AFL-CIO SPLIT IMMINENT

Saturday, the United Farmworkers announced that they're joining the Change to Win Coalition. Yesterday SEIU, UNITE HERE, the Teamsters, and the UFCW voted to boycott the AFL-CIO's convention which began this morning. Today, several sources are reporting that after failed last-minute negotiations, SEIU and the Teamsters, at a minimum, are on the verge of announcing a split from the federation. What other Change to Win Coalition members will do remains unclear - the UFCW seems closest to following, while the Laborers, who are attending this week's convention, seem the least likely. The Change to Win Coalition has a compelling vision based on strategies which unions like SEIU and UNITE HERE have used effectively to broaden the labor movement and increase its efficacy at a time when the story for the movement has too often been one of dashed hopes and diminished returns. There's good reason to be concerned that a split could divert resources into unnecessary competition. But in the face of a uniquely hostile government and economy and a series of costly failures, I think there's even more reason to hope that a split can reinvigorate the movement by spurring both groups to more effective organizing and more importantly, by making it possible to apply a winning model on more of the fronts where we need desperately to win. One of the Key choices now facing John Sweeney is whether to encourage, or at least condone, cooperation where possible between two federations. His message to Central Labor Councils hasn't been encouraging on this front. Neither is this:

Before 2,000 Sweeney supporters, Linda Chavez-Thompson, Mr. Sweeney's running mate for executive vice president, laid into several entities that she said had sought to weaken labor - the Bush administration, the United States Chamber of Commerce, Wal-Mart - and then she surprised her audience by adding, "the Change to Win Coalition."