The AFL-CIO is a white-collar group, but the nation?s workers don?t know it because the federation doesn?t show it. And if labor wants to grow, it has to change that perception around and "sell itself" to that majority segment of the U.S. workforce, the Department for Professional Employees adds.
In one of the more notable contributions to the debate about organized labor?s future, the department--whose unions represent white-collar workers ranging from actors to writers to engineers to administrative personnel--sharplyy criticized the federation for failing to organize, or even pay attention to, white-collar workers and their concerns.
It gave outsourcing as an example. DPE said that issue, which affects white-collar workers, including information technology workers and state employees, languished on the federation agenda for more than a year.
Outsourcing hit the papers in late 2003 with tales of IT workers seeing their jobs migrate to developing nations, after being forced to train their successors. But instead of grabbing that issue and campaigning on it, DPE said, the AFL-CIO engaged in a massive effort for the Immigration Workers Freedom Ride.
DPE did not knock the freedom ride, but said the federation should have pushed both. The risk of alienating allies was minimal, with the benefit of attracting professional workers was great, DPE said.
The federation faces an especially acute problem, DPE pointed out, because most of the new white-collar workers are female. Studies show women are more likely to join unions and vote union, but women workers are now becoming discouraged because unions do not put either their job priorities or professional concerns atop their agendas.
The DPE paper was issued in late December, prior to the latest step in the ongoing debate on the federation?s future.
That will come when representatives of state federations and local Central Labor Councils (CLCs) gather Feb. 15-17 at the George Meany Center in Silver Spring, Md., a Washington suburb, to work on their own AFL-CIO revamp ideas.
Service Employees President Andrew Stern touched off the whole debate last June. He advocated a more corporate model for the federation, calling the AFL-CIO outmoded. Stern said it must be reformed or blown up.
He also pushed forced union mergers to cut the number of unions down to 20 and "lead unions" assigned to different economic sectors, among other ideas. And he demanded $2 billion labor-wide be spent on organizing, with a special $25 million fund dedicated to publicizing anti-worker abuses and to organizing Wal-Mart, the nation?s largest and virulently anti-union retailer.
DPE disagreed about forced mergers. "Forcing square pegs into round holes runs the risk of obliterating smaller unions that serve as labor?s vital link" to white-collar, specialized and professional workers, it said.
Rather than merging the unions that would serve such workers into different, larger unions, DPE said the federation should organize the white-collar workers, instead.
"To a large segment of the fast-growing professional and technical workforce, the labor movement is seen as irrelevant," PE declared. Those professional and technical workers--now one of every five overall--view unions as "an economic anachronism."
But in reality, DPE says, labor is now majority white-collar and does a lot for those workers. It just doesn?t get the message out about what it does and how it can help.
"Why hasn't the AFL-CIO more consistently and prominently profiled these workers and their achievements as a means to showcase the movement's already expansive base among them?" DPE asked. "As the debate about the future unfolds, labor must ask itself how we can relate to and speak to professionals more effectively so that they will see...unions generally as institutions of economic relevance."
To do that, DPE listed many possibilities, including:
* Pay more attention to concerns of women, especially professional women. It noted that women are now 56.4 percent of all professional workers, and 44 percent of all unionists.
The AFL-CIO must do more "both programmatically and within its governing structure to give greater stature and visibility to the issues affecting white-collar women workers," it said.
* Pursue new strategies--it did not outline any--to organize "contingent workers." Contingent professional workers, who range from temp secretaries iin offices to temp engineers at Microsoft, are now one of every four U.S. workers and 30 percent of all professional workers.
Yet because they are contingent, they lack health insurance (10 percent have it) and pensions (7 percent) along with job security, DPE said.
While "increasing numbers of professional technical workers have turned to unions to defend or recapture their professional autonomy and have a say in decisions that affect their work lives," the federation must develop a strategy to organize such workers, it added.
* "Profile itself as a bastion of advocacy" for the white-collar workers and link up with their professional organizations. The white-collar and professional workers are joiners, DPE noted, and labor should take advantage of such links.
* Link gains for white-collar and professional workers in both those workers' minds and in the public's mind, to give the public a positive image of unions. "Examples include the Teachers' fight for smaller class sizes, that improves educational performance of children, the nurses? fight for lower patient loads to improve quality health care, and the Fire Fighters campaign to put more professionals in fire stations and thereby improve public safety."
* Organizing outreach to "pre-professionals," specifically students in colleges and technical schools, both to show the advantages of unionization--so they?ll be more receptive to join unions when they enter the working world--and to counter a massive Right Wing infiltrattion of college media.
