July 26—On the second day of the July 25–28 AFL-CIO Constitutional Convention, the nearly 1,000 union leaders and activists serving as delegates opened a spirited and important debate about major increases in the resources the union movement devotes to organizing and expansion of union political activities.
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| Delegates to the AFL-CIO Convention gave a standing ovation to the Rev. Jesse Jackson who spoke July 26 before 2,000 delegates and guests. | | |
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Electrical Workers President Edwin Hill told delegates, “Organizing and politics go hand-in hand. It’s not an either-or proposition.”
Resolution 1: “A Plan to Help Workers Win: Uniting Our Power to Build a Stronger, Growing Labor Movement,” submitted to the delegates by the AFL-CIO Executive Council, comes out of a broad discussion among union leaders, grassroots activists and allies on strategies for strengthening the labor movement for the future and enabling working families power to balance corporate power.
Delegates approved the first section of the resolution on organizing strategies and will vote on the political, legislative and strengthening state local sections in the Convention’s afternoon session.
Grassroots Activists Support Strong Steps to Boost Organizing
Several rank-and-file union members who recently won a voice at work through the organizing strategies emphasized in Resolution 1 urged the Convention to adopt the far-reaching and innovative tactics outlined in the resolution.
Holly Sorey, one of a group of workers speaking on stage before the delegates about their experiences forming unions, said Communications Workers of America’s bargaining to organize strategy helped create a majority sign-up/neutrality agreement with Cingular Wireless. As a result, Sorey said, “I was able to talk my co-workers about forming a union without a negative campaign from the company.” In an employer neutrality agreement, the employer agrees not to interfere with workers’ efforts to organize.
During floor debate on the resolution, delegate Wendy Field Jacobs described the UAW’s strategic national campaign aimed at the core industry of auto parts suppliers. Jacobs said the campaign has achieved majority sign-up and neutrality agreements with 11 companies that employ 40,000 workers and is “helping rebuild the power of the manufacturing industry.”
Convention Speakers Stress Importance of Unions in Workers’ Lives
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney opened the morning session telling delegates, “This labor movement has been around a long time and nobody outside this hall is going to decide our future. There is no looking back today. We are going to move forward with these historic changes.”
Speakers in the morning session stressed the important role of the union movement in improving working families’ lives, the impact of union political activism in shaping the nation’s future and the need to work together.
“Labor must be able to debate and still come together. This fight is not us versus us, but us versus them and them is coming at us very hard,” the Rev. Jesse Jackson told a cheering audience.
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) said one of the “great things about being governor,” is being able to move public polices to help working families. Standing before Convention delegates, he signed an executive order that restored free speech and picketing rights for workers who have been affected by recent municipal laws and ordinances restricting those rights.
In a video presentation, Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), a co-sponsor of the union movement-backed federal Employee Free Choice Act, urged delegates to continue their mobilization for its passage.
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley announced a $750 million agreement between the city and the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust to build affordable housing. The agreement “will improve the quality of life for our residents, but great jobs for working men and women,” Daley said.
Organizing Strategies: Building Blocks to Strengthening Working Families
The organizing portion of the resolution includes helping unions devote dramatically more resources for organizing. The plan calls for creating a larger, more active cadre of supporters for organizing by training 100,000 worksite stewards by 2008 in education and mobilizing, and acting in coalition with allies and partners such as Jobs with Justice and American Rights at Work to push for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.
The act, reintroduced in Congress in April, would strengthen protections for workers’ freedom to choose by requiring employers to recognize a union after a majority of workers signs cards authorizing union representation.
Convention delegates also approved resolutions 21, 22, 24, 25 and 32.
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