A Brief History of Labor Unsolidarity: AFL-CIO and Change to Win

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6369/a_brief_history_of_labor_unsolidarity/

Thursday August 26 10:09 am

By Stephen Franklin

As Laborers union heads back to AFL-CIO, the price of organized labor's big break-up seems bigger than ever

Big labor was becoming smaller and smaller. Jobs were disappearing. So were unions. Wages were shrinking. Benefits were flying out the window.

In the 1990s, the heads of the AFL-CIO fought it out like they had rarely done before. As a result of the leadership battle, John Sweeney became president. Change was in the air. New ideas floated. New faces showed up.

But the 1990s and the new century were not friendly times for union members. Blue-collar jobs continued to vanish. Union workers were blamed for earning too much while others saw their paychecks grow smaller.

And some unions made life even worse. Hungry for new blood, they went after any workers they could catch – even if the union knew diddly about the industry. Unions boasted about organizing new members, but that’s all many of them did.

Union leaders talked about opening their ranks and their union halls to everyone. But older white guys still called the meetings together and the rank and file, if they ever showed up at a meeting, didn’t look too different from the folks in charge.

FULL story at link.