NTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ORGANIZATION THEORY AND BEHAVIOR, 10 (2), 245-275
SUMMER 2007
CTW VS. THE AFL-CIO:
THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF THE SPLIT ON LABOR’S POLITICAL ACTION
Tracy Roof*
ABSTRACT. Unions representing 40 percent of union membership broke
away from the AFL-CIO in 2005 to form a rival federation, Change to Win
(CTW). CTW leaders argued that the AFL-CIO placed too much emphasis on
politics and too little on organizing new workers. This study looks at the
potential impact of the split on labor’s political action in lobbying and
electoral mobilization. It examines differences between Change to Win and
AFL-CIO affiliates in their political action committee spending, their support
of Democrats, and their overall political spending on lobbying and electoral
mobilization and concludes that CTW unions are no less reliant on political
action than AFL-CIO unions and are likely to continue their involvement in
politics.
INTRODUCTION: THE STORY BEHIND THE SPLIT
After achieving unprecedented influence in the post-war economy,
the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial
Organizations came together into one federation in 1955 near the
height of union density in the workforce primarily to increase the
political power and influence of organized labor after a series of
stinging political defeats. On its 50th anniversary, with union density
down to pre-New Deal levels, the AFL-CIO fell apart because of
growing dissatisfaction within the labor movement with labor’s
declining influence in both the economic and political realms. A
decade earlier, following his successful insurgent candidacy to
--------------------* Tracy Roof, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor, Department of Political
Science, University of Richmond. Her current research is focused on the role
of political institutions in shaping the power of organized labor in the United
States.
Copyright © 2007 by PrAcademics Press
246
ROOF
become president of the AFL-CIO, John Sweeney had pledged to
rebuild the power of the labor movement through a multi-pronged
approach. He observed that “Revitalizing the labor movement is like
weaving a seamless garment of activism – organizing campaigns,
contract campaigns, and political campaigns” (Sweeney, 1996, p.
99).
But by the summer of 2005, labor appeared to be failing on all
three counts. Under Sweeney’s leadership, the federation took a new
role in training organizers, disseminating best practices, providing
research and strategic assistance, and coordinating organizing
campaigns. Yet union density continued to decline as it had since the
1950s. There were a few years in which the absolute number of
union members appeared to stabilize after continuous decline since
the 1970s but there were still fewer union members in 2005 than
there had been in 1995. Despite Sweeney’s pledge to goad AFL-CIO
affiliates into spending 30 percent of their budgets on organizing,
many unions remained uninterested or unwilling to dedicate
substantial resources to the difficult task of mobilizing new members.
While unions in some industries had negotiated generous contracts in
the economic boom years of the 1990s, in recent rounds of collective
bargaining unions across a range of industries had been forced to
make painful concessions on pay and benefits. One of the greatest
accomplishments of the AFL-CIO under Sweeney’s leadership had
been the revitalization of labor’s political operations (Francia, 2006).
But despite a record effort by organized labor in the 2004 elections,
conservative Republicans maintained control of both Houses of
Congress and voters returned a Republican administration hostile to
organized labor to the White House.
Dissatisfaction with the AFL-CIO’s leadership of the labor
movement began to coalesce among a group of dissident union
leaders several years before they decided to leave the AFL-CIO to
form the rival Change to Win federation (CTW) on the eve of the AFLCIO’s 50th anniversary convention. In 2003, a group of union
presidents led by Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees
International Union, had formed the New Unity Partnership (NUP) to
put more emphasis on organizing workers and to spark a debate
within the AFL-CIO over how to jumpstart the labor movement. The
NUP’s other members included John Wilhem of the hotel workers
union HERE, Bruce Raynor of the textile and garment workers union
CTW VS. THE AFL-CIO: THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF THE SPLIT ON LABOR’S POLITICAL ACTION
247
UNITE, Terrence O’Sullivan of the laborers’ union LIUNA, and Doug
McCarron of the Carpenters Union, which had departed from the AFLCIO in 2001. By July 2005, as the opening of the AFL-CIO’s
convention approached, these unions were joined by the Teamsters,
led by James Hoffa, and the United Food and Commercial Workers
(UFCW), led by Joe Hansen, in open revolt against the federation. By
September all of these unions plus the United Farm Workers (UFW)
had left the AFL-CIO to form the CTW.1
The federation split was in part a result of differences over the
best strategy to revitalize the labor movement. One of the
fundamental debates between CTW and AFL-CIO adherents is over
the centrality of politics to labor’s future. There is a chicken or the egg
quality to the debate. CTW forces argue that worker organizing is the
key to building labor’s political influence while AFL-CIO adherents
argue that political action is necessary to improve labor’s prospects
for organizing. As Anna Burger, Secretary-Treasurer of SEIU and
Chairwoman of CTW, observed of the AFL-CIO “Their strategy is very
different than ours. They believe they have to win elections before
than can organize” (quoted in Dine, September 27, 2005).
CTW leaders and spokespeople have repeatedly stressed that the
political strategy has failed labor and that the AFL-CIO has placed far
too much emphasis in the last decade on electing Democrats to
Congress and the White House as the best hope for the salvation of
the labor movement. CTW leaders emphasize that labor has
essentially maxed out the effectiveness of its get-out-the-vote (GOTV)
operation and that it has not proven to be enough to elect pro-labor
majorities. CTW leaders argue that political weakness is a direct
consequence of declining membership and that without more
members in historically anti-labor regions like the South and
Southwest, labor’s political power will not grow. Thus, Stern and his
allies argued that the federation needed to downplay its emphasis on
political activity and take on considerable new leadership
responsibilities in organizing new workers. As James Hoffa observed
in an interview on PBS’s NewsHour (2005, March 5), “we believe that
a massive shift in resources and focus to organizing and growth in our
unions’ core industries and sectors is the only path to rebuilding
worker power in the workplace and in the political process.” Chris
Chafe, Chief of Staff and Political Director of UNITE-HERE argued in a
debate with Chavez-Thompson the next day that “In our vision, we
248
ROOF
have to prioritize organizing first… we are declining, and from our
point of view, it doesn’t matter how much more money we throw into
political work. We agree we need to prioritize that, but if we don’t
grow, and we don’t organize, and we don’t have a different vision for
how to do that, our political relevance and the relevance of the whole
AFL-CIO is going to continue to dwindle” (March 10, 2005 interview
on Democracy Now!).
In contrast, AFL-CIO leaders and spokespeople argue that the
national labor laws are so weak at protecting worker’s rights to
unionize that pro-worker majorities must be elected to Congress and
the White House to change these laws first before substantial
resources can yield significant results in the field of organizing. As
Gerald McEntee, President of the American Federation of State,
County, and Municipal Employees and chair of the AFL-CIO’s political
committee observed “Labor isn’t going to have significant organizing
until we’re able to change people in political office and persuade
them to change the nation’s labor laws” (quoted in Bernstein, July
2005). Much as when he ran for the presidency, Sweeney continued
to advocate a shared focus on politics and organizing and to
emphasize the connection between the two. Sweeney asserted in his
report to the 2005 convention:
…Much of the recent debate about the future of the union
movement has created a false dichotomy that pits organizing
against political and legislative action. The choice facing us is
not either organizing or political and legislative action. The
road map to success is clear: Overcoming the odds working
people face today demands that organizing and politics work
hand in glove – as they always have – from the day the
Wagner Act was passed more than 70 years ago. Our
strategies will not surmount the odds unless we concede that
there’s an umbilical link between political action and winning
workers’ rights. Neither should be sacrificed at the expense of
the other (Sweeney, 2005).
