Teamsters, SEIU split from AFL-CIO

updated 6:43 p.m. ET July 25, 2005

CHICAGO - The Teamsters and a major service employees union on Monday bolted from the AFL-CIO, a stinging exodus for an embattled movement struggling to stop membership losses and adjust to a rapidly changing working environment.

In a decision that AFL-CIO President John Sweeney labeled a “grievous insult” to labor’s rank-and-file, the Teamsters union and the Service Employees International Union, two major federation affiliates, said they decided to leave.

“In our view, we must have more union members in order to change the political climate that is undermining workers’ rights in this country,” said Teamsters President James P. Hoffa. “The AFL-CIO has chosen the opposite approach.”

The Teamsters joined the Service Employees International Union, the largest AFL-CIO affiliate with 1.8 million members, in bolting. The SEIU is a union that AFL-CIO President John Sweeney once headed. They said they were forming a competing labor coalition designed to reverse labor’s long decline in union membership.

This was not an easy or happy decision, said Service Employees International leader Andrew Stern, once a Sweeney protege.

“Our world has changed, our economy has changed, employers have changed,” Stern said. “But the AFL-CIO is not willing to make fundamental changes as well. By contrast, SEIU has changed.”

The joint announcement, the largest schism in labor’s ranks since 1930, came as no surprise since weeks of publicly-aired dissension within the ranks preceded it. But it hit the AFL-CIO convention like a thunder clap, nevertheless.

In advance of the dissidents’ news conference, Sweeney had chastized them for their defection at a convention also marred by boycott.

“At a time when our corporate and conservative adversaries have created the most powerful anti-worker political machine in the history of our country, a divided movement hurts the hopes of working families for a better life,” Sweeney said in his keynote address.

Many union presidents, labor experts and Democratic Party leaders fear the split will weaken the movement politically and hurt unionized workers who need a united and powerful ally against business interests and global competition.

Two other unions — United Food and Commercial Workers and UNITE HERE, a group of textile and hotel workers — joined the Teamsters and the SEIU in boycotting the convention, a step widely seen as a sign that they are also poised to leave the AFL-CIO.

The four unions, representing one-third of the AFL-CIO’s 13 million members, are part of a coalition of labor groups vowing to accomplish what the 50-year-old labor giant has failed to do: Reverse the decades-long decline in union membership.

“This split is a deep concern to Democrats everywhere,” said Democratic consultant David Axelrod of Chicago

A few blocks away from where the seven-union Change to Win Coalition held its news conference, a downsized AFL-CIO met to hear Sweeney say he was “very angry” at the breakaway leaders.

“The labor movement belongs to all of us ... and our future should not be dictated by the demands of any group or the ambitions of any individual,” Sweeney said.

“But it is also my responsibility to hold our movement together — because our power is vested in our solidarity. So I want you to know I will overcome my own anger and disappointment and do everything in my power to bring us back where we belong — and that’s together,” he said.

MORE FROM U.S. BUSINESS

U.S. business Section Front

Stimulus spending faces red tape bottlenecks   Madoff's auditor pleads not guilty Microsoft and Yahoo near ad deal: report   CIT still fighting to stay out of bankruptcy Judge rejects Mark Cuban trading lawsuit Billboards try to make light of recession gloom CIT’s bailout denial raises bankruptcy threat Strong bank results mask wider weakness Madoff accountant may be cutting plea deal Paulson defends response to economic crisis U.S. business Section Front   Add U.S. business headlines to your news reader: