about NED programs in the Philippines, the late Irving Brown (AFL-CIO Intl Affairs Dept) blocked Lee's inquiries and threatened to have him fired. State Dept officials told Lee to "lay off, it's none of your business."(8)

Poland: The largest recipient of FTUI grants from 1985-1989 is the Solidarnosc. (8) With its funding Solidarnosc was to disseminate information, sustain union ativists, maintain its adminstrative infrastructure, and through its Brussels-based office disseminate information to the West on worker rights violations in Poland. (15) Jerry Milewski, director of Solidarnosc's Brussels bureau said the grants were used for a social fund for Solicarnosc members, and for printing and communications equipment. Radical factions within Solicarnosc criticise the tight hold on funds by Lech Walesa and the union leadership. (8)

Portugal: Established in 1979 by the Social Party and the Social Democratic Party as a counterweight to the communistoriented CGTP, the UGT union federation has received 7 percent of all FTUI grants from 1985-1988. After the 1974 revolution, takeover by the Portugese Communist Party was seen by the U.S. to be a major threat. Portugal is regarded by the U.S. as the weakest link in the chain of West European democracies. It is also of strategic importance to the U.S. because of its nuclear bases on the Azores in the North Atlantic. (8)

Spain: FTUI grant recipient ELA-STV, the major trade union in the Basque region, is linked to the conservative Basque Natl Party. The separatist ETA movement is active in the Basque region and seen as a threat to liberal democracy in Spain. FTUI hopes the ELA-STV will serve as a moderating force in the region against the radical Basque trade unions and the communistoriented CCOO union which is active throughout the country. (8) NED says the FTUI funding is so that "trade union staff and shop stewards will receive intensive training in basic union skills and democratic values."(15)

Panama: In 1984 FTUI funded the (Republic of) Panamanian Confederation of Workers (CTRP) for use in the country's presidential election campaign, in support of Nicolas Barletta, the military-backed candidate. The U.S. Ambassador in Panama called it a "hare-brained" project. (10)

Mozambique: In September 1984 three high-level representatives of the MNR met with Eugenia Kemble and Nana Mahoma, FTUI coordinator of South Africa programs. According to a confidential memo, the MNR representatives were searching for support and training."They are anxious to make a start in the labor field by training some of the people now who will take leadership positions in the future labor movement," the memo said. (11) They established a new organization, Friends of Mozambique, which according to NED annual reports has not yet received FTUI funding.

France: Also in 1984, FTUI channeled $1. 4 million to two center-right groups in France (Force Ouvriere, an anticommunist trade union, and Inter-University Union, an anticommunist student federation with reputed ties to the Service d'Action Civique, an extreme-right paramilitary group) that opposed the policies of President Francois Mitterand's Socialist Party. These grants were never publicly reported because FTUI promised the French recipients it would keep the agreement secret. (12) These grants have been discontinued but NED continues to fund the Force Ouvriere's affiliates in Africa and the Caribbean using FTUI as a pass-through. (15)

South Africa: In early 1985 Black union leaders from South Africa visited Washington to attend a labor conference. As the conference proceeded, the South Africans saw that FTUI was supporting their struggle for its use in Cold War politics. By early 1986, the Congress of South African Trade Unions decided to forgo any formal ties with FTUI or NED. (9)

Government Connections:

As noted above, FTUI is almost completely funded through the U.S. Information Agency. Congressional oversight is required of NED--and presumably of NED projects-and documents are supposed to remain open to the public.

Private Connections:

(13)

Thomas R. Donahue, Board of Trustees Hudson Inst and AIFLD. James E. Hatfield, Board of Trustees AIFLD.

John T. Joyce, Board of Directors Natl Democratic Inst, A. Philip Randolph Inst and League for Industrial Democracy, Board of Trustees AIFLD.

Tom Kahn, Board of Directors A. Philip Randolph Inst, and League for Industrial Democracy, Natl Comt of Social Democracts USA.

