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There were reports this week that the AFL-CIO was planning to partner with Change to Win and the National Education Association to create a single, mega-federation called the National Labor Coordinating Committee. Many people were very excited. The Obama administration was interested in dealing with a single entity representing organized labor. Liberals were excited in the potential political power of a unified labor movement. Labor writers were excited by the prospect of a story. But the AFL-CIO was less excited. A union source just sent over a copy of talking points he's distributed to the member unions of the AFL-CIO. They include this gem:
Contrary to suggestions in certain press reports, I can assure you that neither these discussions nor the National Labor Coordinating Committee that was announced yesterday as a very short-term vehicle to continue the reunification discussions and to facilitate coordination activities with the non-AFL-CIO unions on some of the major, pending legislative matters, reflect any intention whatsoever for the AFL-CIO to relinquish its responsibilities to an umbrella organization of any kind. The AFL-CIO is America's Labor Federation and it simply will not yield its role to a coordinating committee of any kind...the AFL-CIO will not be disbanding to start anew [and] it will not be subordinating itself to or merging itself into any other organization.I've put the whole memo on the Prospect server for download. Read at your leisure. The basic takeaway is that Sweeney and the AFL-CIO would like labor to reunify under their umbrella, but they're not willing to embed themselves in a new organization that could possibly push past some of the divisions that have weakened the labor movement in recent years. "Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven," said Milton, and it's an insight that applies to the labor movement, which has a tendency to prefer ruling in weakness to sharing in power.Harold Meyerson has much more on labor's internal machinations here.
