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LOCAL News :: Labor

Whither Labor? AFL-CIO Convention Spends Day in Horse Latitudes

Jerry Tucker Reports on the 2005 AFL-CIO Convention
Seamen of old in sailing ships used to dread the days when their voyage took them into the oceanic "horse latitudes," with scant wind, if any, to fill the sails. That's a little overdrawn, but the Federation's Wednesday deliberations were slow and wholly uneventful compared to the drama and tension provoked earlier in the week with the big split.

No new shoe dropped -- neither of the other two boycotting unions, UFCW and UNITE-HERE, made an official declaration of disaffiliation. And, the CTW folks did not otherwise create any more news.

So it was business as usual at the end of fabled Navy Pier in Chicago and there was almost a sense of relief among the delegates that at least some part of the Federation's past practice had resurfaced. A number of resolutions were passed in relatively short order. Only a couple provoked more then token comments and/or debate.

There was a presentation by two young students, one from the United States Student Association and the other from United Students Against Sweatshops. They described highlights and victories from the previous year's wave of student activism on college campuses in behalf of workers, both those who worked for low wages on the campuses, and those being exploited by global corporations in other countries. It was exciting, and it is a trend labor and progressives should encourage and support.

One aspect of today's business that I found interesting was the passage of several resolutions that had originally been part of the now departed, challenging unions' package of demands. These were resolutions that Fed administration leaders had agreed to support in an effort to appease the CTW unions. They included the concept of creating Industry Coordinating Committees to oversee organizing targeting and set contract standards among the unions in each particular industry cluster.

A resolution was passed to reduce the number of seats on the Executive Council -- an obvious response to the unions who take took their leave. And then the delegates were asked to approve a resolution that created an Executive Committee, something CTW folks had demanded, made up of the AFL-CIO Vice-Presidents representing the 10 largest unions in the Federation. That's clearly another layer of bureaucracy and reduces further the impact of the smaller unions and the Vice-Presidents on the larger Executive Council who represent the diversity components within labor who have fought so hard to be included.

One piece of business not completed was a hastily crafted resolution designed to give the Executive Council and General Board "extraordinary circumstances" power to "suspend provisions of the Constitution" in the wake of the current and pending disaffiliations. Sounds a little scary (thinking of the Patriot Act here). The matter is to be brought back up on Thursday with some modifications.

The day's session wound to an end with the nomination of the Executive Council. The only question that had been open on the rubber stamping election process was the stated intention of Harry Kelber (which I mentioned yesterday) to run for a VP seat, therefore throwing the whole process into an election (lengthy and never favored by the administration). It seems that negotiations occurred overnight ,and Brother Kelber (remember, a spry 91) agreed not to be nominated if he could be allotted some minutes on Thursday morning in the Convention's closing session to address the assembly. That was agreed and the usual speedy and suspense-less elections were completed.
 
 

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