Union rift may spark organizing duels

[struggle4progress]

Sunday, July 31, 2005

By ADAM GELLER
ASSOCIATED PRESS



An angry rift between union leaders filled the spotlight at last week's AFL-CIO gathering in Chicago. But to figure out what labor's divide might actually mean for workers and employers, look beyond the dueling press conferences and listen to the union talk at places like Grandma's House, a child care center Angenita Tanner runs from her basement apartment on the city's South Side.

Tanner is one of Illinois' 49,000 home child care workers, who voted overwhelmingly in the spring to be represented by the Service Employees International Union.

The vote capped a nine-year campaign by the SEIU, and a bitter fight with a rival union for the low-paid service workers. The workers, nearly all women and most minorities, once would have been far outside the muscle and manufacturing mainstream of organized labor.

"There's power in numbers," said Tanner, trying to keep her voice in check as the seven children in her charge nap. <snip>

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