Out With the Old, In With the New

By Stephen Pizzo, News for Real. Posted July 27, 2005.

I hope folks over at the DNC are paying close attention to what's going on in Chicago this week.

CHICAGO, July 25 - The huge split in organized labor has been fueled by stagnant living standards for many workers, by the ascendancy of the service sector and by labor's lack of success in politics and unionizing workers. But as much as anything, the schism reflects the conflicting ambitions of two titans of labor, John J. Sweeney, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., and his onetime protege, Andrew L. Stern, the president of the Service Employees International Union, until now the largest union in the labor federation. (Full Story)

What's going on there is so important, it may well decide who will sit in the White House three and half years from now -- as well as the future of the Democratic Party itself.

I am not going to waste your time chronicling the failures of the AFL-CIO or its well-stuffed, overpaid, private jet- traveling, five-star restaurant-dining, limo-riding, security-guard-surrounded, manicured, Italian-suited, underperforming, money-hander-outer-to-politicians, leader John Sweeney.

Suffice it to say that this divorce was long overdue. The reason for it is about as fundamental as it gets in labor terms. The old, comfortable guard at the AFL-CIO has wasted hundreds of millions of dollars in union dues trying to buy political friends instead of doing the hard work of labor organizing.

In the old days -- when labor was young — there was no money. Instead, labor used its muscle to get attention and cooperation. Okay, it wasn't always pretty, and it was really hard work. It required union leaders to engage in one-on-one retail organizing. It meant handing out union fliers at factory gates in the wee hours of the morning, sometimes in freezing weather.

Back in those days union leaders, like Samuel Gompers, John L. Lewis, Harry Bridges and Cesar Chavez, put their personal safety, freedom and lives on the line facing down pipe- swinging company thugs on picket lines.

It was hard, uphill work back when Labor was young. But with the winds of righteousness at their backs, it was effective too. American workers organized in record numbers, salaries went up, benefits went up, standards of living went up.

All those better-paid workers spent more, creating demand for more worker-produced products and services thereby creating more well-paying jobs. It was a self-fueling continuum that built the most prosperous, healthy and secure working class in history. Oh, and a robust national economy as well.

Corporate America could have just left that golden-egg-laying goose alone and let the good times roll. But they couldn't resist. They had to kill the goose in a short-sighted quest for instant gratification. Poorly treated and housed cheap offshore labor became the corporate Holy Grail of profitability. Millions of jobs were sent to developing countries, pensions were cut, healthcare benefits were slashed or eliminated, blah, blah, blah,you know all this.

As this rape of labor marched on and on — and continues to do so — what did the AFL-CIO do? Nada. Nothing. Zip. At least, they did nothing effective. Because Sweeney and his kind at the top of labor had become indistinguishable from corporate CEOs and politicians. They looked the same. They lived the same. They vacationed the same. They talked the same. They walked the same.

Stephen Pizzo is the author of numerous books, including "Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans," which was nominated for a Pulitzer.

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