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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 set 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 giving emergency supplemental resources to the state federations and central labor councils that will be hard hit 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. AFT vice president Laura Rico also was elected to the AFL-CIO executive council. She has served for 15 years as president of the ABC Federation of Teachers, representing members in southeast Los Angeles County, and is a vice president of the California Federation of Teachers.
In nominating Sweeney, AFT president Edward J. McElroy was reflective. “Ten years ago, I never thought that I would be standing here today,” he said. “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.”
THE MORE AMERICANS LEARN ABOUT BUSH'S PLAN, THE LESS THEY LIKE IT
Opposition to privatization of Social Security grows
While this is good news for those who oppose the president’s plan for private accounts, which critics say will cut benefits and swell the federal budget deficit by $5 trillion over the next 20 years, AFT president Edward J. McElroy cautions that the threat to Social Security remains, and organized labor and its allies must remain vigilant.
The AFL-CIO’s Alliance for Retired Americans has been a leader in the fight to defeat President Bush’s plan. In June and July, the alliance’s Social Security “Truth Truck” made 57 stops in 27 states. The flatbed truck traveled from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Ore., carrying more than 1 million anti-privatization messages to the home districts of members of Congress.
“Our Truth Truck tours have been a great success, enabling thousands of seniors to let their members of Congress know they are against the reckless dismantling of Social Security,” says George J. Kourpias, president of the alliance, a grass-roots organization representing more than 3 million seniors and retirees. “We feel that our message—don’t privatize Social Security—has resonated throughout the country and made an important contribution to the public debate about the dangers of privatization.”
Under the president’s plan, benefits for those making $37,000 in 2005 would be cut by $4,500 a year; those making $59,000 in 2005 would see their benefits slashed by $9,000 a year, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).
Members of Congress who don’t want to go down with President Bush’s Social Security privatization plan next Election Day are abandoning the sinking ship.
Unfortunately, privatization diehards, including Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), and Reps. Clay Shaw (R-Fla.), Sam Johnson (R-Texas), Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Jim McCrery (R-La.), are still trying to advance the Bush plan. They are touting legislation they have introduced in their respective chambers as an effort to stop Congress from using the Social Security surplus to finance government programs. However, one of the bill’s sponsors, Rep. Johnson, has labeled the legislation “an achievable first step” toward private accounts.
“It shows that they have not given up on the privatization of Social Security,” says Bill Cunningham, associate director of the AFT department of legislation. The proposed plan would increase the federal deficit and undermine the Social Security system, he says.
The plan introduced in the Senate would fund private accounts with Social Security’s current annual surpluses, shifting an estimated $1.1 trillion from Social Security to private accounts over 10 years, according to CBPP.