Lane Kirkland, Board of Directors NED and AIFLD. Jay Mazur, Board of Directors League for Industrial Democracy and Council for a Democractic Majority, Board of Trustees AIFLD, and Natl Advisory Council of Social Democrats USA.

Albert Shanker, Board of Directors NED, A. Philip Randolph Inst, Council for a Democratic Majority, and League for Industrial Democracy, Board of Trustees Freedom House and AIFLD, Natl Advisory Council of Social Democrats USA.

John J. Sweeney, Board of Directors League for Industrial Democracy.

Lynn R. Williams Board of Directors League for Industrial Democracy, Board of Trustees AIFLD, Natl Advisory Council of Social Democrats USA.

Misc:

Comments:

U.S. Address: Suite 705, 815 16th Street NW, Washington, DC 20006

(202-637-5060).

Principals:

Board of Directors: Marvin J. Boede, United Assn of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industries; John DeConcini, Bakery, Confectionery and Tobacco Workers Intl Union; Thomas R. Donahue, AFL-CIO; James E. Hatfield, Glass Bottle Blowers' Assn; John T. Joyce, Bricklayers; Tom Kahn, AFL-CIO; Lane Kirkland, AFL-CIO; Jay Mazur, Intl Ladies' Garment Workers' Union; Albert Shanker, American Federation of Teachers; John J. Sweeney, Service Employees Intl; Lynn R. Williams, United Steelworkers of America. (1) Eugenia Kemble, exec dir.


Sources:

1. Phone interview by the Resource Center, 7-18-89.

2. AIFLD in Central America: Agents as Organizers, Tom Barry and Deb Preusch, Resource Center, 1987.

3. NED Annual Report, 1986, 1987, 1988; "Grants Awarded Fiscal Year 1985"; and "Grants Awarded Fiscal Year 1984."

4. FTUI,"The Free Trade Union Institute," brochure, no date. 5. Washington Post, November 19, 1986.

6. Foreign Relations Authorizations FY1986 and 1987, Committee on Foreign Relations, p. 544.

7. Undated memo from Eugenia Kemble to Carl Gershman.

8. International Labour Reports, May/June 1989.

9. Jefferson Morley,"Better NED Than Dead?" Dissent, Spring 1986.

10. Washington Post, June 28, 1984.

11."Free Trade Union Institute," factsheet produced by the National Committee on Religion and Labor, 1987.

12. Congressional Record, December 4, 1985, Vol. 131, No. 166, p. E5430.

13. 1988 and 1989 publications from AIFLD, NED, Natl Democratic Inst, A. Philip Randolph Inst, League for Industrial Democracy, Social Democrats USA, Hudson Inst, Council for a Democratic Majority, and Freedom House.

14."National Endowment for Democracy," factsheet produced by the National Committee on Religion and Labor, 1987.

15. NED, Annual Report, 1988.

16. 30th Anniversary Report of the AFL-CIO Executive Council, AFL-CIO, Oct 28, 1985.

The underlying cites for this profile are now kept at Political Research Associates, [phone]. www.publiceye.org.

http://www.lalabor.org/Kirkland.html

Lane Kirkland

The AFL-CIO's last cold warrior

by Jim Smith

This article was written in 1995 before the AFL-CIO president's fall from power. However, it includes relevant information on the history of that organization and its involvement with right wing organizations and the government's foreign policy objectives. The title should not be taken literally. There are still many important "cold warriors" in the AFL-CIO establishment waiting for the day to return to power.


They won't be toppling larger-than-life statues of Lane Kirkland, but in many other respects the AFL-CIO chief's slow-motion fall from power parallels the demise of his hated enemies in the former Soviet Bloc. Land Kirkland, Cold Warrior par excellence and scholarly leader of 13.3 million workers, apparently has been outmaneuvered by his old allies, the presidents of unions who hold a majority of the votes at the AFL-CIO convention this October.

