William Burrus  APWU President

Ask the President

Question:

I have heard rumors about the possibility of the AFL-CIO, Change to Win, and the National Education Association merging and forming one labor organization. As a member of the AFL-CIO board, do you consider this a real possibility? What is your opinion?

Paul, Montpelier (VT) Local

President Burrus:

Thank you for your inquiry. As a member of the AFL-CIO Executive Committee and Executive Council, I have participated in discussions about the re-unification of the AFL-CIO and Change to Win, a group of seven unions that withdrew from the AFL-CIO in 2005.

Although I wholeheartedly support re-unification, I am not optimistic about achieving this worthwhile goal.

The Change to Win unions, which represented approximately 30 percent of the AFL-CIO when they resigned, had strong beliefs about the structure of the labor movement.

They asserted that the labor movement should de-emphasize electoral politics and instead should spend the federation’s resources on organizing — getting non-union workers to join or form unions.

The CTW unions also wanted to restructure the labor movement into large sectors, with one union responsible for each section. An example would be designating one union to represent all public workers. This sector would consist of all local, state, and federal workers, including the employees represented by the four postal unions.

Unfortunately, after the seven unions failed to persuade the majority of the AFL-CIO to support their views, they elected to disaffiliate.

I have little hope that a re-unification of the seven CTW unions with the 52-union AFL-CIO will take place in the near future. Several of the disaffiliated unions are considering returning to the federation on mutually agreeable terms, but the dominant unions among those that separated are making demands that the AFL-CIO is unlikely to accept.

I do not speak for the AFL-CIO, which will discuss this matter at its convention in August, but I predict that the unions that comprise the federation will reject the terms the CTW unions are demanding as a condition of reunification.

The leadership of the National Education Association, which was not a member of either group, has expressed support for affiliating with the AFL-CIO. However, the organization’s bylaws require it to engage in a lengthy internal process before a decision to affiliate can be made.

March 26, 2009