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Breakaway unions unveil rebuilding plan
After bolting AFL-CIO, groups to focus on growing industries

By Will Lester, Associated Press
August 27, 2005

WASHINGTON - Unions that broke away from the AFL-CIO hope to rebuild the tattered labor movement by targeting workers in growing industries such as health care, waste management and security.

"We want to identify jobs that can't be shipped overseas," Teamsters President James Hoffa said in an interview with The Associated Press on Friday.

The targeted industries, which also include food service and businesses that cater to retirees, account for 30 million to 45 million workers, said Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union.

He said workers in these industries, which employ many of immigrants and minorities who do not have college degrees, aren't paid fairly for their work.

"We are living through the most profound transformative economic revolution in world history as we go from a manufacturing to a service and information economy and from a local and national economy to an international economy," Stern said.

The AFL-CIO was not adapting to the new economy, with its global reach and growing industries in service, health care and security, the labor leaders said.

"The AFL-CIO is the United Nations, and we're NATO," Stern said, reflecting the belief of the breakaway union leaders that the labor federation was not adapting quickly enough to the changes.

It's critical for labor to organize whole sectors of the economy to avoid industries competing to see which one can pay the lowest wages, Stern said.

"We're talking about organizing wholesale, not retail," Stern said. "It requires a different thinking."

The breakaway unions say they will have millions of dollars in fees they aren't paying to the AFL-CIO to use in organizing their own core industries.

"The AFL-CIO was not working," Hoffa said. "We had less people in the labor movement. The numbers were going down, not up. We're more nimble, and we don't have the big, bloated bureaucracy."

Stern said the Northwest Airlines strike was an example of what has gone wrong in the labor movement, with multiple unions not having sufficient clout to reach an agreement.

The labor leaders said the movement needs to do a better job of educating workers and consumers about the importance of boosting wages and keeping jobs in America. He also said a key to the new labor strategy is to do more organizing overseas.