Think Again •
EE
R
F
By Tim Nesbitt
BARGAIN COUNTER
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Reuniting to win: How local union
movements overcame the AFL-CIO split
A
surprising thing happened after
the defection of four major
unions fractured the national AFL-
CIO last summer. Back home, in state
after state, our local unions held to-
gether. Or, if they began to disassem-
ble themselves, as happened here in
Oregon, they soon found a way to re-
assemble themselves and are now
close to full strength again.
This is what I hoped would hap-
pen. But, for many months last year, it
is not what I expected would happen.
And the fact that the fissures from the
national split ultimately did little or no
damage to the AFL-CIO’s institutions
at the local level tells an important
story about the importance of old-
fashioned solidarity and the en-
durance of well-organized state feder-
ations and central labor councils. It’s a
story worth remembering as we pre-
pare for the battles of 2006. Here’s my
summary.
Chapter I, November 2004-June
2005. As the debate about the future
of the AFL-CIO takes hold, leaders of
central labor councils and state feder-
ations weigh in with a strong re-
minder that solidarity at the local level
is the key to success at the national
level. The Oregon AFL-CIO Execu-
tive Board adopts a resolution in De-
cember 2004 stating, “All politics is
local. And all organizing, even in a
global economy, begins in local work-
places …if we didn’t have a local
union movement, we would have to
create it, state by state.”
But, as consensus develops within
the AFL-CIO for strengthening its lo-
cal institutions, dissent polarizes its
unions over structure and strategy at
the national level. When defection at
the national level appears likely, the
Service Employees International
Union offers a local option for the
continued affiliation of breakaway
unions at the local level, which the
AFL-CIO rejects as unworkable.
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PAGE 10
Chapter II, July-August 2005.
SEIU, the United Food and Commer-
cial Workers, the Teamsters and
UNITE HERE boycott the AFL-CIO
convention in Chicago. Then, they an-
nounce their disaffiliation from the
national AFL-CIO. But they all say
that they would like their local unions
to remain part of the AFL-CIO’s state
federations and labor councils. The
AFL-CIO dismisses that approach as
“pick-and-choose solidarity” and di-
rects its local labor bodies to expel the
breakaway unions. The Oregon AFL-
CIO sheds 40 percent of its affiliated
members within a week after the na-
tional convention. The Northwest
Oregon Labor Council follows suit,
losing close to 25 percent of its mem-
bers. Similar actions are taken in other
states, including Washington. But lo-
cal leaders in most states take a wait-
and-see approach, reluctant to dimin-
ish their state federations and labor
councils in the face of growing politi-
cal threats.
Chapter III, September-Novem-
ber 2005. Leaders of the AFL-CIO
and national unions on both sides of
the split realize that they need state
federations and labor councils to
wage effective campaigns in high-
stakes political contests at the local
level. There are key governors’ elec-
tions in Virginia and New Jersey, a
government spending measure in Col-
orado, and a ballot initiative in Cali-
fornia that threatens to restrict the
freedom of unions to engage the po-
litical process. Recognizing these
threats, AFL-CIO President John
Sweeney announces three successive
grace periods to allow locals of the
breakaway unions to continue to par-
ticipate in state federations and labor
councils. Our campaigns are victori-
ous in all four battleground states.
And Sweeney eventually reaches an
agreement with the breakaway unions
to adopt the local option idea, now
called “Solidarity Charters,” through
December 2006.
Chapter IV, December 2005.
SEIU rejoins the Oregon AFL-CIO.
UFCW rejoins the Northwest Oregon
Labor Council. Oregon’s union move-
ment, although not completely
healed, is back to fighting strength.
And the national AFL-CIO goes a
step further with the local option ap-
proach as a way to rebuild the union
movement from the bottom up: It of-
fers special charters not just to the
breakaway unions, but to any non-
AFL-CIO union that chooses to affil-
iate with a state federation or labor
council.
Epilogue. What produced this re-
unification of our union movement at
the local level?
Certainly, personal solidarity was
a critical factor. At labor councils, in
particular, union members march un-
der common banners; they picket to-
gether; and, they campaign door-to-
door and over the phones to talk to
each other’s members. These kinds of
relationships — and the institutions
that sustain them — are not easy to
dismantle. Further, at the national
level, union leaders recognized that all
politics is local — and that our best
federations and labor councils do their
most effective work in high-stakes
electoral campaigns at the local level.
The unraveling that occurred at the
national AFL-CIO stopped short of
untying the bindings of solidarity
forged at the local level. In most state
federations and labor councils, the
center held. And now it appears that
our local institutions may offer new
centers of growth for a more inclusive
union movement. Re-uniting to win at
the local level, it turns out, is as im-
portant as changing to win at the na-
tional level.
Tim Nesbitt is a former president of the
Oregon AFL-CIO.
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