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:: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 ::

The New Unity Partnership, A Manifest Destiny for Labor By JOANN WYPIJEWSKI
Since unions are supposed to be organizations of workers, we at CounterPunch thought the members might like the opportunity to review a document cobbled up by five union presidents outlining big plans to spend the workers' money, consolidate their unions and revamp institutional labor -- whether by breaking with the AFL-CIO or destroying it and remaking it in the image of this particular gang of five is not entirely clear. Members aren't likely to get this opportunity through any formal union channels. Published here with an assist from Carpenters for a Democratic Union, the draft program of the New Unity Partnership, or, less alluringly, NUP, is long on the language of management theory ("growth", "density", "market share") and short on such fuddy-duddy concepts as "class", "worker participation", "social movements" or "democracy".

That is hardly unusual for union bureaucrats. The twist here is that the NUP project is trading on the progressive credentials of SEIU's Andy Stern, HERE's John Wilhelm , UNITE's Bruce Raynor and, to a lesser extent, the Laborers' Terry O'Sullivan to present itself as the vanguard of militant unionism, holding aloft the banner "Organize or Die!", a rather ugly slogan formulated by their rather ugly partner, the right-wing president of the Carpenters union, Doug McCarron.
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This section bears the hoofprint of the Carpenters' McCarron, who pulled out of the AFL in 2001 and has feted George W. at two Labor Day picnics. A cheap date, he got a visit on Air Force One.

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