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:: Monday, June 21, 2004 ::

Leaders to push for labor overhaul By Nancy Cleeland, Los Angeles Times
"Some people say it will just create more undemocratic structures," said  Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "But you have to do something. The union movement is in such a crisis today."

Indeed, a decade after John Sweeney won the presidency of the AFL-CIO on a platform of organizing new members, unions have continued in their three-decade decline. The union share of the private work force was 8.2 percent last year, down from 8.6 percent in 2002.

Few doubt that with that kind of showing, labor needs to start doing things differently. But many would prefer the change to happen through the AFL-CIO, the federation of 65 unions formed nearly 50 years ago by a merger of two labor organizations.

"We understand that there are great changes that have yet to be made and are desperately needed, and we need their help to make it happen," said Stewart Acuff, organizing director for the AFL-CIO. Clearly worried about the prospect of a rupture in organized labor, he added, "We are ever mindful of the absolute necessity of unity."

One of the five union presidents has already gone his own way. Doug McCarron, president of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, left the AFL-CIO three years ago saying he could use his union's membership money better for organizing. Since then, he said, the union membership has grown -- to 538,000 currently -- while most other unions have lost members.

"The world is changing," he said, "and, if the labor movement doesn't start thinking more strategically, we're not going to have a future."

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