In contrast, the CTW’s mission statement simply observes:
Change to Win unions are building a movement of working
people with the power to provide workers: a paycheck that
supports a family, affordable health care, a secure retirement,
and dignity on the job.
CTW VS. THE AFL-CIO: THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF THE SPLIT ON LABOR’S POLITICAL ACTION
249
By marshalling the collective strength of our unions, we will
develop and implement strategies to organize tens of millions
of workers. Only when millions more American workers belong
to unions will a pro-worker political consensus to support our
goals emerge (What We Stand For).
This difference in strategy between the fledgling CTW and the AFLCIO is reflected in the allocation of resources. While the AFL-CIO
pledged even more resources to political action at its 2005
convention, the CTW announced at its founding convention in
September 2005 that 75 percent of its budget would go to
organizing. With another substantial chunk of the budget expected to
cover operating expenses it is clear that coordinating political action
will not be a priority for the new coalition.
Given the conflict over political action, how will the split of the
CTW from the AFL-CIO affect the political activity and influence of
organized labor? In the fifty years since the merger, the AFL-CIO has
built a powerful political operation that has maintained a voice for
organized labor in the political arena even as membership has
declined and the economic influence of labor has receded. Will the
political power of labor be compromised by the split as unions
representing roughly 40 percent of union membership turn away from
political action to focus resources on organizing? The next section of
the paper will give a brief overview of the origins and recent history of
labor’s political action as well as the factors that led the dissident
unions to pull out of the AFL-CIO. The remainder of the paper will
examine the potential impact of the split on the political activity of the
labor movement by comparing the political action and orientation in
the last few years of those unions that remain in the AFL-CIO and
those that have joined the CTW. While there are some clear
differences between the affiliates of the two federations, many of the
CTW unions have not downplayed political action in the past and it is
unlikely they will give it up in the future.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF ORGANIZED LABOR’S POLITICAL ACTION AND THE
EMERGING CLEAVAGE IN THE LABOR MOVEMENT
The Rise of Labor’s Political Power
The debate over politics versus organizing reflected in the conflict
between the AFL-CIO adherents and CTW forces is a recurrent one
250
ROOF
both in the scholarship on organized labor and within the labor
movement itself. Many labor scholars have suggested that labor
movements predominantly rely on one of two strategies to better the
living standards of workers – either a market strategy based on
organizing and collective bargaining for better pay, benefits, and
working conditions or a political strategy based on pursuing political
alliances that will yield favorable welfare state policies (such as
Draper, 1989). Whereas most European labor movements have
pursued the latter strategy by allying with labor or socialist parties
supportive of centralized economic planning and public insurance
programs like national health care, scholars argue the American labor
movement has been more reliant on the former strategy of collective
bargaining as reflected in long-term AFL leader Samuel Gompers’
endorsement of “purse and simple trade unionism.”
However, since the New Deal years the American labor movement
has clearly pursued a dual strategy of both political action and
collective bargaining to improve workers’ standard of living. The
Congress of Industrial Organizations, which broke away from the AFL
in 1935 to take advantage of new opportunities to organize low-skill,
low-wage industrial workers, also broke with the AFL in the depth of
its commitment to political action. Over time the AFL came to share
the CIO’s interest in politics. A major motivation for the merger of the
two federations in 1955 was to build greater strength and unity in
labor’s political operations. While the affiliates would primarily pursue
a market strategy focused on collective bargaining, the AFL-CIO would
become the voice of organized labor in the political arena. The AFLCIO merger marked the start of a period of decline in union density
and the economic power of organized labor in the private sector, but
in contrast it marked the beginning of the sizeable expansion of
labor’s political power.
Many scholars, particularly on the ideological left, have been
critical of the increasing bureaucratization of the labor movement and
the declining radicalism and militancy of labor leaders in the 1960s
as they became integrated into the power structure, but these
changes as well as the commitment of significant new resources to
political mobilization brought substantially greater political influence.
The AFL-CIO’s Committee on Political Education (COPE) became a
sophisticated electoral operation that registered and mobilized not
only union voters but other Democratic constituencies such as the
CTW VS. THE AFL-CIO: THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF THE SPLIT ON LABOR’S POLITICAL ACTION
251
elderly and minorities. As Greenstone has argued, the labor alliance
with the Democratic Party paralleled the ties between unions and
social democratic parties in Western Europe. The fruits of this alliance
came in the early Great Society period as organized labor became a
key ally of President Johnson and liberal Democrats in passing a wave
of progressive policies. However, labor observers came to see the
Great Society as the peak of labor’s power, which was followed by
three decades of decline.
While it is clear that unions lost influence in many sectors of the
economy from the 1970s to the 1990s and union membership fell
steeply, several recent works have suggested that the pattern of
union influence in the political arena during these decades is more
mixed (Dark, 1999; Asher et. al, 2001; Francia, 2006). Taylor Dark
has argued that declining union density is not necessarily linked to
declining political power. He notes that “Indeed, there is good reason
to believe the opposite: faced with a deterioration of their position in
collective bargaining, unions may actually increase the resources they
devote to politics, potentially leading to an expansion rather than
reduction in union power” (Dark, 1999, p. 22). Even though union
membership was declining, unions increased their dues income and
many directed more resources to politics (Bennet, 1991). The growing
and politically active public sector unions also grew more influential
within the labor movement. During the 1980s labor strengthened its
relationship with congressional Democrats who were able to thwart
many anti-labor initiatives, particularly later in the Reagan
administration (Dark, 1999). Labor also continued to play a
prominent role in Democratic presidential politics finally ending up on
the winning side in the 1992 election of Bill Clinton.
However, the Republican takeover of Congress in the 1994
elections after four decades of Democratic control precipitated an
upheaval within the AFL-CIO as many labor leaders feared the
Republicans might soon come to control both houses of Congress
and the presidency. A coalition of old CIO unions like the UAW and
CWA joined service and public sector unions like SEIU and AFSCME to
enlist John Sweeney to challenge Lane Kirkland (whose candidacy
was replaced by AFL-CIO secretary-treasured Thomas Donahue after
Kirkland decided to resign) in the first contested presidential election
in the AFL-CIO’s history. Under Sweeney’s leadership the AFL-CIO has
managed to do more in the political arena with less membership. As
252
ROOF
noted above, Sweeney has been credited with improving labor’s
political operation both in lobbying and union member voter turnout
despite the continued drop in union density. Sweeney got special per
capita assessments passed and managed to repeatedly ramp up AFLCIO spending on voter education and grassroots political mobilization.
The AFL-CIO’s efforts produced electoral gains for the Democrats in
the late nineties and its lobbying efforts helped blunt the legislative
accomplishments of the Republican Revolution. The percentage of
voters from union households went from 19 percent in 1992 to 26
percent in 2000 and 25 percent in 2004 and other liberal
constituency groups began to use labor’s mobilization tactics
(National Election Pool statistics cited in July 2005 AFL-CIO Fact
Sheet).
Labor’s Political Activity Questioned
When the great political fear of unified Republican control of the
government was realized in the 2000 election and reaffirmed in
2004 despite these gains in voter participation, dissatisfaction with
federation leadership and priorities again emerged. In a heated 2004
election post-mortem meeting of the AFL-CIO’s governing Executive
Council, Andrew Stern, whose SEIU had played an important role in
labor’s 2004 electoral activities, argued that union membership was
simply no longer large enough to win elections for labor-backed
candidates in most areas of the country. He pointed out that labor
strength was geographically concentrated in the blue states that
already went Democratic. Even in some swing states with above
average union density like Ohio, the edge has gone to Republicans in
recent electoral cycles because of the slide in union membership.
