Sweeney offers option to locals of disaffiliated unions

Local unions for the Carpenters, SEIU, Teamsters and UFCW could remain officially involved in state and local AFL-CIO organizations under a ?solidarity charter? proposed by AFL-CIO president John Sweeney

The AFL-CIO?s executive council is expected to begin voting on the proposal today by fax, said Esmeralda Aguilar, an AFL-CIO spokeswoman. If approved, locals of the four recently disaffiliated international unions could obtain a solidarity charter as soon as September. The charters help address one of the biggest problems caused by the disaffiliation of the four unions ? the impact on state and local labor movements caused by the loss of leaders, activists and financial resources from the four unions.

The idea is also a sharp departure from Sweeney?s previous public position ? that state and local labor movements have to expel locals from those unions in the Change to Win Coalition that left the AFL-CIO.

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?I?m excited that there?s some movement,? said Shar Knutson, president of the St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly, which receives about 20 percent of its budget and many of its key activists from the recently disaffiliated unions. ?I?m hopeful this is an answer to how we can hold our labor movement together.”

Regaining the right to vote
The AFL-CIO ? by constitution and by policy ? currently forbids locals and councils of disaffiliated unions from joining state federations and central labor bodies. But the proposed solidarity charters give union locals from the four recently disaffiliated unions the right to participate fully in central labor bodies, state federations, and organizations like Building Trades councils. That includes the right to vote.

Members of these unions can?t hold ?top offices,? but members currently in those offices can serve out their terms, under Sweeney?s proposal.

At first glance, Knutson said, ?it gives us back the opportunity to build the local movement that we all really want for the working people in our community.”

At Wednesday night?s monthly Trades and Labor Assembly delegate meeting, representatives from Carpenters, SEIU and UFCW locals all said they intend the remain active in local labor movements if they are allowed to do so.

Premiums and promises required
The proposed solidarity charters come with strings attached, however. To start with, union locals ?will need to honor basic principles of solidarity.? These include:

  • Agreeing ?not to raid their brother and sister unions.?
  • Participating ?fully? in local political mobilization efforts.
  • Supporting other unions in strikes, organizing campaigns and other struggles.

Locals seeking a solidarity charter also cannot pay less, based on their membership size, than they paid to the state or local organization before their international disaffiliated. On top of that, they have to pay a premium ? a 10 percent ?solidarity fee? that would be forwarded to the national AFL-CIO to assist other local and state organizations in financial distress because of the disaffiliations.

Further, the monthly fees these locals pay could be even higher. If the percentage of members they pay for is lower than the average affiliation rate of other unions in their community, locals seeking a solidarity charter have to match the higher affiliation rate, under Sweeney?s proposal. (That requirement to match or exceed the typical affiliation rate in a community does not apply to unions whose nationals remain part of the AFL-CIO, Aguilar said.

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Limited availability
The solidarity charters would be granted directly by the AFL-CIO in Washington. They will be available only to locals and councils of the Carpenters, SEIU, Teamsters and UFCW, Aguilar said. But that can include locals that were not previously affiliated with their AFL-CIO state federation or central labor body.

Under Sweeney?s proposal, the solidarity charters are not available to locals from national unions, such as the United Transportation Union, that have been disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO for longer periods of time, she said.

Further, solidarity charters are not available to locals of national unions that have never been affiliated with the AFL-CIO, she said, nor are they available to independent unions in a geographical area, such as the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees.

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