[Mb-civic] Gompers's Ghost and Labor's New Look - Clayton Nall - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Gompers's Ghost and Labor's New Look

By Clayton Nall
Sunday, September 4, 2005; Page B03

It must have come as quite a shock to many observers of the recent 
AFL-CIO breakup that unions are not all on the same page when it comes 
to their political and workplace strategies. Most Americans have assumed 
that organized labor has always been and would always remain staunchly 
united behind the Democratic Party and progressive social policies.

Think again.

In fact, unions have often diverged from the predictable political path. 
American Federation of Labor founder Samuel Gompers, who led the 
organization from 1886 to 1924, so feared government encroachment that 
at various points he opposed a minimum wage, medical and unemployment 
insurance, and laws setting maximum working hours -- all of which are 
now strongly backed by unions. Gompers, who called his philosophy "pure 
and simple unionism," worried that a meddling government would weaken 
labor unions' relevance in the workplace.

The recent mass defection of three unions from the AFL-CIO is proof that 
the tradition, if not the substance, of Gompers' political iconoclasm 
still lives in the labor movement. And it shows that some union leaders 
do not want to be seen as bootlickers for the Democratic Party. The 
leader of the walkout is Service Employees International Union President 
Andy Stern, who has founded the Change to Win Coalition, a new union 
grouping to rival the AFL-CIO. Stern has called John Sweeney's AFL-CIO 
an "ATM" for the Democratic Party that too often backs politicians while 
receiving little in return. And he dropped a bombshell at last year's 
Democratic National Convention by calling the Democrats a "hollow party" 
and saying that a John Kerry presidency would hurt efforts to reform 
organized labor.

Paraphrasing the 19th-century British foreign secretary Lord 
Palmerston's comment about nations, Stern has said that unions don't 
have permanent allies, only permanent interests. But what are labor's 
interests, and how can unions best protect them? And if labor is going 
to make allies of convenience, how will it choose them?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/02/AR2005090202672.html
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