Over the course of the next year, he and other dissident labor leaders
repeatedly made the case that the influence of organized labor was
destined to ebb towards insignificance unless the movement took
radical steps to address the long-standing crisis of declining union
membership. As Stern noted in an interview in January of 2005 “Our
movement is going out of existence, and yet too many labor leaders
go and shake their heads and say they’ll do something, and then they
go back and do the same thing the next day… I don’t have a lot of
time to mince words, because I don’t think workers in our country
have a lot of time left if we don’t change” (quoted in Bai, January 30,
2005).
CTW VS. THE AFL-CIO: THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF THE SPLIT ON LABOR’S POLITICAL ACTION
253
In the legislative arena there was also reason for concern. Since
organized labor became politically active in the 1930s and 1940s, its
power to achieve favored legislation has always been restricted by the
fragmented nature of the American political system. Because of the
numerous veto points in the American policy making process (e.g.
congressional committees, Senate filibusters, and presidential
vetoes), there is a bias towards inertia and the status quo. This has
limited labor’s ability to get legislation passed, ranging from universal
health care to labor law reform, even at the peak of labor’s political
power. However, this same tendency has historically limited the
legislative accomplishments of labor’s opponents as well. Even during
the Reagan years, for example, a whole range of proposals to restrict
labor’s political influence and make labor law even more inhospitable
to organizing failed. Labor was equally effective in obstructing the
most anti-labor legislative proposals of Republicans in Congress
during the Clinton administration often with the assistance of
presidential vetoes or Senate filibusters.
However in the George W. Bush administration this defensive role
has been threatened. For example, efforts to restrict overtime pay
that repeatedly failed in the past made it through the Republican
controlled Congress to be signed by the Republican President. The
biggest threat to this defensive role can be seen in the 2002 passage
of legislation creating the Homeland Security Department that
included a provision empowering the administration to eliminate the
collective bargaining rights of hundreds of thousands of federal
employees. The Democrats, who had been put in power in the Senate
by Vermont Senator James Jeffords’ defection from the Republican
Party in the summer of 2001, successfully filibustered the bill over
this provision through the November 2002 elections. However, when
the Republicans picked up seats in the election, the Democrats saw
the writing on the wall and allowed the bill to go on to passage in the
last month of their control of the Senate. Many political pundits felt
the Democrats had suffered in the elections because of their defense
of labor’s cause, which allowed the Republicans to portray them as
anti-security in the first post-9/11 election. Thus CTW leaders have
not only been able to point to electoral failures but legislative failures
as evidence of the weakness of the AFL-CIO’s political strategy.
254
ROOF
Proposals for Reform
In the spring of 2005 Stern and his allies made a number of
reform proposals arguing that without radical changes labor’s
influence in society would ebb towards insignificance. Some of these
proposals dealt with the internal organization of the labor movement.
Others dealt with the strategy and priorities of the labor movement.
The reformers argued that the AFL-CIO’s operations, staff, and budget
needed to be redirected and all non-essential activities, effectively
defined as those not directly related to organizing or political action,
needed to be eliminated and more resources directed towards
organizing.
Since its creation, the federation’s only real powers over the
affiliated unions’ activities have been persuasion or rarely used
threats of expulsion. The dissident unions argued that the AFL-CIO
needed to take a much larger role in directing the labor movement.
Stern and several of the other leaders who would eventually help
found the CTW argued that the 58 AFL-CIO affiliated unions needed to
consolidate into 10-20 large unions to build bargaining power.
Moreover, they argued that organizing jurisdictions should be
streamlined in order for each union to be responsible for certain core
professions and industries so that unions wouldn’t waste resources
competing to organize the same workers. They also argued that a
structure of penalties with real teeth needed to be established for
those unions, which did not dedicate resources to organizing and a
structure of rewards established for those that did.
These proposals had no chance of being approved by the
Executive Council because many of the member unions would have
been effectively consenting to their demise. Moreover, those few
industrial unions that have managed to organize new members in the
last decade have largely done so by moving outside of their core
jurisdictions. Stern himself had little credibility on this issue since
SEIU has had – and continues to have - repeated skirmishes with
AFSCME over representing various groups of public sector workers.
Other members of the dissident group like the Teamsters and the
Carpenters have also been criticized in the past for raiding workers
from other unions and like the SEIU, the Teamsters and Laborers
have reached beyond their core jurisdictions.
CTW VS. THE AFL-CIO: THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF THE SPLIT ON LABOR’S POLITICAL ACTION
255
Other, perhaps more realistic proposals, put forward by the
dissident group were perceived by influential unions within the AFLCIO as a direct attack on the federation’s political activities. At the
March 2005 meeting of the Executive Council, James Hoffa of the
Teamsters introduced a proposal to rebate 50 percent of the per
capita dues paid to the AFL-CIO to unions with a demonstrated
commitment to organizing. This would have slashed the federation’s
budget and jeopardized the AFL-CIO’s spending on political action.
Ultimately a majority coalition led by AFSCME’s McEntee and Larry
Cohen of the Communication Workers’ (CWA) beat back the
dissidents’ resolutions and passed a resolution to double the size of
the federation’s political budget (Meyerson, 2005). In an effort to
appease the dissident unions a proposal for a smaller rebate of dues
was also accepted. To make these changes, the AFL-CIO had to shed
roughly a quarter of its staff in May. In an effort to concentrate the
federation’s resources on politics and organizing, departments were
merged and functions such as the AFL-CIO’s monthly magazine were
eliminated.
Although Sweeney had insisted that he would only serve two
terms when he first ran for the presidency, he decided to run again
for a third term at the 2005 convention. As the convention
approached, Sweeney participated in the negotiations to try to reach
compromises on the insurgents’ reform proposals that would be
acceptable to a majority within the federation. However, the
insurgents’ calls for institutional reform soon turned to demands for
leadership change as dissident leaders such as HERE’s Wilhem
considered launching their own campaign for the presidency (Kutalik,
2005; Meyerson, 2005). Over the course of the spring the two sides
became more intransigent as Stern publicly called for the ouster of
Sweeney, his former mentor in the SEIU, in May. In June, SEIU, the
Teamsters, the Laborers, UFCW, and UNITE-HERE formally announced
the creation of the Change to Win coalition and were soon joined by
the Carpenters. When it became clear that Sweeney would maintain
majority support and that Stern and his allies would not be able to
lead a successful challenge to the federation leadership, the SEIU
and the Teamsters announced they were leaving the AFL-CIO on the
first day of the convention. UNITE-HERE, UFCW, and the Laborers
subsequently announced they were disaffiliating as well. Several
months later the small United Farm Workers (UFW) also left the AFLCIO to join Change to Win.
256
ROOF
POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE SPLIT?
