AFL-CIO convention sets aggressive organizing and political agenda

Labor leaders and activists attending the AFL-CIO’s constitutional convention in Chicago in late July left the Windy City with an ambitious agenda aimed at strengthening the labor movement and drawing attention to the needs and concerns of workers and their families.
The Winning for Working Families reform plan put forward by the AFL-CIO executive council and adopted by convention delegates would, among other things, increase the organizing capacity of federation affiliates and have unions build a year-round capacity to engage members in political and legislative action.

Key elements of the organizing initiative include creation of a $22.5 million Strategic Organizing Fund, ramped-up efforts to change public policies to help restore workers’ freedom to form unions, and changes in the section of the AFL-CIO constitution, Article XX, that is used to settle disputes about raiding and organizing jurisdiction.

The plan also calls for the establishment of industry organizing committees, which will bring together unions that represent workers in a particular industry to establish contract standards and build a strategic organizing plan for that industry.

“The changes we are making are an ambitious blueprint,” AFL-CIO president John Sweeney told convention delegates. “What we do in the weeks and months ahead to move forward with focus and fight will determine whether we build the stronger movement we must have, and that working families must have.”

Delegates to the convention were not deterred by the disaffiliation of the Teamsters and the Service Employees International Union. (The United Food and Commercial Workers union disaffiliated shortly after the convention.)

The decision by the Teamsters and SEIU to disaffiliate from the AFL-CIO and by several other unions to boycott the federation’s convention “is a grievous insult” to the remaining unions and a “tragedy for working people,” Sweeney said in his convention keynote address. He charged that these actions were extremely harmful to the labor movement “at a time when our corporate and conservative adversaries have created the most powerful anti-worker political machine in the history of our country.”

Convention delegates passed a special constitutional amendment which will give emergency supplemental resources to the state federations and central labor councils that will be hit hard by the disaffiliations.

During the convention, Sweeney was re-elected president of the AFL-CIO, and Richard Trumka and Linda Chavez-Thompson were re-elected  secretary treasurer and executive vice president, respectively.

“Ten years ago, I never thought that I would be standing here today,” AFT president Edward J. McElroy said in nominating Sweeney. “My union opposed John Sweeney for president in 1995. … But when the election was over and we had lost, I and others in the AFT committed ourselves to supporting the president of the AFL-CIO. … We never dreamed of leaving. We have gained great respect and admiration for what this man has accomplished and for his tireless energy and dedication to our cause.”

AFT vice president Laura Rico was elected to the AFL-CIO executive council during the federation’s convention. Her election reflects the AFL-CIO’s increased emphasis on diversity at all levels of the organization.

“Today’s working families speak a myriad of languages, have diverse cultural backgrounds and remain the driving force of this great nation,” said Rico. “As a woman of Latino and Native American descent, and as a lifelong labor activist, I am honored by this appointment, and I look forward to continuing my efforts on behalf of working men and women.”

Rico has been an AFT vice president since July 2002, and is a member of the AFT Teachers program and policy council. She has served for 15 years as president of the ABC Federation of Teachers, which represents members in southeast Los Angeles County, and is a vice president of the California Federation of Teachers.

The AFT also is represented on the AFL-CIO executive council by McElroy and secretary-treasurer Nat LaCour.