The AFL-CIO Union Movement: Strategy and Vision to Build Worker Power

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2006/09/01/the-afl-cio-union-movement-strategy-and-vision-to-build-worker-power/

Organizing & Bargaining

Sep 1

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The AFL-CIO Union Movement: Strategy and Vision to Build Worker Power

It has been a year since several breakaway unions left the AFL-CIO. Reflecting on the anniversary of the split, AFL-CIO Organizing Director Stewart Acuff outlined a vision for rebuilding America’s union movement. He offers a bold program for building worker power through organizing, improving public policy and making political leaders accountable to their worker constituents.

Below are Acuff’s remarks at the recent American Sociological Association in Montreal.

Can the labor movement rebuild? Yes. Absolutely.

Building the labor movement means building worker power. And we know there are several strategies we need to pursue to make that happen.

First, we must change the culture of our unions. This means building a greater capacity to organize, and moving more staff and resources to organizing and research.

We also must acknowledge that the old system of relying on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to conduct elections is broken. That is why we have to run large, strategic campaigns that have the capacity to change the dynamics of industries and regional economies outside of the broken NLRB process.

We have to abandon the NLRB process, and at the same time we have to become more facile at systematically leveraging power against employers and corporations globally. Our campaign is nothing less than a human rights struggle to restore the right to organize and bargain collectively.

In order to accomplish this, we must mobilize an army of activists and worksite leaders to carry out that human rights struggle. And we must embrace new forms of organizing and organizations—not as a substitute for collective bargaining—but as allies in building worker power. This means broadening our understanding of the labor movement. And finally, we must give all workers a stake in the success of the labor movement.

We already are well on our way to implementing these strategies. We have more affiliates than ever moving more resources, changing to organize and building essential capacity. I take heart in the fact that in two months this summer four AFL-CIO affiliates―AFSCME, AFT, UAW and CWA―moved more than $100 million in new money for organizing at their conventions. AFSCME, in particular, set a goal of organizing 70,000 new members a year.

Increasing resources allows us to build our organizing capacity, which is crucial to our victory, but we also must acknowledge that the current Labor Board representation election process is broken. Instead of allowing the board to delay and destroy organizing efforts, we must engage in large strategic campaigns independent of a process that clearly favors employers.

FULL story at link above.