Labor is potentially at a crossroads. During the Bush years,
labor’s declining membership has finally been reflected in an
unprecedented and painful loss of political clout. However, labor has
still been able to effectively defend some of its priorities. For example,
labor and its allies can claim some responsibility for heading off the
President’s efforts to privatize Social Security. If labor’s political
power declines further this defensive role may be undermined. But
going into the 2006 congressional elections, there is also the
opportunity for labor to begin to reverse its political fortunes. Growing
disunity in the Republican Party over issues like immigration and the
President’s slumping public approval because of the unpopularity of
the Iraq War create a potential opening for Democrats to make
substantial gains. Whereas CTW leaders have been very critical of the
payoff for labor’s recent political efforts, defenders of the political
strategy such as AFSCME’s McEntee are convinced that labor has
made great strides in building the effectiveness of its electoral
machine and that with just a little more effort, labor could finally
come out on the winning side. If the Democrats were to gain even one
house of Congress, labor’s defensive legislative role might also be
restored and organized labor would be better able to fend off
legislation contrary to its interests from unfavorable immigration
reform to proposals to make recognition of unions based on card
checks rather than formal NLRB elections illegal. At this crucial
juncture, will the recent split in the labor movement result in a
continued decline in labor’s political power, finally pushing organized
labor into a position where it can no longer defend its political and
policy interests?
A number of questions must be considered in examining the
impact of the labor split in the political arena. Given the CTW’s
overriding emphasis on organizing, will labor’s political power wane
as a weakened and streamlined AFL-CIO carries a larger burden for
leveraging potentially more limited political resources? Will the split
affect organized labor’s ability to lobby for favored public policies?
How will it affect organized labor’s ability to mobilize in elections?
The Teamsters and the Carpenters have a history of closer ties to the
Republican Party than other unions within the labor movement and
Stern has been very critical of the AFL-CIO’s commitment to the
Democratic Party, which he argues hasn’t always stood by labor. Will
CTW VS. THE AFL-CIO: THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF THE SPLIT ON LABOR’S POLITICAL ACTION
257
the split thus weaken historical union ties to the Democratic Party? It
is quite hazardous for a social scientist to make predictions, but one
can compare the recent history and political activity of CTW v. AFL-CIO
unions to get a sense of how these unions differ and whether CTW
unions are likely to pull out of politics. The next sections of this paper
will look at the differences between the CTW and AFL-CIO in policy
goals, political action committee contributions, support for
Democrats, and overall political spending and activism. The final
section will look at the impact of the split on cooperation and unity in
the labor movement’s political action.
DIFFERENCES IN POLITICAL ORIENTATION AND POLICY GOALS
Much has been made in the press of the central differences
between those unions, which remain in the AFL-CIO and those which
left to form the CTW. The CTW unions primarily represent workers in
service sector and construction jobs that can’t be moved abroad
whereas the AFL-CIO is primarily composed of the old industrial
unions of the CIO, which have been hit hard by globalization and
public sector unions like AFSCME and the American Federation of
Teachers.
The industrial and public sector unions are often cited as relying
more on politics because industrial unions need to fight and shape
free trade policies and the public sector workers are directly
employed by the government and thus directly affected by its policies.
But it is easy to exaggerate these differences. First of all, many of
SEIU’s members and organizing targets work in the public sector. It is
hard to argue that AFSCME and SEIU have different interests in public
policy because of their membership base when the two unions are
squabbling over organizing the same workers. The Teamsters are a
catch-all union with members in a range of job categories and
industries, but even their core jurisdiction of transportation is
composed of several heavily regulated industries in which
government policies have a direct impact on jobs.
The CTW unions are obviously not as concerned with trade and
industrial policy as AFL-CIO affiliates like the UAW and IAM, but they
are perhaps even more directly affected by government social welfare
policies. Much as Greenstone suggested the early CIO was politically
active because low-skilled, easily replaced, industrial workers had
weak bargaining power and needed government assistance more, the
258
ROOF
same can be said of today’s service workers such as the janitors,
laundry and hotel workers, and grocery clerks of SEIU, UNITE-HERE,
and UFCW (Greenstone, 1977). Workers in these low wage industries
are more heavily impacted by minimum wage laws, government
health care programs, and immigration policy.
Both the AFL-CIO and CTW have unions concentrated in the
construction industry and those unions share their own set of
interests often more focused on politics at both the state and local
level. Both federations thus reflect varied unions with diverse
interests that are all impacted by public policy. Moreover, as the next
two sections will demonstrate, both federations are composed of
unions that vary considerably in terms of their commitment to politics.
So far, there has been little to distinguish the CTW from the AFLCIO in terms of policy positions and focus. The CTW has emphasized
the core issues of retirement security, health care security, fair
wages, collective bargaining, and immigration policy reform. These
are the same issues on the AFL-CIO’s consensus agenda. The
affiliates of both federations vary in the issues they concentrate on
and sometimes in their particular positions. Thus the legislative
department of the SEIU dedicates considerable resources to following
the intricacies of health care policy at the federal and state levels
while the American Federation of Teachers dedicates considerable
resources to lobbying on education policy. But as of the completion of
this article in September of 2006, there is little evidence of greater
division on public policy or unions working at cross purposes since
the split. As the next section elaborates there is also little difference
in electoral activity.
Labor PAC Contributions of CTW and AFL-CIO Affiliates
It is notoriously difficult to assess total union spending on political
action because of the multitude of ways that unions try to impact
elections. However one category of spending – that done by political
action committees (PACs) - is fairly easy to track. Contributions made
directly to candidates or money spent on behalf of candidates
(independent expenditures) are regulated by the Federal Election
Commission and must be reported. Unions are prohibited from
spending money from their treasuries on these activities but they are
able to use treasury funds to set up and administer political action
committees, which raise voluntary contributions from members and
CTW VS. THE AFL-CIO: THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF THE SPLIT ON LABOR’S POLITICAL ACTION
259
staff that can be directed to candidates. Consequently, PAC spending
is a good measure of the political activism of union staff and
memberships.
Union PAC spending in the 2004 election does not show a big
contrast between AFL-CIO and CTW affiliates. Table 1 shows the total
spent in the 2004 election cycle by the federal PACs associated with
all AFL-CIO international affiliates spending at least $500,000 in the
election. This spending includes direct contributions to candidates at
both the federal and local/state levels, contributions to other political
action committees and organizations like the Congressional Black
Caucus and the Democratic Governors Association, and independent
expenditures spent on behalf of candidates by the PACs. There is
considerable variation not only in total spending but more revealingly
in per member spending across unions and across union sectors.
Somewhat surprisingly, per member spending is lowest in the
industrial and public sectors even though these are the sectors with
the greatest aggregate spending. Per member spending is highest in
the transportation sector, which does include a fair contingent of
public sector workers, led by the Air Traffic Controllers with total
spending averaging a whopping $179 per member.
TABLE 1
Union PAC Spending in 2004 Election Cycle
of Current AFL-CIO Affiliates
Union PAC*
Building Trades
Bricklayers
Ironworkers
Painters & Allied Trades
Plumbers & Pipefitters
Sheet Metal Workers
Union Average in Sector
Industrial
Auto Workers
Boilermakers
Communications Workers
Electrical Workers
Machinists/Aerospace Workers
Total Spent
Per member
spending
$1,087,783
$2,063,908
$3,367,490
$2,065,205
$3,249,657
$10.89
$16.25
$26.24
$6.36
$22.49
$16.45
$13,336,591
$988,160
$6,486,348
$6,317,770
$4,153,680
$20.37
$13.74
$11.26
$9.26
$6.80**
260
ROOF
TABLE 1 (Continued)
Union PAC*
Total Spent
Mine Workers
Steelworkers
Union Average in Sector
$1,086,765
$1,346,419
Government Employees
Fire Fighters
Letter Carriers
Postal Workers
State, County, Municipal Employees
Teachers
Union Average in Sector
Air Line Pilots
Air Traffic Controllers
Longshoremen
Longshoremen & Warehousemen
Seafarers
Transit Union
Transport Workers
Transportation Communication Union
Transportation Union
Union Average in Sector
Total spending of all AFL-CIO internationals
$788,455
$2,558,392
$1,553,403
$1,989,562
$14,056,945
$5,580,659
$1,979,257
$2,653,298
$1,168,620
$661,718
$1,441,467
$1,162,594
$896,336
$603,114
$2,642,101
Per member
spending
$10.80
$2.51
$10.68
Public Sector
$3.48
$9.99
$5.35
$8.75
$10.41
$6.85
$7.47
Transportation
$38.95
$179.35
$19.80
$17.47
$40.10**
$6.39
$7.47
$9.79
$40.28
$39.96
$85,285,697
Notes:
* Only PACs operated by international AFL-CIO affiliates registered with the
Federal Election Commission and spending over $500,000 in the 2004
election cycle are included.