The palace revolution against the 73-year-old Kirkland seems to have the support of the great majority of labor union activists. When the magazine Labor Notes asked its readers to vote for their choice for AFL-CIO president, nearly 800 responded. Only five voted to retain Kirkland. When hundreds of local and national union leaders turned out to hear Kirkland at an AFL-CIO forum, April 21 in Los Angeles, not one speaker took advantage of an open mike to urge Kirkland to continue his tenure.

The opposition to Kirkland surfaced earlier this year, but his troubles have their roots in foreign and domestic events that began during the Reagan years. While Ronald Reagan, to Kirkland's delight, was overheating the Soviet economy by forcing it to try to keep up with a greatly expanded arms race, he was also giving the green light to corporations to declare war on their unions.

The Social Compact

An informal social compact between corporations and unions dating back to mid-century had brought relative labor peace and prosperity to the two sides. Corporations agreed to wage and benefit increases in ritualized contract negotiations every three years. Labor institutionalized its struggle by taking it off the shop floor and into arbitration hearings. Collective bargaining arbitration and labor board proceedings were handled by labor relations "professionals." The role left to rank-and-file members was to pay their dues and gratefully accept annual wage increases.

In order to hold up its end of the social compact, "responsible" union leaders had to clean house. Communists, Socialists and even apolitical militants were all tarred with the red-baiting brush. With the help of anti-Communists industry councils and Congressional committees, those wanting to continue the day-to-day struggles against management either were driven out of their jobs or learned to shut up. Unions came to resemble insurance companies to whom members would turn on rare occasions when they had a problem on the job.

By the 1970s, foreign competition was forcing U.S. manufacturers to restructure in order to maintain high levels of profit. Auto, Steel, Rubber, Electrical and other industries began closing plants and making massive layoffs. Some local unions tried to form coalitions against plant closings. The results, in most cases, were pathetic. Community organizations that hadn't heard from a union in 30 years were asked to help save the jobs of some of the highest paid workers in town. In the end, the plants closed and the unions were shown to be powerless. Corporate observers got a first-hand look at how weak labor had become.

In retrospect, the wave of plant closings was only the opening sally before the all-out assault. The declaration of war was made by Ronald Reagan, in 1981, when he fired striking air traffic controllers who worked for the federal government. When PATCO struck, Reagan responded by permanently replacing 12,000 highly-skilled workers. It was the labor relations equivalent of tactical nuclear weapons.

During the previous years of the social compact, strikes were usually a set piece. The union walked out and the company obligingly closed its plant (often using up excess inventory). In many cases, health benefit payments continued to be made by the employer and company credit unions made loans to needy strikers.

Sidney Lens described a steel strike during this period: "At one of the Chicago mills, the United States Steel Company put up a desk, inside its gates, for the picket captain. It ran a power line and water to the union's six trailers where strikers were resting. One night it bought the boys some beer. At another mill, the corporation provided movable, washrooms for the union men."' Ironically, Lens reminisced, if the strike had been in 1936 or 1896, "there would have been strikebreakers, beatings, arrests, injunctions." Lens, and too many union leaders, believed that the old days would never return.

In one stroke, Reagan removed the strike as an option for the vast majority of workers. Now, workers had to choose between going on strike and keeping their jobs. In 1974, there had been 424 strikes each involving at least 1,000 workers. By 1994, there were only 45 such strikes.

Labor losing new class war

Since PATCO, the new class war has been a rout for labor. Real weekly wages (in 1982 dollars) fell from $315 in 1972 to only $253 in 1995. For millions of workers, health care premiums. formerly fully paid by the company were now at least partially coming out of workers" reduced paychecks. Pay cuts, not raises, turned up in thousands,of company collective bargaining proposals. In most negotiations, unions fought a slow retreat on contract language provisions that made life at work bearable. Many unions began claiming victory if they didn't have to accept everything the company wanted to take away.

In the 1980s, organizing the unorganized slowed to a crawl as corporations hired professional union busters who promised to maintain a "union-free environment." In long, drawn-out election campaigns, unions were hard-pressed to point to any good reasons why workers should risk the wrath of their bosses and vote for the union. Union-busters raised the specter of years of contract negotiations, lower wages, lower benefits, exorbitant dues and strikes that couldn't be won. Many union administrators concluded that organizing was not a good investment of resources and gave up.

