Last month, the 2.9 million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU) voted to re-affiliate with the American Federation of Labor – Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), ending a 2-decade standoff over organizational strategy and praxis in the American Labor movement.
The argument was over priorities. Several unions, including the SEIU, had argued for a shift in emphasis, away from the more classical “business unionism” of the Cold War, in which labor-management cooperation was highly valued and at least some heavy lifting on labor’s agenda was done, not by labor itself, but by “rewarding (political) friends and punishing enemies” at the ballot box. These diffident unions argued that better results would be achieved by building the unions themselves—organizing the unorganized, educating members and non-members about what unions are and how they work, and by a greater willingness to confront management in worksites, over petitioning various levels of government to act on labor’s behalf when labor didn’t have the strength to win its gains in industries.
When the AFL-CIO stymied such reform efforts, the SEIU and other unions broke away, founding instead something called the “Change to Win Coalition,” which proceeded to do what it had been advocating for the Federation do. And over time, CTW had the gains to show for it. In the intervening couple of decades, the AFL-CIO itself has changed, reorienting much of its overall operations along the lines originally advocated by Change to Win. An example would be the new directions recently taken by the United Auto Workers (UAW).
In the end, having won the argument, it made little sense to remain outside of the Federation, and its leadership. The re-affiliation of the SEIU to the AFL-CIO brings the latter’s overall number from 12 million to 14.9 million. Given the storm clouds already heralding the second Trump regime, such unity will be essential to confront it, to hold ground, and even to make gains, regardless of Washington’s policy.
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