Change to Win Coalition Moves Toward Breakaway From AFL-CIO

Arguing that leaders of the country’s struggling labor movement must change its strategy not merely to survive but make gains for America’s working families, the nation’s largest unions have boycotted the AFL-CIO convention in a move toward an official breakaway.

A total of seven unions representing nearly 6 million workers are ultimately expected to split from the AFL-CIO in order to pour organizing resources and craft new strategies as part of Change to Win Coalition. In an era of declining union membership and labor influence, the unions’ leaders say without change, the movement will continue to lose ground when, more than ever, working families need a powerful voice.

“In itself, it represents not an accomplishment, but simply an enormous opportunity, and a recognition that we are in the midst of the most rapid transformative moment in economic history, and workers are suffering,” said SEIU president Andy Stern. “We are walking down a road, and the mileposts are clear. A country that once had 35 percent union membership is now down to 8 percent in the private sector.”

SEIU and the Teamsters, two of the four unions that boycotted the AFL-CIO convention, officially broke away in the days of the convention. The United Food and Commercial Workers and Unite Here also boycotted the convention.

Two other unions, The Laborers Union and the United Farm Workers are expected to join the Change to Win Coalition as well. In addition, The Carpenters International Union, which was not part of the AFL-CIO, will join the coalition as the eighth union.

The leaders of the breakaway unions are expressing optimism for a new, revitalized labor movement.

“We believe that the next decade can be a time of innovation, new strategies, new energy new growth and new ideas that will bring to life a new, 21st American Dream,” said Andy Stern, leader of the Service Employees International Union, the country’s fastest growing union.

In the disaffiliation letter, Stern said his union has “developed new strategies and new priorities to ensure that workers in our sectors of the economy have their hard work valued and rewarded.”

As a result, he said, SEIU has organized 900,000 workers at a time when the overall percentage of unionized workers continues to shrink.

Teamsters President James Hoffa said the survival of the labor movement is contingent upon organizing workers.

“In our view, we must have more union members in order to change the political climate that is undermining workers rights in this country,” he said.

Hoffa said The Teamsters remained committed to all striking workers, regardless of whether they belonged to the coalition.

The split could invigorate the American labor movement, said Ruth Milkman, a UCLA sociologist.

“People will have a choice,” she said. “Maybe both sides will perform better under these conditions.”