Union membership that had peaked at 35.5 percent of the workforce in 1945 did not drop below 30 percent until 1973. The slow decline became a joy-ride downhill in the 1980s and 1990s and stands today at 15.5 percent.

It may have been just bad luck for Lane Kirkland that he took organized labor's helm in 1979 just as the roof fell in. The election of a Democratic president in 1992 actually made his plight worse. Rising expectations throughout the labor movement after Clinton's election came more from blind faith than from pronouncements of the new Democratic administration. Clinton's labor secretary, Robert Reich, was a Harvard professor, not a union person. Reich believed in job retraining and labor-management cooperation to boost productivity, but had little to say about unions.

Anticipation grew into alarm as Clinton and the Democrats first fumbled the jobs bill, then health care reform, and passed NAFTA without promised labor protections. Last summer, Democrats failed to shut off a mock-filibuster by Republicans against a bill that would have outlawed the permanent replacement,of strikers. Some in labor, including AFL-CIO ,Secretary-Treasurer Tom Donahue promised that a forthcoming report by the Dunlop Commission would spark irresistible pressure for labor law reform in favor of unions. Meanwhile, anti-union Republicans won control of the House of Representatives, in spite of Kirkland and Donahue's best efforts on behalf of Democrats.

Instead of leading the, way to labor law reform, the report of the Dunlop Commission, released in January, proved to be the final nail in Kirkland's political coffin. 'The report urged the creation of labor management committees to boost productivity against foreign competition. But even the Bush-appointed National Labor Relations Board had concluded such committees were illegal if they talked about wages, hours, and working conditions. The 1935 Wagner Act outlawing company unions applied to any organizations dominated by management that intruded into areas reserved for unions.

Congressional Republicans, sensing a good thing, immediately introduced the Team Act which would I amend the labor code to permit wide-ranging employer-dominated committees in the workplace.

The one-party state begins to crack

If the 13-million-member labor federation was a country, it would be among the oldest one-party states in the world. From 1917 until its demise, eight held supreme power in the Soviet Union. During the same period, the American Federation of Labor, and later the AFL-CIO, was led by four people-Samuel Gompers, William Green, George Meany, and Lane Kirkland.

Until January 28, understanding what went on at the top level of the AFL-CIO was. an art akin to that of a Kremlinologist analyzing the relative positions of Soviet leaders atop Lenin's tomb during the annual May Day parade. And even the Washington Post article that first reported unhappiness with Kirkland failed to mention the name of a single international union president. All were afraid to speak on the record.

Slowly they emerged from the woodwork. Gerald McEntee of the million member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) became the spokesperson. John Sweeney of the Service Employees and Richard Trumka,of the Mine Workers became rumored candidates. With the exception of Ron Carey, President of the Teamsters, and Trumka, none of the insurgents are particularly known for their support of union democracy or rank-and-file militancy. Yet, they know that the situation is desperate and something drastic must be done.

Perhaps fearful that the precedent of deposing a lack-luster president might 'spread, most of the dissident leaders had,hoped to convince Kirkland to go peacefully. The group would then install Tom Donahue as a one-term president while a new leader was groomed. Donahue spoiled this neat scenario, May 8, when he suddenly announced his retirement. The next day, Kirkland proclaimed he was running for reelection, setting the stage for the first-ever contested election for AFL-CIO leadership.

Differences remain among the rebels as to how radical the AFL-CIO reform must be. However, John Sweeney, a moderate, who leads one of the most successful unions acknowledges that the labor movement is "irrelevant to the vast majority of unorganized workers." Sweeney calls for building grass-roots political committees, committing third of unions' revenues to organizing and initiating multi-union, industry-wide campaigns to regain labor's strength and size.

