A HOPEFUL SIGN

Jonathan Tasini, who's been providing excellent convention coverage from Chicago on his blog, reports that if John Sweeney really wants to see Change to Win unions which leave the federation driven out of local and state labor groups, he may have a fight on his hands - from the AFL-CIO folks who run them:

I chatted with my buddy Mark McKenzie, a firefighter and long-time president of the New Hampshire AFL-CIO. He said that he has 5,000 SEIU members in New Hampshire, about 25 percent of his per capita payments. "It would be an enormous loss. I don't know what we're going to do. I think SEIU wants to work with us. This is a fight that's happening at the national level. This is not our fight."...The Maine state federation secretary-treasurer is from SEIU--would it make sense to force such an important player from the state fed just as a life-or-death struggle begins in Maine over union rights?...the head of a big city central labor council wandered by. He was pretty adamant--"It's the national's fight. It's going to be up to them to make me throw anyone out of my council. And I talked to a lot of other big city council presidents and with only one or two exceptions, all of them said they are not going to throw SEIU or Teamsters or anyone else that leave the Federation out of their council."

In his Keynote Address yesterday, after accusing Andy Stern of disgracing the memory of the first SEIU members, John Sweeney pledged to "overcome my own anger and disappointment and and do everything in my power to bring us back where we belong - and that's together." Here's hoping his conception of bringing the labor movement together is broader than just trying to get the folks who disaffiliated to change their minds. The responsibility for working constructively together falls on both sides, of course. Which is why I was heartened yesterday to see Andy Stern and Jimmy Hoffa emphasize their desire to see the AFL-CIO win and their commitment to working together to support mutual goals. Stern is right to cite the failure to support the non-affiliated PATCO strikers as a mortal error for the movement. The movement has already had more mistakes like that than working people can afford.