4 Unions Want Members Off AFL-CIO List. - This is threat to most important tool to influence pol. campaigns & legislative proceedings on Capitol Hill.

Four dissident union presidents have demanded that their members' names be removed from the AFL-CIO's master list of 13 million households, attacking what many consider to be organized labor's most important tool to influence political campaigns and legislative proceedings on Capitol Hill.

"It's the heart and soul of labor," said an official at the AFL-CIO who is worried about the growing hostilities within the labor movement. Top Democrats in the House and Senate have privately voiced concern over the latest development in the split between federation President John J. Sweeney and four major unions determined to force him out of office.
The AFL-CIO uses the membership lists to mobilize union households in elections and to build grass-roots lobbying programs to support or oppose legislation.

The action by the presidents of the Service Employees International Union, Teamsters, Laborers and Unite Here is the most serious attack on Sweeney's administration. The membership of the four unions exceeds 4 million, a third of the AFL-CIO total.

(5-1-05, The Washington Post.