Sweeney sees passage of union organizing bill
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - AFL-CIO President John Sweeney predicted on Wednesday that the divided American labor movement will get Congress to pass a bill in the next three years that makes it easier for workers to form unions.
In a wide-ranging address, Sweeney cited the labor-backed Employee Free Choice Act as one of his antidotes to the "senseless slaughter of the good American job" that he said threatens the stability of the U.S. economy.
"It will stop American employers from taking advantage of our laughable labor laws to destroy the unions that keep our middle class healthy and growing," he said of the bill in a speech at the National Press Club.
"And we will pass it while (President) George Bush is in office," he added. Bush has three years remaining in his second term.
The bill, one of labor's top legislative goals, has 208 co-sponsors in the 435-member House of Representatives and 42 co-sponsors in the 100-member Senate. It would allow workers to form unions at their workplaces simply by collecting a majority of their signatures.
Under current labor law, unless an employer voluntarily recognizes a union, workers who have demonstrated their desire for a union with their signatures still must vote in a government-overseen secret-ballot election.
Union leaders claim that in the weeks leading to elections, employers often commit labor law violations, like threatening to close up shop or firing lead organizers, that terrorize workers into voting against unionization.
One union official said he expects more lawmakers, including some Republicans, to sign on to the list of the bill's co-sponsors. But even if majorities in each house co-sponsor the bill, he said he does not expect congressional Republican leaders to allow it to come to a vote.
So far, 10 Republicans in the House and one in the Senate have signed on.
Sweeney predicted that the upcoming November elections would produce "significant" changes in the make-up of the Republican-led House and Senate.
UNABLE TO STOP BUSH
Unions were unable to stop Bush's re-election in 2004, despite a get-out-the-vote effort that saw an overwhelming turnout of union members and their families, more than two-thirds of whom voted for Democratic Sen. John Kerry, according to polling data.
The labor movement was fractured last summer when several union leaders left the AFL-CIO, complaining among other things that there had been too much emphasis on political activity and not enough on organizing new members. Their Change to Win Federation has seven unions and 5.4 million members, while the AFL-CIO has 52 unions with 9 million members.
Despite the split, Sweeney said the AFL-CIO has worked with the Change to Win Federation in a number of areas, including the election in November of Democratic governors in New Jersey and Virginia.
"We will continue to do what we can to reunite the labor movement," Sweeney said in response to a question. "I personally have put a lot of time and a lot of effort into this and I'm committed to trying to reunify."
First elected in 1995 on a pledge to reinvigorate the labor movement, Sweeney's tenure at the helm of the AFL-CIO saw U.S. union membership fall to 12.5 percent of workers in 2004 from 15.5 percent and from about one-third of workers in the 1950s. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is scheduled to report union membership for last year on Friday.
