To nobody's great surprise, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Teamsters have left the AFL-CIO, and at least two other unions may soon follow.
In part, this schism reflects rivalries of turf, personality, pride, and money -- the ambition of new challengers versus the self-interest and dignity of the existing leadership. The challengers didn't have the support to vote John Sweeney out, so they walked.
As my friend Marshall Ganz, former organizing director of the United Farm Workers, observes, this schism is also about principled differences of how to rebuild a struggling movement. Organize by trade, industry, or community? Build a centralized movement or a popular, democratic one? These differences have echoes in the history of the labor movement, going back to the 19th-century Knights of Labor, the “Wobblies,” and the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO).
Ironically, Sweeney himself is a militant at heart. As the anti-establishment candidate in 1995, he made some of the same demands as today's insurgents, and he implemented many. It's a tragedy for the labor movement that Sweeney and his spiritual children could not have brokered a compromise allowing him to take a final bow and then bless the next generation of activists.
At the level of strategy, many unions that emphasize organizing -- notably the SEIU and the merged textile, hotel, and restaurant workers union (UNITE HERE) -- want the AFL-CIO to rebate half of the member contributions to constituent unions, to the extent that they spend that money on organizing. They want to slash the AFL-CIO's headquarters staff and reduce its spending on politics. Sweeney met their demands halfway, but the walkout movement had its own momentum. The Teamsters, who haven't done a lot of organizing lately, and whose connection to the AFL-CIO has been intermittent, went along mainly for the dues money
In the end, does this split portend a stronger or weaker labor movement?
For now, it's a real setback. Even a weakened AFL-CIO is still a crucial voice on pro-worker legislation and for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. It's one more progressive institution that seems on the ropes.
Below the national radar, the AFL-CIO has done important work helping to create local and state labor councils, which often become key players in local politics. In Los Angeles, the local labor federation was a major factor in the rise of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. This may be jeopardized.
But the longer-term picture is more complex. If real resources are indeed shifted to organizing, that's a plus. There was hand-wringing in the 1930s when labor radicals founded the CIO, outside the established (and enfeebled) American Federation of Labor (AFL). It was CIO unions that organized new industries like autos and steel, where earlier efforts by craft unions had failed.
The AFL-CIO has certainly been a mainstay of grassroots progressive politics. But individual unions and union members are the foot-soldiers. And in 2004, the AFL-CIO's role was partly supplanted by independent, so-called “527” voter mobilization groups like America Coming Together (ACT), which happened to be run by the AFL-CIO's former political director.
With a rival federation, there could be new jurisdictional battles between AFL and non-AFL unions fighting to organize the same workers. The AFL has not been all that effective at preventing fierce battles between member unions, but with a rival federation, these battles could worsen, diverting precious resources from both sides.
In this period of conservative ascendancy, American progressives face agonizing reappraisals and tough choices that sometimes turn fratricidal.
When Ralph Nader ran for president, it was out of sheer frustration that progressive politics was almost totally blocked by the influence of big business on both parties. The move did not exactly prove helpful to his larger cause, but you can understand the exasperation.
Last year, two young environmentalists published a paper titled “The Death of Environmentalism,” which rocked that movement. Their contention was that the coalition of mainstream, Washington-based environmental groups was spending hundreds of millions of dollars, and losing every major battle. Better to blow it up, they urged, and start over with a broader, fresher coalition.
Looking at American history, from the civil-rights movement of the 1960s to the industrial labor movement of the 1930s and the agrarian revolt of the 1880s, one can never predict where the next movement for social justice will break out. But you can safely bet it will be led the young and the radical.
It's one thing when Martin Luther King Jr. and student civil-rights workers are up against brutal, racist sheriffs; it's far more painful when it's a fight within the progressive community.
It is always risky to tamper with liberal institutions when they are under assault, as the Naderites found out. It's also better to break some china than to slowly fade into irrelevance. One can only hope for solidarity, reconciliation, and a more powerful movement once the dust settles.
Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect. A version of this column originally appeared in the Boston Globe.
