5 unions plan new group to fuel labor
WI
Five labor unions are drawing up a framework for a new coalition to represent their 5 million members because they are increasingly dissatisfied with the AFL-CIO’s strategy to bolster the labor movement.
The unions plan to outline a strategy tomorrow to start a new group and raise $1 billion over the next five years to fund organizing efforts and to breathe life into a floundering labor movement.
The new group would include the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, Unite Here, Laborers’ International Union of North America, and Teamsters union.
Their departure would represent a major fracture within a labor movement that is reeling from infighting and declining membership.
The unions, which represent about 40 percent of the AFL-CIO’s 13 million members, have been trying during the past year to convince the leadership of the labor federation to spend more money to increase the number of union workers and to spend less on political activity.
“Organizing on a mass scale is the best route to ensuring that the U.S. labor movement is representative of the work force,” they said in statement posted on a Web site linked to the SEIU site.
June 14, 2005 - 08:09 AM on June 14th, 2005
They want to raise a billion dollars to breath life into the movement? Where are they when the members are gasping for air?
June 14, 2005 - 01:36 PM on June 14th, 2005
Expect nothing but labor problems from these unions. SEIU is starting a Nurses’ strike at one of the hospitals here. The Teamsters tried to bully their way into Eagle Window, but can’t accept the fact the workers told them to go to Hell. I forget the truouble the UFCW made locally, but they too are militant socialists who don’t believe in profit or ownership.