The AFL-CIA

Lane Kirkland, the person who has presided over labor's free-fall during the past 15 years does not fit the stereotype of a union leader. Born in 1922, in the small town of Camden, South Carolina, Kirkland went to college instead of into a plant or mill. During World War II, he graduated from an accelerated program at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and went to sea for a few years, ultimately rising to First Mate and earning his entree into the labor movement, membership in the Masters, mates and Pilots union.

After World War II, Kirkland's career took a curious turn. He earned a Bachelor's degree from Georgetown's School of Foreign Service in 1948. After graduation, some say he went to work for the State Department, others allege that was just a cover for intelligence work. Ultimately Kirkland turned up at AFL-CIO headquarters and quickly became George Meany's administrative assistant. In 1969, he was elevated to the number two position, secretary-treasurer, and nominated by Meany to succeed him as president in 1979.

During the Cold War, unions were enlisted by the CIA and State Department to join the fight against communism. Money and resources were channeled to anti-Communist unions throughout the world, How much came from members' dues and how much was laundered from the CIA won't be known until the AFL-CIO archives are opened someday.

A divorce of the AFL-CIO from the national's foreign policy establishment would be a historic day. What that scene might be like was described in an AFSCME-sponsored union history, Power to the Public Worker, by Richard Billings and John Greenya. The book chronicles Jerry Wurf's rise to power in 1964: "When Wurf first arrived at AFSCME headquarters following the 1964 convention, he noticed the presence of what he describes as 'trench-coat' types. Wurf and others .had heard rumors of an AFSCME relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency, even the possibility that CIA funds had found their way into the effort to reelected Zander (Wurf's opponent)."

It was disclosed later that other unions, including the Newspaper Guild, Communications Workers of America, Retail Clerks (now United Food and Commercial Workers) and the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers, had also taken CIA money.

Kirkland and the Socal Democrats

Paralleling Kirkland's rise from ship's First Mate to Captain of the labor movement has been the involvement of a shadowy organization called the Social Democrats, USA which has its headquarters in the AFL-CIO building. SDUSA is the most rightwing of three splinters of the old Norman Thomas-led Socialist Party. Public members of the publicity shy organization include the late Bayard: Rustin, longtime head of the AFL-CIO's A. Phillip Randolph Institute and Albert Shanker, President of the American Federation of Teachers and a staunch supporter of Kirkland. The major tenet of SDUSA and the AFL-CIO's International Affairs Department continues to be anticommunism. This guiding philosophy led both organizations to support the war in Vietnam and aid right-wing dictatorships around the world. Under Kirkland, the AFL-CIO and various unions send money and personnel to intervene around the world on behalf of the U.S. government. Sometimes, union aid is sent directly but mostly it is funneled through Various labor foreign policy groups including the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD) for Latin America, the African-American Labor Center, the Asian-American Free Labor Institute and the Free Trade Union Institute, for Europe.

According to AFL-CIO documents, these four organizations have battled the establishment of progressive governments and labor movements or have promoted American interests in Jamaica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, 45 African countries, 30 Asian and Pacific countries, and in several European countries. Kirkland chairs each of these four organizations and chooses the executive directors. The specific activities of the four organizations are buried within the files of the AFL-CIO's (International Affairs Department, headed by Kirkland crony, Charles Gray.

One of the public activities of the International Affairs Department is the publication of a slick quarterly magazine, Forum. The latest issue devotes all 44 pages to a diatribe against unions in eastern Europe, years after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. Not a word is mentioned about cross-border solidarity with Mexican workers, NAFTA, GATT, runaway shops, or other issues that directly affect American workers.

One of the proud achievements of the Kirkland administration is the co-creation of the National Endowment for Democracy, which was active in opposing the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. The NED was co-sponsored, by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, one of labor's traditional enemies, the Democratic Party, and the Republican Party.

In its 1985 Executive Council Report, the AFL-CIO shows the possibility of money laundering. It reports that the AIFLD received $7.1 million the previous year for "34 special programs to promote and strengthen democracy in Latin American and the Caribbean." AIFLD got the money from the Free Trade Union Institute, which on another page is described as receiving much of its funding,from the National Endowment for Democracy. Kirkland and the AFL-CIO were years ahead of Oliver North.

