LaborTalk by Harry Kelber (July 30, 2003)
Are Big Internationals Planning to Build A New Labor Movement Within AFL-CIO?
Ever since last February, when the AFL-CIO Executive Council created a new entity, an executive committee, questions have been raised as to why it was needed. The official answer is that the committee would be merely “advisory.”
But since everyone on the new executive committee also holds a seat on the 54-member executive council, whom would they be advising? Themselves?
Concern about the character and function of the executive committee became greater when it was discovered that it consists of 24 self-selected international union presidents and AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. Twenty-one of the 25 members are white males.
As an exclusive club of international union presidents, the committee effectively excluded minority and women labor leaders and automatically disqualified those from the state federations and central labor councils.