** The Machinists (IAM) report a substantially different membership on
their LM-2 report of 610,426 compared to their report of an average of
326,957 members from June 2004-June 2005 to the AFL-CIO implying
this number may slightly under or over-estimate per capita spending
depending on the actual membership number. The Seafarers (SIU) also
report a substantially different membership of 35,948 on their LM-2
report versus 84,790 to the AFL-CIO.
Source: FEC data collected by opensecrets.org.
CTW VS. THE AFL-CIO: THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF THE SPLIT ON LABOR’S POLITICAL ACTION
261
Table 2 shows the total spent in the 2004 election cycle by the
federal PACs associated with current CTW unions. There is less
variation among CTW unions in per member spending but still a broad
range between UNITE-HERE’s average of $2.40 per member and the
Teamsters’ average of $8.05 per member. Although their per capita
spending is not among the highest of all the union PACs, CTW’s SEIU
and Teamsters were still the third and fourth biggest PAC spenders
following the AFL-CIO’s AFSCME and UAW. Overall, CTW unions
represent roughly forty percent of union membership in the two
federations compared with roughly thirty percent of affiliated federal
TABLE 2
Union PAC Spending in the 2004 Election Cycle of Current CTW
Unions
Union PAC
Building Trades
Carpenters and Joiners
Laborers
Union Average
Services
Food & Commercial Workers
Service Employees
Textile, Hotel, Restaurant Employees
Union Average
Transportation
Teamsters
Union Average
Total spending of all CTW internationals
Total Spent
Per member
spending
$2,707,881
$2,963,531
$5.17
$4.28
$4.73
$4,950,384
$12,461,614
$1,084,061
$3.70*
$7.32
$2.40
$4.47
$10,968,934
$8.05**
$8.05
$35,136,405
Notes:
* The Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) reported a membership of
1,338,625 on their LM-2 Report as compared with a membership of
1,047,551 reported to the AFL-CIO in 2004-5 implying that this number
may slightly under or over-estimate per capita spending depending on
the actual membership number.
** The 2004 LM-2 report of the Teamsters (IBT) contained an obvious
erroneous membership report of 135,000. The membership number
used here is an average of the membership reported in 2003 and 2005
equaling 1,362,087 members.
Source: FEC data collected by opensecrets.org.
262
ROOF
PAC spending. Thus in the aggregate CTW unions are smaller players
than AFL-CIO affiliates, but the two largest CTW unions are PAC
heavyweights and CTW PAC spending is still considerable. Although
adequate data is not yet available to make a complete analysis of the
2006 election cycle, as of the completion of this article, both CTW
and AFL-CIO affiliates appear to be on track to raise and spend more
money than they did in the last congressional elections.
Partisan Orientation
In his criticism of the AFL-CIO’s political strategy, SEIU’s Stern has
reportedly called the AFL-CIO an ATM for the Democratic Party and
has argued that the party takes the support of labor for granted (Nall,
2005). He has implied that the CTW coalition will be more open to
Republicans and will demand more accountability from Democrats.
As John Wilhem of UNITE-HERE asserted, “Labor has too often been
the political arm of the Democratic Party, that ends now” (quoted in
Dine, September 28, 2005). It is unclear how much of this is rhetoric
designed to frighten Democrats into greater support of union causes
and how much reflects a genuine commitment to diversifying labor’s
political support. However, the distribution of union PAC contributions
in recent elections should serve as an indicator of affiliates’ partisan
support. At the state and local level, where there is considerable
variation in the ideological and policy orientations of candidates of
the same party, all of labor, and particularly the construction unions,
have tended to be supportive of pro-labor Republicans. Bipartisan
support tends to be less at the national level because it matters
considerably which party controls each house of Congress regardless
of the number of pro-labor candidates elected. However, a number of
national Republicans like Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania have
a long history of labor support. While many reported federal PAC
contributions go to state and local candidates, it is nearly impossible
to track total union contributions to state and local candidates
because they are subject to varying state disclosure laws and
requirements. Thus this analysis is limited to union contributions to
federal candidates.
Overall, there has been a slight decrease in the percentage of
direct candidate contributions given to Democrats since the 2000
election as indicated in Tables 3 and 4. AFL-CIO affiliates directed an
average of 94 percent of their contributions to Democrats in the
CTW VS. THE AFL-CIO: THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF THE SPLIT ON LABOR’S POLITICAL ACTION
263
TABLE 3
Percentage of Direct Candidate Contributions Given to Democrats by
AFL-CIO Affiliates
Union PAC
Building Trades
Bricklayers
Ironworkers
Painters & Allied Trades
Plumbers & Pipefitters
Sheet Metal Workers
Union Average in Sector
Industrial
Auto Workers
Boilermakers
Communications Workers
Electrical Workers
Machinists/Aerospace Workers
Mine Workers
Steelworkers
Union Average in Sector
Public Sector
Government Employees
Fire Fighters
Letter Carriers
Postal Workers
State, County, Municipal Employees
Teachers
Union Average in Sector
Transportation
Air Line Pilots
Air Traffic Controllers
Longshoremen
Longshoremen & Warehousemen
Seafarers
Transit Union
Transport Workers
Transportation Communication Union
Transportation Union
Union Average in Sector
Union average all AFL-CIO internationals
Note: * Numbers as of September 11, 2006.
2000
2002
2004 2006*
98 %
91
99
97
98
97
96 %
88
95
96
96
94
98 %
90
88
97
97
94
97 %
87
73
92
95
89
99
96
99
96
99
96
98
98
99
96
100
96
99
96
98
98
98
93
99
96
99
92
98
96
98
84
98
97
99
95
99
96
94
84
83
99
95
98
92
94
83
84
98
96
98
92
84
68
79
88
97
97
86
84
70
82
95
97
99
88
86
95
92
98
89
92
95
94
86
92
94
85
87
93
97
82
91
94
93
86
90
93
77
65
90
98
76
86
92
89
85
84
90
80
68
89
91
72
86
90
77
90
83
88
264
ROOF
2000 election cycle versus 90 percent in the 2004 electoral cycle
and 88 percent as of September 2006 in the 2006 election cycle.