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The AFL-CIO is a white-collar group, but the nation?s workers don?t know it because the federation doesn?t show it. And if labor wants to grow, it has to change that perception around and “sell itself” to that majority segment of the U.S. workforce, the Department for Professional Employees adds.
In one of the more notable contributions to the debate about organized labor?s future, the department–whose unions represent white-collar workers ranging from actors to writers to engineers to administrative personnel–sharplyy criticized the federation for failing to organize, or even pay attention to, white-collar workers and their concerns.
It gave outsourcing as an example. DPE said that issue, which affects white-collar workers, including information technology workers and state employees, languished on the federation agenda for more than a year.
Outsourcing hit the papers in late 2003 with tales of IT workers seeing their jobs migrate to developing nations, after being forced to train their successors. But instead of grabbing that issue and campaigning on it, DPE said, the AFL-CIO engaged in a massive effort for the Immigration Workers Freedom Ride.
DPE did not knock the freedom ride, but said the federation should have pushed both. The risk of alienating allies was minimal, with the benefit of attracting professional workers was great, DPE said.
The federation faces an especially acute problem, DPE pointed out, because most of the new white-collar workers are female. Studies show women are more likely to join unions and vote union, but women workers are now becoming discouraged because unions do not put either their job priorities or professional concerns atop their agendas.
The DPE paper was issued in late December, prior to the latest step in the ongoing debate on the federation?s future.
That will come when representatives of state federations and local Central Labor Councils (CLCs) gather Feb. 15-17 at the George Meany Center in Silver Spring, Md., a Washington suburb, to work on their own AFL-CIO revamp ideas.
Service Employees President Andrew Stern touched off the whole debate last June. He advocated a more corporate model for the federation, calling the AFL-CIO outmoded. Stern said it must be reformed or blown up.
He also pushed forced union mergers to cut the number of unions down to 20 and “lead unions” assigned to different economic sectors, among other ideas. And he demanded $2 billion labor-wide be spent on organizing, with a special $25 million fund dedicated to publicizing anti-worker abuses and to organizing Wal-Mart, the nation?s largest and virulently anti-union retailer.
DPE disagreed about forced mergers. “Forcing square pegs into round holes runs the risk of obliterating smaller unions that serve as labor?s vital link” to white-collar, specialized and professional workers, it said.
Rather than merging the unions that would serve such workers into different, larger unions, DPE said the federation should organize the white-collar workers, instead.
“To a large segment of the fast-growing professional and technical workforce, the labor movement is seen as irrelevant,” PE declared. Those professional and technical workers–now one of every five overall–view unions as “an economic anachronism.”
But in reality, DPE says, labor is now majority white-collar and does a lot for those workers. It just doesn?t get the message out about what it does and how it can help.
“Why hasn’t the AFL-CIO more consistently and prominently profiled these workers and their achievements as a means to showcase the movement’s already expansive base among them?” DPE asked. “As the debate about the future unfolds, labor must ask itself how we can relate to and speak to professionals more effectively so that they will see…unions generally as institutions of economic relevance.”
To do that, DPE listed many possibilities, including:
* Pay more attention to concerns of women, especially professional women. It noted that women are now 56.4 percent of all professional workers, and 44 percent of all unionists.
The AFL-CIO must do more “both programmatically and within its governing structure to give greater stature and visibility to the issues affecting white-collar women workers,” it said.
* Pursue new strategies–it did not outline any–to organize “contingent workers.” Contingent professional workers, who range from temp secretaries iin offices to temp engineers at Microsoft, are now one of every four U.S. workers and 30 percent of all professional workers.
Yet because they are contingent, they lack health insurance (10 percent have it) and pensions (7 percent) along with job security, DPE said.
While “increasing numbers of professional technical workers have turned to unions to defend or recapture their professional autonomy and have a say in decisions that affect their work lives,” the federation must develop a strategy to organize such workers, it added.
* “Profile itself as a bastion of advocacy” for the white-collar workers and link up with their professional organizations. The white-collar and professional workers are joiners, DPE noted, and labor should take advantage of such links.
* Link gains for white-collar and professional workers in both those workers’ minds and in the public’s mind, to give the public a positive image of unions. “Examples include the Teachers’ fight for smaller class sizes, that improves educational performance of children, the nurses? fight for lower patient loads to improve quality health care, and the Fire Fighters campaign to put more professionals in fire stations and thereby improve public safety.”
* Organizing outreach to “pre-professionals,” specifically students in colleges and technical schools, both to show the advantages of unionization–so they?ll be more receptive to join unions when they enter the working world–and to counter a massive Right Wing infiltrattion of college media.