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:: Thursday, November 25, 2004 ::
12 CLC Leaders Enter Debate With Plan To Rebuild AFL-CIO Within 75 Regions LaborTalk By Harry Kelber
A dozen officers of central labor councils have proposed a plan for modernizing the AFL-CIO’s structure by establishing 75 regional labor federations in the nation’s major metropolitan centers that will have responsibility for union organizing, political action and community relations. The plan’s “working draft,” prepared by some of the most successful union organizers, deserves serious consideration by the Executive Council when it meets in February to discuss what changes--structural and otherwise-- must be made to reverse the decline in membership and bargaining power. The plan notes that most of the AFL-CIO’s more than 500 central labor councils are weak and ineffective; they lack resources and full-time staffs to conduct organizing campaigns and be politically influential in their communities. But a key problem is their outmoded organizational structure. “The original formation of Central Labor Councils occurred in the 19th Century of hometown employees and single shop local unions. It is folly to retain a CLC structure created when Teamsters really drove horses,” the authors of the plan say.
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