The decline is smaller among CTW affiliates, falling from 90 percent
directed to Democrats in the 2000 election cycle to 86 percent in
2004 and through September 2006. Again there is a great deal of
variation across unions within each federation. Within the AFL-CIO,
the Air Traffic Controllers gave only 65 percent of their contributions
to Democrats in the 2004 election cycle and 68 percent as of
September 2006 in the 2006 election cycle, whereas the
Communication Workers and the Machinists gave 99 percent to the
Democrats in the 2004 election cycle and 98 percent and 99 percent
respectively as of September in the 2006 election cycle. Similarly,
within the CTW, the Carpenters gave only 73 percent to Democrats in
the 2004 election cycle and 68 percent as of September 2006 in the
2006 election cycle compared with the UFCW’s 98 percent in both
election cycles. CTW unions on average have given slightly less to
federal Democratic candidates but the difference is quite small. The
average union percentage given to Democrats across CTW unions is
86 percent in the 2004 and 2006 cycles compared with 90 percent
TABLE 4
Percentage of Direct Candidate Contributions Given to Democrats by
CTW Affiliates
Union PAC
Building Trades
Carpenters and Joiners
Laborers
Union Average
Services
Food & Commercial Workers
Service Employees
Textile, Hotel, Restaurant Employees
Union Average
Transportation
Teamsters
Union Average
Union average of all CTW
internationals
2000
2002
2004
2006*
86 %
89
88
77 %
86
82
73 %
85
79
68 %
82
75
97
90
87
91
98
89
88
92
98
85
86
90
98
91
85
91
93
93
90
86
86
87
88
88
86
89
89
86
Note: * Numbers as of September 11, 2006.
CTW VS. THE AFL-CIO: THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF THE SPLIT ON LABOR’S POLITICAL ACTION
265
and 88 percent across AFL-CIO affiliates in the respective cycles.
Compared with AFSCME, the AFT, and some of the industrial unions,
which gave nearly 100 percent of their federal candidate
contributions to the Democrats, the 85 percent given by the SEIU and
the 88 percent given by the Teamsters in 2004 do indicate more
openness to support Republican candidates but the bias is still
overwhelmingly towards the Democratic Party. Moreover, since the
split, the percentage of contributions going to Democrats from these
two affiliates has gone up rather than down. If past behavior is any
indication, it does not appear that the leading unions in the CTW will
pull the coalition away from the Democrats.
The desire of CTW leaders to portray their unions as open to allies in
both parties is nothing new in the labor movement. Sweeney’s public
statements reflect the same inclination. In his 1996 book America
Needs a Raise Sweeney noted “… we need to be political watchdogs,
not political lapdogs. And restoring independence will make us more
effective than tethering ourselves to a political party” (Sweeney,
1996). In his report to the 2005 convention, Sweeney repeated the
same sentiment: “We will set our political and legislative agenda and
priorities based on the interests of working families, not the interests
of any political party or specific candidate. We will work on a
bipartisan basis to elect candidates to public office who support a
pro-working families’ agenda, recognizing that neither party is entitled
to our automatic support…” (Sweeney, 2005). Undoubtedly both CTW
and AFL-CIO leaders are disappointed with some of the policy
positions of some of the Democrats, but they oppose most of the
policy positions of most of the Republicans. As the parties have
become more polarized, the presence of conservative Democrats
unwilling (or politically unable) to support labor’s policy positions has
declined while the number of liberal to moderate Republicans willing
and able to support labor has also dwindled. Given CTW’s concerns
with health care and retirement security and the policy preferences of
the largest of its constituent unions, it is highly unlikely that it will pull
the labor movement away from its traditional alliance with the
Democratic Party.
T
Overall Political Spending by CTW and AFL-CIO Affiliates
As indicated above, it is quite difficult to track total labor
spending on political action but several recent changes in election
266
ROOF
law and union disclosure requirements may make part of the job
easier. First of all, two streams of election funding are no longer a
major component of union spending. Prior to recent campaign
finance changes, union treasury funds (as opposed to the PAC
spending reported in Tables 1 and 2) could be used for political
activities other than direct candidate contributions. In the heyday of
unlimited soft money contributions to the political parties unions
directed millions of dollars to the Democratic Party from their
treasuries. Issue advocacy ads, which are not supposed to be
explicitly partisan but often have partisan overtones designed to
shape elections, were another variety of campaign spending that
could also be funded from union treasuries and reflected a significant
source of union election spending in the 1996-2000 elections.
Masters reports that the bulk of this category of spending by
organized labor, at least in the 2000 election, appears to have been
spent by the AFL-CIO rather than the affiliates (Masters, 2004, p.
157). The Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA),
eliminated unlimited soft money contributions and prohibited issue
ads, which explicitly mention a candidate’s name from being run 30
days prior to a primary and 60 days prior to a general election. As a
result, these two forms of spending are no longer a factor in labor’s
political efforts and eliminate some of the ambiguity in determining
just how much labor money flows into electoral activity.
While PAC spending continues to play a major role, labor’s biggest
asset in elections – especially compared with other groups - is its
ability to conduct voter registration, education, and mobilization
drives of both of its members and other liberal constituencies. Unlike
PAC spending, spending on this type of grassroots political
mobilization can be funded through union treasury funds. Also unlike
PAC spending, the value and amount spent on grassroots
mobilization is notoriously difficult to estimate. Grassroots voter
education and mobilization efforts involve substantial time
commitments from union officers, paid staff, and volunteers as well
as the use of union offices, phones, and equipment. Over the 1990s
the AFL-CIO and many of the affiliates moved towards allocating more
of their resources to grassroots mobilization. The AFL-CIO reportedly
budgeted three-quarters of its 2000 election fund for such grassroots
efforts (Masters, 2004, p.154). Masters has estimated that the value
of the AFL-CIO’s coordinated grassroots mobilization effort in the
2000 elections was $89,200,000 compared with roughly $129
CTW VS. THE AFL-CIO: THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF THE SPLIT ON LABOR’S POLITICAL ACTION
267
million in PAC expenditures, $23 million on issue advocacy ads, and
$30 million in soft money party contributions by all unions.
The focus on grassroots activity was repeated and indeed
intensified in the 2004 elections. In the 2004 election season, the
AFL-CIO estimates that 225,000 union volunteers participated in
voter education and outreach. The AFL-CIO alone sent out 30 million
leaflets and the affiliates sent out millions more. On Election Day, the
AFL-CIO reports that 257 phone banks with 2,322 phone lines were
functioning across 16 targeted states to turn out the vote. More than
90 percent of union members reported receiving political information
from their unions. (Political Action Fast Facts, www.aflcio.org). Despite
the budgetary strain caused by the pull out of CTW unions, the AFLCIO appears to be on track to spend $40 million – most of it on
grassroots mobilization – in the 2006 election cycle representing a
record for congressional elections.
Although it will likely remain impossible to get a completely
accurate accounting of political spending by the AFL-CIO and the
affiliates on grassroots political activity funded through union
treasuries and an accurate distribution and valuation of volunteer
time, federal regulatory changes have made it easier to estimate hard
costs for overall political activity including lobbying and grassroots
electoral mobilization. The 1959 Landrum Griffin Act requires all
larger unions to file financial disclosure reports with the Department
of Labor called LM-2s, which are made available to the public. Antilabor organizations like the National Right to Work Committee have
been highly critical of unions’ use of dues money to fund political
action in support of liberal candidates and policies that many union
members do not necessarily support.
Revitalized labor political efforts in the 1996-2000 elections set
off even more criticism, especially in Congress, precipitating
investigations into union political spending. In 2003, the Department
of Labor released a proposal for a revised format for LM-2s that
would require much more detailed accounting of expenditures. In
addition to reporting all sources of income and spending on benefits,
strike funds, etc. all other spending has to be reported among several
functional categories including political activities and lobbying;
representational activities; contributions, gifts, and grants; general
overhead; and union administration. Unions must estimate the
percentage of time officers and paid staff spend on each of these
268
ROOF
activities and their salaries are allocated proportionately to each
functional category. In addition, all expenditures over $5,000 must be
itemized in the reports by functional category. The AFL-CIO challenged
the new rule in court but lost. As a result, LM-2s filed for fiscal years
beginning on or after July 1st, 2004 must follow the new format.
