8:30 AM, Wednesday, July 27
AFL-CIO Annual Convention
Navy Pier Convention Hall B, Chicago


CHICAGO – In the wake of a tumultuous split that has created acrimony and confusion in the labor movement, longtime labor reformer Harry Kelber will press forward Wednesday morning with his candidacy for a seat on the 51-member AFL-CIO Executive Council – and an effort to recruit additional rank-and-file candidates in newly opened slots.

Despite the fact that eleven slots have opened up in the wake of the defection on Monday of the AFL-CIO’s two largest members – SEIU and the Teamsters – Kelber remains the only declared candidate for a seat on the all-powerful Executive Council. A number of AFL-CIO delegates have agreed to nominate Kelber from the floor, but Kelber is still lobbying for rank-and-file delegates to step up to the plate and run for open seats on the Executive Council.

Kelber has been caucusing this week with rank and file union members that are working within their locals and internationals to contest a lack of internal democracy in many unions -- and the need to invest more power in rank-and-rile hands. Many Central Labor Councils are also quietly supporting Kelber’s candidacy.

Kelber, a well-known labor educator and journalist, is expecting to force the AFL-CIO to call an election for the Executive Council – with a printed ballot and a secret vote – for the first time in ten years. Kelber and his supporters argue that while ‘dissident’ union leaders – including SEIU’s Andy Stern and the Teamsters James Hoffa – have split with AFL-CIO President John Sweeney over a battle for control of the AFL-CIO, neither camp is tackling the labor movement’s core issues, including the need for more direct democracy in the nation’s unions.

Union reformers have charged that union presidents in both the Sweeney and Stern-Hoffa camps are simply struggling for control of the AFL-CIO's decision making powers, while women, minorities and progressives remain frozen out of positions of influence in the national labor group and its Executive Council. Both leadership groups, they say, lack the vision and ethical backbone to pursue strategies that will benefit either rank and file union members or millions of unorganized workers in the U.S. and abroad. In the ten years that Sweeney and the current Executive Council have been in office, they have failed to reverse the continuing decline in labor's membership and influence, with only 7.8% of the nation's private workforce currently belonging to unions.

Media Contact:
Ken Little, 253-576-8950
ranknfile (at) earthlink.net