In 1993, after the fall of communism, the AFL-CIO was still spending more of its own money, $2,466,000, on international affairs than it spent on education, legislation, or organizing.

Domestic AFL-CIO departments also seem to be focused on political orthodoxy and control. Frontlash, a youth group run out of the federation's headquarters has been instrumental in recruiting "right-thinking" college students and placing them in unions and in state and county branches of the AFL-CIO. One AFL-CIO staff member, who talked on condition that neither he nor his AFL-CIO branch be identified, bragged that his region had never been infiltrated-. "From time to time, they try to get someone in, but we usually spot them before they come on staff. If not, we weed them out real fast."

The intersection of anti-communism and conservatism has drawn strange bedfellows to the top rungs of labor. Malcomb Forbes, Jr., not known for his love of unions, has heaped effusive praise in the pages of his magazine for Kirkland's work on the board that oversees Radio Free Europe. The right-wing magazine, The American Spectator, eulogized Tom Kahn, AFL-CIO International Affairs Director when he died in 1992 for being stronger in his support for Lech Walesa than the Reagan administration. The magazine reminisced about his 1980 speech to an SDUSA gathering in which he predicted, "the destruction of Communism was in reach if only the democratic world approached the challenge with firmness."

The White Male Club

If some leaders of the top unions and the AFL-CIO are united by ideology, nearly all are united by ,race, gender,. and age. While many unions seek to develop African-American, Latino, and Asian organizers, it's a different story at the decision-making levels of labor. When asked recently how affirmative action can be extended to the top levels of labor, Kirkland responded that it's up to the affiliates (unions) to make the change. However, even unions that represent large numbers of people of color, such as those in the garment, hotel, and other low wage industries, are led by white males.

Affirmative action works well for white males, particularly those with family connections. Arthur Coia, one of the insurgents against Kirkland, and his father have both occupied the office of president of the Laborers Union. Gerald McEntee, AFSCME President and spokesperson for the anti-Kirkland committee is the son of William McEntee who headed the powerful Philadelphia AFSCME Council. The elder McEntee was an old-guard candidate against Jerry Wurf"s insurgent team. Wurf, himself, slowly changed from a young rebel into an old white male who died in office. After Wurf's death, McEntee beat out Secretary-Treasurer William Lucy, who would have been the first African-American president of a major union.

It's hardly a secret in the Service Employees,union that John Sweeney wants to replace Kirkland. Sweeney is seen by opponents in his union as another over-paid, autocratic, white male president. Sweeney supporters, however, point to renewed militancy and organizing activity under his presidency. SEIU is one of the few unions to commit substantial funds to organizing the unorganized (the Mine Workers is another). The 30 percent of SEIU's budget that is spent for organizing has been winning results. For instance, the industry-wide Justice for Janitors campaign has raised their unionization rate in the Los Angeles area from 15 to 70 percent of the workforce.

Richard Trumka, another likely candidate for either Kirkland's or Donahue's job, is a white male union president, but at 45 is considerably younger that his colleagues. Under Trumka's leadership, the revived United Mine Workers have undertaken and won major strikes. Trumka, a miner from a family of miners, went to law school before defeating the corrupt Tony Boyle machine that controlled the union. Boyle went to jail for the murder of union reformer Jock Yablonsky. A favorite with the rank-and-file, Trumka easily won the Labor Notes straw ballot for AFL-CIO president.

The irrepressible miners union

Perhaps because of the dangerous nature of their work, the Mine Workers have always displayed a militancy not found in many other AFL-CIO unions. Miner's have upset more than one carefully built union, apple cart.