Almost every union affected by the rules change has filed a 2005
report in the new format and the most intense activity of the 2004
election season is included in most of the reports. The political
spending category includes resources dedicated to lobbying, political
education, and electoral mobilization. Unions are not required to
report the distribution of spending across the various categories of
political action but the aggregate numbers provide a window on the
degree of prioritization of political action across international unions
above and beyond the PAC spending levels.
As with PAC spending there is a great deal of variation across
unions in the percentage of their budgets dedicated to political
activities as indicated in Tables 5 and 6. Scholars have only recently
gained access to this new data and in time we may find that there is
variation in unions’ accounting procedures that compromise the
comparability of the data across unions. However, an initial look at
the data is revealing. As expected, the AFL-CIO itself spends a
sizeable chunk of its budget, almost 45 percent, on politics. Of the
affiliates, the public sector unions spend the most led by AFSCME at
27 percent. Surprisingly, the industrial unions, which are widely
believed to be more focused on protecting their position through
politics, spent the lowest percentage of their budgets on political
TABLE 5
Spending from Union Treasuries on Political Activity Reported in
2005 by AFL-CIO Unions
Union*
AFL-CIO Headquarters
Building Trades
Bricklayers
Ironworkers
Reported
Spending on
Political
Activities and
Lobbying
$49,286,075
$470,741
$1,434,615
Political Spending as
a Percentage of
Total Reported
Spending on All
Union Activities
44.77 %
1.69 %
6.68 %
CTW VS. THE AFL-CIO: THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF THE SPLIT ON LABOR’S POLITICAL ACTION
269
TABLE 5 (Continued)
Operating Engineers
$1,538,661
Painters & Allied Trades
$992,066
Plumbers & Pipefitters
$963,054
Sheet Metal Workers
$1,285,927
Union Average in Sector
Industrial
Auto Workers
$8,154,380
Boilermakers
$890,885
Electrical Workers
$4,637,733
Glass, Molders, Pottery & Plastics
$14,498
Machinists/Aerospace Workers
$2,314,000
Mine Workers
$775,779
Steelworkers
$4,390,275
Union Average in Sector
Public Sector
Government Employees
$3,411,752
Fire Fighters
$4,682,949
Postal Workers
$1,122,474
State, County, Municipal Employees $27,233,149
Teachers
$15,776,764
Union Average in Sector
Transportation
Air Line Pilots
$3,860,928
Air Traffic Controllers
$1,809,408
Longshoremen
$420,544
Transit Union
$1,536,285
Transport Workers
$907,303
Transportation Communication
$585,454
Union
Union Average in Sector
Union Average among all affiliates
5.39 %
4.82 %
2.67 %
4.64 %
4.32 %
4.67 %
4.51 %
7.20 %
.14 %
2.77 %
5.16 %
3.11 %
3.94 %
12.40 %
16.63 %
3.03 %
27.07 %
14.30 %
14.69 %
3.46 %
10.48 %
2.44 %
11.92 %
5.70
4.23
6.37 %
5.74 %
Note: *All AFL-CIO international affiliates with total spending of $10 million
or more on five categories of spending from the revised LM-2 reports:
representational activities; political activities and lobbying; contributions,
gifts, and grants; general overhead; and union administration. These five
categories are used to determine the total spending on all union
activities in the third column. The Communications Workers and Letter
Carriers are not included because they did not file 2005 LM-2 reports
using the new format.
Source: AFL-CIO (2006).
270
ROOF
TABLE 6
Spending from Union Treasuries on Political Activity Reported in 2005
by CTW Unions
Union
Carpenters and Joiners
Farm Workers
Food and Commercial Workers
Laborers
Service Employees
Teamsters
Textile, Hotel, and Restaurant
Employees
Union Average among all
affiliates
Reported
Spending on
Political
Activities and
Lobbying
$1,228,751
$552,658
$3,571,066
$3,102,469
$26,008,294
$7,404,347
$1,749,725
Political Spending as
a Percentage of Total
Reported Spending
on All Union Activities
2.38 %
9.20 %
4.64 %
6.77 %
12.74 %
7.89 %
3.15 %
6.68 %
Source: AFL-CIO (2006).
action at just under 4 percent. Once again the CTW’s SEIU emerges
as a major political player, spending just under 13 percent of its
activities budget on political action and coming in a close second to
AFSCME in aggregate political spending among the internationals.
The Teamsters are also big players coming in fifth in total spending
just behind the UAW. Overall the average percentage spent on
political activities varies very little between AFL-CIO and CTW unions
at 5.74 percent vs. 6.68 percent respectively. As an entity, the CTW
may spend considerably less on political action than the AFL-CIO but
CTW affiliates are just as politically active as those of the AFL-CIO and
are unlikely to reduce their own spending on political action.
Impact of the Split on Cooperation and Unity in Political Action
As the above sections indicate, there is considerable variation in
the level of political action among internationals but there is not a
significant difference between the average level of political action
among CTW affiliates and AFL-CIO affiliates. Although CTW leaders
have criticized the AFL-CIO’s focus on politics, the leading CTW
affiliates, SEIU and the Teamsters, have been very politically active
CTW VS. THE AFL-CIO: THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF THE SPLIT ON LABOR’S POLITICAL ACTION
271
unions suggesting their continued involvement in politics. But will the
split undermine the cooperation and unity in political action that the
AFL-CIO has always coordinated? In terms of legislative lobbying in
D.C., despite initial fears, the AFL-CIO still speaks as the voice of labor
since the CTW has not even set up a legislative department or chosen
a legislative director as of the completion of the article in September
2006.2 All the same affiliates – whether in the CTW or the AFL-CIO –
are still active on the issues that they were active on before the split.
The legislative department of the AFL-CIO was spared the budget ax
and its lobbyists still work with those of the CTW affiliates (Samuel
interview). The level of coordination does not appear to have been
significantly compromised. In terms of electoral and grassroots
activity, the 2006 elections will be the big test. There have been signs
of trouble but at the time of the completion of this article the CTW
and AFL-CIO appear to be on track towards cooperation in the
upcoming election.
Although centrally coordinated out of the D.C. headquarters, the
AFL-CIO’s electoral and grassroots political mobilization has
depended heavily on the activities of the state federations and the
central labor councils, which in turn, coordinate the participation of
the affiliated locals. Much of the fate of labor’s political operation
depends on how well these groups continue to function. Participation
in these state and central bodies has been the source of continued
squabbling in the aftermath of the split. After the announcement in
July that the SEIU and Teamsters were leaving the federation and
other unions were likely to join them, CLC leaders from both AFL-CIO
and CTW affiliates grew very concerned about the future of their
organizations and pressured their national leaders to reach some
kind of agreement to allow the bodies to continue to function (for a
discussion of the initial reaction of central labor council leaders see
Barnes, July 30, 2005). In August, the AFL-CIO offered to allow CTW
locals to continue to affiliate with state federations and CLCs if they
paid a special “solidarity fee” that would include not only regular per
capita dues but an additional assessment to cover the AFL-CIO
headquarters’ administrative costs in overseeing the local bodies.
CTW members would also not share the same privileges as AFL-CIO
affiliate members such as holding office. CTW leaders rejected this
proposal but negotiations continued.
