Laborers to leave AFL-CIO - By Stephen Franklin, Chicago Tribune
One of the Laborers' concerns reportedly was over the impact of its departure on its 50,000 mail handler members. That will divide them from the nation's other postal worker unions which belong to the AFL-CIO.
Beside playing a key role in setting up the Change to Win Federation, the Laborers joined with the Carpenters earlier this year in establishing a competing organization for building trades unions, the National Construction Alliance.
Jim McGough, who leads a small Chicago-based dissident movement within the Laborers, criticized the union's break from the AFL-CIO, saying it has 'not been debated by the rank and file.'
'I'm opposed to it,' he said. 'Unity is better.'