Who Cares if the AFL-CIO Is Torn Apart? So what if Inter-Union Wars Break Out? - LaborTalk by Harry Kelber
The remarkable thing is that, at least until now, there is not a single labor leader, knowing all of Sweeney's shortcomings, who has the balls to oppose him. For a while, the dissident group of union presidents were grooming one of their own, John Wilhelm, the head of UNITE-HERE, a merged union of garment and hotel workers, but Wilhelm held off, after counting noses and finding he could get only about 35% of the vote.
The thought of Sweeney's impending re-election was the last straw for Andy Stern, who had been threatening to pull out of the AFL-CIO for months and now made it fairly certain that he would, taking as many unions as he could into a new labor federation.
Stern would be joined by his recently-acquired ally, Douglas McCarron, president of the 500,000- member Brotherhood of Carpenters, who has a well-founded reputation as one of the worst autocrats in the labor movement.