272
ROOF
In November an agreement was reached that would allow for
“solidarity charters” in which CTW locals could affiliate and would only
be required to pay per capita dues. CTW members would also be able
to hold office in the state and local bodies. After the United Farm
Workers decided to formally disaffiliate from the AFL-CIO on January
1, 2006, the AFL-CIO refused to allow their locals to affiliate with the
state and local bodies arguing that the Solidarity Charters had only
been negotiated to apply to the five unions, which were disaffiliated
at the time. In response, CTW’s chairwoman Anna Burger called on all
CTW locals to withhold their dues to the bodies beginning May 1st. In
what became another public skirmish between the CTW and the AFLCIO, Burger issued a call in April for the AFL-CIO to join CTW in
creating a third body, the Alliance for Worker Justice, to coordinate
political and legislative action (Greenhouse, April 25, 2006) that
would supplement the local coordination of the state and central
labor bodies and allow unions with no affiliation to either CTW or the
AFL-CIO to participate. This offer was immediately rebuffed by the
federation as redundant with the function the AFL-CIO itself had long
served (Greenhouse, April 25, 2006). Shortly after a public exchange
over the issue, AFL-CIO and CTW leaders again reached a
compromise allowing the UFW locals to affiliate with the state and
CLCs and the activities of the local bodies were never interrupted. As
part of this agreement, Sweeney and Burger announced the creation
of the National Labor Coordinating Committee to coordinate and
share the costs of member mobilization in the 2006 elections (CTW
press release, May 9, 2006). The new body is to be chaired by
AFSCME’s McEntee and the executive vice president of UNITE HERE,
Edgar Romney. The National Education Association (NEA), which has
always been an independent union, has also announced that it will
allow its locals to cooperate in the labor effort on the local level.
The question is whether the bitterness will compromise the
effectiveness of the local bodies and the participation of the affiliates,
which often dedicate full time staff from their field operations during
election season. As the above discussion indicates, CTW affiliates
have a history of political activism. Many local leaders from CTW
affiliates hold office in the CLCs and are dedicated to the councils’
work. It is important to realize that the CTW split was almost entirely
driven by the leadership at the top. While there may be a lot of bad
blood at that level it doesn’t necessarily extend very deep into the
labor movement (outside of areas where CTW and AFL-CIO affiliates
CTW VS. THE AFL-CIO: THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF THE SPLIT ON LABOR’S POLITICAL ACTION
273
are in jurisdictional battles, which is not yet widespread.) The
relationships across affiliated locals have largely remained intact and
in fact local officers and activists have pushed the D.C. leadership to
resolve their differences to keep the central bodies functional. Most
CLCs have continued their day to day operations ignoring the fights
back in Washington. In areas where CTW affiliates were active before
the split, they are likely to remain active into the future. CTW affiliates
have been quite active in state and local politics and with dozens of
governor races in 2006 including a challenge to Schwarzenegger in
California, it is unlikely that the D.C. leadership will hold back
resources. Thus it is entirely possible that the electoral efforts may
not be adversely affected, particularly if the CTW bears its fair share
of the coordination costs as part of the National Labor Coordinating
Committee. By the time this article is in press, we will likely have a
better read on this situation.
CONCLUSIONS
Although it is entirely too early to reach firm conclusions, it
appears that the split of the CTW from the AFL-CIO may not
significantly impact the political action of the labor movement.
Despite the rhetoric of CTW leaders such as Andrew Stern and James
Hoffa in criticizing the AFL-CIO’s focus on political action, CTW
affiliates in recent history have been just as politically active as AFLCIO affiliates and while slightly less favorable to Democrats, CTW
affiliates still overwhelmingly favor the Democratic Party. So far the
split has not seriously compromised the cooperation of the affiliates
in the legislative or electoral realms although the 2006 election will
provide an initial test.
Even if coordination in the 2006 election falls short, the two
federations are likely to learn from these failures and work to rectify
the situation in future election cycles. The AFL-CIO has had splits
before, for example, when the UAW left in 1968. When the labor
movement has been relatively unified on its goals, these splits have
not had a significant impact on labor’s political effectiveness. So far
there is no evidence that the two wings of the labor movement will
have different political goals beyond the differences that existed
among the affiliates before the split.
274
ROOF
NOTES
1. Although they joined CTW, the Laborers did not formally
disaffiliate from the AFL-CIO until June 1, 2006 although the
union made it clear in September that it would be leaving.
2. In March of 2006 the CTW did announce the hiring of an “issues
campaign director,” Frank Clemente, but he has stressed that his
role is not so much lobbying Congress as building “issues
campaigns” in areas such as retirement and health security.
Although these campaigns have not been formally launched it
appears that the focus will be more on shaping public opinion.
REFERENCES
Asher, H.B., Heberlig, E.S., Ripley, R.B., & Snyder, K. (2001). American
Labor Unions in the Electoral Arena. Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield Publishers.
Bai, M. (2005, January 30). “The New Boss.” New York Times
Magazine.
Barnes, J.A. (2005, July 30). “Politics – Labor Blues in City of Broad
Shoulders.” National Journal.
Bennett, J.T. (1991, Winter). “Private Sector Unions: The Myth of
Decline.” Journal of Labor Research, 12 (1): 1-12.
Bernstein, A. (2005, July 25). “Struggle for the Soul of the AFL-CIO;
Two Union Honchos Battle over Reform, Power, and Turf on The
Eve of Its Convention.” Business Week.
Dark, T.E. (1999). The Unions and the Democrats. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press.
Dine, P. (2005, September 27). “Big Labor Gamble Will Take Form
Here, Change to Win Will Try to Revive Union Influence.” St. Louis
Post-Dispatch.
Dine, P. (2005, September 28). “New Labor Group Pledges Massive
Organizing Push.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Draper, A. (1989). A Rope of Sand: The AFL-CIO Committee on
Political Education, 1955-1967. New York: Praeger.
CTW VS. THE AFL-CIO: THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF THE SPLIT ON LABOR’S POLITICAL ACTION
275
Francia, P.L. (2006). The Future of Organized Labor in American
Politics. New York: Columbia University Press.
Greenhouse, S. (2006, April 25). “After Quitting AFL-CIO, Group
Suggests Reunion of Sorts.” The New York Times.
Greenstone, J.D. (1977). Labor in American Politics. Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press.
Kutalik, C. (2005, September). “Behind the Split: A Play for Power?”
Labor Notes.
LM-2 Reports filed with the Department of Labor in Washington, D.C.
Masters, M.F. (2004, Winter). “Unions in the 2000 Election: A
Strategic Choice Perspective.” Journal of Labor Research, 25 (1):
139-182.
Masters, M.F. & Delaney, J.T. (2005, Summer). “Organized Labor’s
Political Scorecard.” Journal of Labor Research, 26 (3): 365-392.
McNeill, J. (2005, Fall). “Labor Divided.” Dissent, 52 (4): 27-34.
Meyerson, H. (2005, June). “Labor’s Civil War.” The American
Prospect, 16 (6): 45-50.
Nall, C. (2005, September 4). “Gompers’s Ghost and Labor’s New
Look.” Washington Post.
“Political Activism or Grassroots Organizing: A Debate on the Future
of Organized Labor.” (2005, March 10). [Online]. Available at
www.democracynow.org.
Sweeney, J.J. (2005). “President’s Report to the Convention.” In AFLCIO (Ed.), 2005 Executive Council Report. Washington, DC: AFLCIO.
Sweeney, J.J. (1996). America Needs a Raise. New York: Houghton
Mifflin Company.