There was one AFL president that no one talks about. John McBride, a United Mine Workers president, unseated the AFL icon, Samuel Gompers in Nov. 1893. The Pullman Railway strike, led by Eugene Debs, had just been lost and many accused Gompers of sabotaging it. The Socialist Party was growing rapidly and Gompers was anti-Socialist. A Populist movement was sweeping the Midwest. Gompers was against it. John McBride, like Richard Trumka, was president of the United Mine Workers. Gompers made a comeback the following year and never again was an incumbent AFL or AFL-CIO president in danger of winning reelection.

Yet another Mine Workers president, John L. Lewis, punched an old-guard AFL leader J.C. Hutcheson of the Carpenters in the nose during the 1935 AFL convention in Atlantic City. Lewis's physical and symbolic blow started a chain of events that resulted in the founding of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The CIO, in turn, organized the mass production industries and brought organized labor to its pinnacle of power and prestige in the late 1930s and 1940s.

The Mine Workers, under Trumka's leadership, have pioneered a rediscovered tactic for the labor movement-civil disobedience. Members from a growing number of unions have begun sitting down in busy intersections, hotel lobbies and government buildings to cause mass arrests. "CD" is even on the new curriculum of the AFL-CIO's Organizing Institute.

As labor lawyer Thomas Geoghegan pointed out in his book, Which Side Are You On: Trying To Be For Labor When It's Flat On Its Back, almost all of the tactics used by labor during the great upsurge of the 1930s, including sit-ins, mass picketing, secondary boycotts and strikes over grievances, are now illegal. It's also illegal to engage in civil disobedience, such as blocking traffic, but the penalty, in most cases, is a slap on the hand. CD can be viewed as an attempt to find a tactic that won't nail the union on serious legal charges or big fines. It's also a cry for media attention from a movement that needs public support.

Steve Lerner, the architect of SEIU's Justice for Janitors campaign, says labor must recognize that it's now in "a life and death struggle with the very corporations, politicians and government with whom we've spent a lifetime building relationships and trying to get along." Civil disobedience and non-violent direct action are two tactics labor must embrace, says Lerner. Militant actions, "show that the labor movement is worth fighting for and it stands for values and beliefs that are so important that they are worth going to jail for," continues Lerner. He calls for organizing 1 percent o labor's members into an army of activists ready to risk arrest.

That the AFL-CIO should lead any struggle is contrary to the long cherished beliefs of Lane Kirkland and his predecessor, George Meany. The CIO grew rapidly in the 1930s and 1940s by coordinating organizing drives for entire industries. When Walter Reuther, president of the CIO, and George Meany, president of the AFL, brought the two organizations together in 1955, the AFL won the battle of style and substance. Meany scoffed at Reuther's organizing initiatives: "He was always urging a big organizing drive ... there was never much of a follow-through on it," said the former plumber who bragged he never walked a picket line. Kirkland, like his mentor, would rather leave organizing and coordinated bargaining to the 83 national and international unions that belong to his federation.

Disaster upon disaster

Lane Kirkland was recommended to George Meany back in the 1950s, says a Maritime union official, as someone who knew his way around Congress. Instead of remaining his asset, Congress has now become an albatross around Kirkland's neck. Not only has he failed to win any labor law reform during his 15-year tenure, but he almost gave the store away in 1992. Union members learned through newspaper stories on June 11 that Kirkland had offered to limit unions' right to strike in exchange for restricting the use of permanent replacements. Not only was it the first time in history that labor had voluntarily offered to limit the right to strike, but it came out of the blue and was quickly rejected by Congressional Republicans.

Kirkland's forgive-and-forget attitude toward Democrats who voted for NAFTA also angered union members who, a short-time earlier, had been told that thousands of jobs were at stake in the free-trade vote. After being shown such generosity by Kirkland, pro-labor Democrats voted in droves for GATT, in spite of the AFL-CIO's opposition.

The continual drubbing labor receives from Democrats has not moved Kirkland to question the AFL-CIO's link with them. Although several international unions have officially embraced Labor Party Advocates, which is campaigning for the creation of a working-class based political party, Kirkland sees no need for creating a labor party.

