Faced with the impact of labor's political loss on Nov. 2, the AFL-CIO Executive Council decided on Nov. 10 on a timeline for changes in the union movement, with key decisions to come at its meeting in Los Angeles in mid-February.

But what those changes will be is up for grabs, and interviews after the council session in Washington made clear there are disagreements over what should happen next.

The council spent much of its D.C. session reviewing the impact of the presidential campaign, meeting with the defeated Democratic nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass.

Kerry, who received huge applause, thanked labor for its support, pledged to continue battling--and raising his profile on--workers' causes such as overtime pay and trade and offered some ideas on how to rejuvenate the Democrats.

Rejuvenating the Democrats also came up for discussion among the union leaders, AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney said afterwards. Indeed, interviews made clear that political restructuring took up more time than AFL-CIO reorganization.

But labor faces that issue too, thanks to Service Employees President Andrew Stern. On Nov. 9, he circulated a 10-point program calling for a massive overhaul of the federation.

His plan includes $2 billion for organizing, a $25 million campaign to unionize Wal-Mart, a campaign for universal health care--details unspecified--and greater top-down direction, including mergers, ordered by the AFL-CIO to individual unions.

And in a telephone press conference afterwards, Stern made clear that unless there is drastic change, his union, the federation's largest, might leave. He said SEIU already has an in-house committee looking at the impact of disaffiliation--going it alone--should reforms not go through.

"We've had too many recommendations" for change, in past reports over the years, "which leaders have not adopted," Stern said. "We need to change the AFL-CIO now."

Stern first started his campaign for change at SEIU's convention in June, when he said the federation must be "reformed or replaced" because while workplaces, employers and corporations changed, labor has not. It's too loose, he said then.

Stern added to the controversy by telling reporters just before the Democratic convention in July that a Kerry win might harm reform efforts both in the Democratic Party and in labor.

Sweeney said on Nov. 10 the federation agrees with many of Stern's goals, and has started to implement some of them. And Steel Workers President Leo Gerard strongly supported putting health care atop the agenda. USWA, and some other unions, support single-payer Canadian-style national health care.

Gerard said health care should be used to keep the national structure, created for the campaign, in place and running. Sweeney also agreed the political structure should stay in place and that unions cannot reinvent a structure every two years.

"I think there would be great support for more aggressive mobilization for national health care," Sweeney said. "In the private sector, we need to have a huge focus on health care to rebuild our manufacturing base," Gerard said.

But neither Sweeney nor Gerard nor Stern discussed a specific national health care plan. There, as elsewhere, the council did not discuss details, just a timeline for the drive.

In their press conferences, Sweeney and Stern differed on other essentials. In one example, Sweeney cited a federation task force to create a national Wal-Mart campaign, as the United Food and Commercial Workers realized it alone cannot beat the world's largest, anti-worker, retailer.

Stern retorted the task force has met only once and that what you need is a mass mobilization to educate the nation about Wal-Martization--and to unionize the million-worker firm.

Stern proposed dedicating the $25 million the AFL-CIO gets from its credit card contract with Household Finance to the Wal-Mart drive. But the council did not delve into such details.

Forced mergers and the concept of "lead unions" for specific sectors, also proposed by Stern, proved another sore point.

Stern's plan said the AFL-CIO "should have the authority to require coordinated bargaining and to merge or revoke union charters, transfer responsibilities to unions for whom that industry or sector is their primary strength, and prevent any merger that would further divide workers' strength."

That specific topic of consolidation, like other points in Stern's plan, was not discussed, but the council will decide on issues involved at the February meeting.

But in an interview, Machinists President Thomas Buffenbarger sharply criticized consolidation. IAM's Grand Lodge voted unanimously earlier to let its executive council take any action --including departure--needed if IAM's autonomy is threatened.

"We'll defend ourselves if the AFL-CIO chooses to leave our people out of the equation, by focusing on the service sector and the public sector and leaving the manufacturing sector and the transportation sector out," Buffenbarger told Press Associates.

Mark Gruenberg writes for Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.