Union rift worries Democrats.
From U.S. News & World Report:
The president's increasingly anemic poll numbers and the relatively strong showing by an Ohio Democrat in a recent special election for the House of Representatives are among the things giving Democrats hope about their prospects at the polls in next year's congressional midterms.
On the other hand, Andy Stern is among the things giving them heartburn. Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, the fastest-growing labor union in the country, thinks that labor has not been getting its money's worth from Democrats and vice versa.
"We've been an ATM for the Democratic Party for a long time," he recently told U.S. News. Big Labor has been the linchpin in the Democratic coalition for decades, contributing millions of dollars to Democratic candidates and causes as well as raising huge armies of workers and volunteers for election campaigns.
In many ways the declining fortunes of the Democratic Party over the last generation or two have mirrored those of the labor movement. And now Stern, who recently led a labor movement revolt by pulling his union out of the umbrella AFL-CIO, is also insisting that Democrats clarify their vision if the alliance is to persist.
"They have lost their moral compass," he says, "and that is why the party has lost so much of its base."
But clearly, Stern's decision to leave the AFL-CIO is rife with contradiction: His chief criticism of the labor movement leadership is that it has done nothing to increase union membership, which has steadily declined over the past 35 years. Yet Stern's decision to pull his 1.8 million members out of the AFL-CIO leaves Big Labor more fractured and fractious than it's been in a long time. His explanation is that change is necessary, or extinction is inevitable.
"We did not try to divide the labor movement," he said. "We tried to modernize it. This country is going through the most traumatic social and economic change in its history, and the result of that is that it has not been good for workers."
Stern says that the role the breakaway unions, billed as the Change to Win movement, play in the 2006 midterms will depend on what kind of working relationship they develop with their old friends at the AFL-CIO. But with the wounds still so raw, the prospects for a détente are hard to measure.
For Democrats so dependent on union help, the hope is that this family feud gets worked out sooner rather than later.
The president's increasingly anemic poll numbers and the relatively strong showing by an Ohio Democrat in a recent special election for the House of Representatives are among the things giving Democrats hope about their prospects at the polls in next year's congressional midterms.
On the other hand, Andy Stern is among the things giving them heartburn. Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, the fastest-growing labor union in the country, thinks that labor has not been getting its money's worth from Democrats and vice versa.
"We've been an ATM for the Democratic Party for a long time," he recently told U.S. News. Big Labor has been the linchpin in the Democratic coalition for decades, contributing millions of dollars to Democratic candidates and causes as well as raising huge armies of workers and volunteers for election campaigns.
In many ways the declining fortunes of the Democratic Party over the last generation or two have mirrored those of the labor movement. And now Stern, who recently led a labor movement revolt by pulling his union out of the umbrella AFL-CIO, is also insisting that Democrats clarify their vision if the alliance is to persist.
"They have lost their moral compass," he says, "and that is why the party has lost so much of its base."
But clearly, Stern's decision to leave the AFL-CIO is rife with contradiction: His chief criticism of the labor movement leadership is that it has done nothing to increase union membership, which has steadily declined over the past 35 years. Yet Stern's decision to pull his 1.8 million members out of the AFL-CIO leaves Big Labor more fractured and fractious than it's been in a long time. His explanation is that change is necessary, or extinction is inevitable.
"We did not try to divide the labor movement," he said. "We tried to modernize it. This country is going through the most traumatic social and economic change in its history, and the result of that is that it has not been good for workers."
Stern says that the role the breakaway unions, billed as the Change to Win movement, play in the 2006 midterms will depend on what kind of working relationship they develop with their old friends at the AFL-CIO. But with the wounds still so raw, the prospects for a détente are hard to measure.
For Democrats so dependent on union help, the hope is that this family feud gets worked out sooner rather than later.
posted by Sid Cottingham | 11:12 AM
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