AFL-CIO's Sweeney: Unions must continue to organize new workers

By Susan Lang

Although the AFL-CIO is 13 million members strong, the size of the membership is the same as it was 40 years ago, said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, April 4, in the keynote address for Union Days 2001, a three-day event hosted by Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

"The work force has doubled since Eisenhower won his second term, but the AFL-CIO has not grown," Sweeney said. "Despite 400,000 new members last year, our membership represents only 13.5 percent of the workforce, the lowest percent in 60 years."

The theme of Union Days 2001 was "Organizing for the Future," and it focused on the expansion of unionizing across the broad spectrum of job categories, from low-wage jobs to university graduate student employees to high-tech employment. Sweeney spoke to an overflow crowd in 305 Ives Hall.

"One of the major reasons why membership hasn't grown is because unions fail to keep organizing as a top priority as we're so busy doing other things," he said. "Another reason is that we lost members as the economy shifted from being industrial-based to information-based, and we didn't organize the new workforce in that sector."

Sweeney addressed the need for the AFL-CIO to reach out more to new workers, including immigrants, minorities and young workers. "Young and immigrant workers are more likely to be positive toward unions than others, but they know very little about how we help working families. There's an information gap we must close."

But, Sweeney said in summing up his 20-minute presentation, the union is gaining ground with, for instance, new union-negotiated contracts for strawberry farm workers in California, teaching assistants at New York University, support staff at the University of New Mexico and roofers in Phoenix, a notoriously anti-union town.

"We're winning because the labor movement is waking up, thanks to new leaders who aren't afraid to reach out, because young men and women are rediscovering the special meaning of life when dedicated to lifting the lives of others," he concluded.

In the subsequent question-and-answer period, Sweeney addressed issues related to campaign finance reform, his hope for the imminent affiliation of the two largest national teachers unions, the demographic shift to the Sunbelt and his opinion on who won the presidential election. "George Bush was selected; he wasn't elected," Sweeney answered.