Two major labor unions have split from the AFL-CIO. It marks the biggest split in organized labor since the CIO left the AFL back in the 1930's.
The Teamsters and a major service employees union on Monday bolted from the AFL-CIO, a stunning exodus for an embattled movement already struggling to build its ranks and cope with a rapidly changing work environment.
... "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."
... In the current envivornment, "We've lost the ability to organize," Hoffa told reporters. "What we find is there is not enough effort going on...We believe we have the energy to go out and organize. There are unions in the AFL-CIO that are basically bound to the past, they're living off the past."
..."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," (AFL-CIO president John) Sweeney said in his keynote address.
And in this last paragraph we see one of the big problems with the attitude of those in big labor: they blame corporations and conservative politicians for the problems. The main "problem" is that the economic climate is much more competitive today than it was, say, 30 years ago. And while that may be a bad thing for big labor, it's a good thing for people in general. I'll have more to say about this issue in a later post.