"I can only tell you that we do have a Labor Party. It's called COPE. It's the Committee on Political Education. It functions independently of parties and is for all practical purposes a labor party," Kirkland told reporters last February. That COPE runs no, candidates of its own and is repeatedly trapped into supporting moderate or conservative Democrats as the lesser of two evils seems to be beside the point.

Labor's political course will be hotly debated even if Kirkland is driven from office in October. Of the insurgents-Trumka, Ron Carey of the Teamsters, and Bob Wages of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers-support Labor Party Advocates, while McEntee, Sweeney, and other international presidents remain firmly committed to the Democrats.

Even if the most militant of Kirkland's opponents take charge of the AFL-CIO, they will still face a daunting task of giving unions and workers some power in the global' economy. The technological changes that have been called the second industrial revolution are changing the nature of work, dismantling factories and moving whole industries around the world faster than unions can organize workers, even under the best conditions.

The rebel alliance

In labor's upsurge in the 1930s, the CIO made a tactical alliance with the Communists to fight this country's capitalists. During the social compact, Meany and Kirkland made a strategic alliance with capitalists to fight communism, I at home and abroad. To win workers' rights in the new global economy, the AFL-CIO will have to align with workers, of all political hues, throughout the world to fight capitalists, regardless of whether they are headquartered in Tokyo, London or New York.

Some unions, like the Teamsters and United Electrical Workers, are sending help and organizers to Mexico to defend their unions. Cross-border organizing drives and coordinated bargaining led by a revived AFL-CIO may be the only way to keep U.S. workers' wages from sinking to third world levels.

In spite of Kirkland's slow uptake, the Cold War is over. A monolithic Soviet Bloc no longer blocks access to any markets. Regional and national capital is free to roam the world in search of the highest rate of profit. Only a ragtag band of labor unions, divided by craft, industry and country stands in the way of complete and total domination over the workplace by transnational corporations.

This article, without the subheads, appeared in Z Magazine, July/August 1995 issue.

[robcon]

2. This is very sad.

Maybe some would say predictable, given the decline of unions overall in America, and the continued growth of SEIU. Divide and conquer.

[bemildred]

3. Fat cats bickering over the shrinking spoils. nt

[losdiablosgato]

8. I come from 3 generations of blue collar union men

And my dad said it best when he quit the carpenter union to become his own contractor. "The only union jobs the union cares about anymore are the jobs they have at the union. They stopped caring aobut the rank and file a long time ago."

[bemildred]

9. Yep. I spent 12 years in IWA.

All sweetheart all the time. No fight in them.
Suits with helmet hair. The union guys from the old days
would have thrown them out.

[losdiablosgato]

10. That and crooked as a river bottom.

One of the reasons my dad left was they union rep who sent people out on jobs started wanting $25 per job to do it.

[struggle4progress]

4. Good: "Don't mourn. Organize." eom

[Judi Lynn]

11. Unions form coalition to expand labor, pressure Sweeney

Unions form coalition to expand labor, pressure Sweeney

By Jennifer C. Kerr
ASSOCIATED PRESS

11:34 a.m. June 15, 2005

WASHINGTON – Unhappy with the shape of the labor movement under the existing AFL-CIO leadership, the heads of five of the federation's largest affiliates said Wednesday they formed a separate coalition to bolster membership rolls.

The Change to Win Coalition is comprised of unions that have made no secret of their disappointment with AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, who once was head of the Service Employees International Union, one of three unions threatening to bolt the venerable federation. The others are the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and Unite Here.

The unions say the Washington, D.C.-based federation, the parent organization for dozens of union affiliates, has wasted too much time and money on politics and not enough to combat a steady decline in union membership since the heyday of labor leaders like George Meany, Walter Reuther and John L. Lewis in mid-20th century.
(snip)

The new alliance, which also includes the Laborers' International Union, comes just weeks before the AFL-CIO's July convention, in which Sweeney is expected to win another 4-year term as president.
(snip/...)

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20050615-1134-unions-future.html

[dr.zoidberg]

12. So...

I wonder how involved the Mafia is in this ;-).