After solving technical details in coming weeks, the Laborers will become the latest union to leave the AFL-CIO, President Terry O'Sullivan said.
O'Sullivan's 382,730-member union is the sixth of the seven Change To Win federation unions to leave the older labor federation. It was preceded in July by the Service Employees, the United Food and Commercial Workers and the Teamsters. In September, UNITE HERE left. The Carpenters departed in 2001. Only the United Farm Workers still remain.
"We must shake this (labor) movement and the country up and turn it upside down to make it right side up," O'Sullivan declared in a fiery closing address to Change To Win's inaugural convention in St. Louis on Sept. 27. "It'll take the power, vision and commitment of Change To Win." Such qualities, he implied, are not in the AFL-CIO.
"Our leaders came to the conclusion" at a meeting in New York last month that we could not grow and strengthen our union within the existing structure of the American labor movement," O'Sullivan explained. "We finally agreed it's not a matter of 'if' we'll withdraw from the AFL-CIO, it's a matter of 'when.' And it'll be a matter of time."
In a brief talk before his speech, O'Sullivan did not put a date on the withdrawal. He said the technical issues remained to be worked out. One is the Laborers' relationship with the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department.
The Carpenters stayed in the department for four years after they left the federation, in 2001, as BCTD President Edward Sullivan and AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney negotiated on whether they would return to the AFL-CIO. They finally left the department in July. Sweeney, at that month's AFL-CIO Convention in Chicago, laid down strict rules about non-AFL-CIO unions' participation in AFL-CIO bodies.
Mark Gruenberg writes for Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.
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After solving technical details in coming weeks, the Laborers will become the latest union to leave the AFL-CIO, President Terry O’Sullivan said.
O’Sullivan’s 382,730-member union is the sixth of the seven Change To Win federation unions to leave the older labor federation. It was preceded in July by the Service Employees, the United Food and Commercial Workers and the Teamsters. In September, UNITE HERE left. The Carpenters departed in 2001. Only the United Farm Workers still remain.
“We must shake this (labor) movement and the country up and turn it upside down to make it right side up,” O’Sullivan declared in a fiery closing address to Change To Win’s inaugural convention in St. Louis on Sept. 27. “It’ll take the power, vision and commitment of Change To Win.” Such qualities, he implied, are not in the AFL-CIO.
“Our leaders came to the conclusion” at a meeting in New York last month that we could not grow and strengthen our union within the existing structure of the American labor movement,” O’Sullivan explained. “We finally agreed it’s not a matter of ‘if’ we’ll withdraw from the AFL-CIO, it’s a matter of ‘when.’ And it’ll be a matter of time.”
In a brief talk before his speech, O’Sullivan did not put a date on the withdrawal. He said the technical issues remained to be worked out. One is the Laborers’ relationship with the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department.
The Carpenters stayed in the department for four years after they left the federation, in 2001, as BCTD President Edward Sullivan and AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney negotiated on whether they would return to the AFL-CIO. They finally left the department in July. Sweeney, at that month’s AFL-CIO Convention in Chicago, laid down strict rules about non-AFL-CIO unions’ participation in AFL-CIO bodies.
Mark Gruenberg writes for Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.