Big Labor Rocked By Union Boycott of Its Convention

CHICAGO - The American labor movement suffered its worst schism in more than half a decade yesterday, with four major unions announcing they will boycott the AFL-CIO convention over a dispute involving the leadership, direction, and finances of organized labor.

"We're not trying to divide the labor movement. We're trying to rebuild it," the president of the Service Employees International Union, Andrew Stern, told hundreds of members of the dissident unions at a rally here on the eve of the federation's convention. "When you're going down a road and it's headed in the wrong direction and you know where the road ends, you got to get off that road."

Joining the Service Employees in the walkout are the Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers, and Unite Here, a union of hotel, restaurant, and laundry workers. In all, the unions skipping the convention represent about a third of the workers under the federation's umbrella.

Some of the unions are expected to take the more drastic step of withdrawing - or, in labor parlance, disaffiliating - from the AFL-CIO. There were indications that the Service Employees and the Teamsters may announce such moves as soon as today.

The president of the AFL-CIO, John Sweeney, expressed disappointment in the boycott, the latest chapter in a dispute that has seized up the struggling labor movement over the past six months.

"It's a shame for working people that before the first vote has been cast, four unions have decided if they can't win, they won't show up for the game," Mr. Sweeney, 71, said in a statement. "The fact is that the real issue for these unions is not one of policy or direction, but rather who controls and leads the federation ... and it's fundamentally wrong to use working people's issues as a fig leaf for a power struggle."

While the dissident unions have charged that Mr. Sweeney and others were not acting boldly enough to stem labor's decline, his allies argued yesterday that the rebels were doing far greater damage by cleaving the labor movement in two.

"Today's a tragic day because those who left the house of labor and didn't show up to the convention today are weakening the house, and shame on them," the president of the United Steelworkers of America, Leo Gerard, said during a rally for supporters of Mr. Sweeney, who is up for re-election this week. The rally marked the first time that federation officials and other labor leaders publicly denounced the dissidents, who have formed a new group called the Change to Win coalition.

The executive vice president of the AFL-CIO, Linda Chavez-Thompson, lumped together the rebel unionists and those considered to be labor's worst enemies as she denounced "George W. Bush, Wal-Mart, and the Change to Win coalition" in a single breath.

"We won't let them tear down the house that Lewis and Gompers and Ruther and Sweeney and Trumka built," the secretary-treasurer of the federation, Richard Trumka, said.

One local labor leader went even further, branding the dissident union chiefs as traitors. "The counterpoint to solidarity is treason. To abandon your brothers and sisters in a time of war is treason," the president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, Robert Haynes, said.

To the dissidents and many outside observers, American labor is in a sharp if not precipitous decline. Only about 12% of the work force is unionized, down from a third or more 50 years ago. In the private sector, union membership has fallen to less than 9%.

Mr. Trumka insisted that he was "truly, truly proud" of the record he and Mr. Sweeney have compiled since taking office a decade ago.

"We've resurrected our union movement," Mr. Trumka, a former leader of the United Mine Workers, said. "We brought the AFL-CIO further and faster than at any time since our merger 50 years ago."

Labor leaders have wrestled for months with the rebels' proposals for reform, the hallmark of which was a plan to have the AFL-CIO rebate for organizing purposes up to 50% of the dues unions currently pay to the federation. A rebate of that size would require a dramatic downsizing of the federation's Washington headquarters. While the money would ostensibly go to the effort to rebuild union membership rolls, the impact on the AFL-CIO's professional staff, often referred to as "16th Street," after its Washington location, was a side effect not unintended by the reformers.

Mr. Sweeney appeared particularly frustrated that the dissidents decided to walk out despite a series of concessions from the federation, including a rebate plan that union leaders said met the rebels more than halfway.

"God knows all of us here today have bent our backs over the job of unifying the AFL-CIO until it's given us a pain in you-know-where," the federation president told a crowd of his supporters.

Some of Mr. Sweeney's backers said that while the dissidents talked about policy disagreements and funding issues, the real chasm was over who will lead the federation in the future.

"Some of the unions want a change in the leadership of the AFLCIO and that is their bottom line," the president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, Harold Schaitberger, said. "If some of them got every single position that they have put forward as far as program, policy, and principle, it still would not be enough."

One of Mr. Sweeney's most loyal supporters, the president of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, Gerald McEntee, said the dissident unions want control over the succession process.

"I think it boils down to who's going to be the successor to John Sweeney, and they wanted to be quite specific. I don't think we can do that. I think the people should have the democratic right to vote on who's going to be the successor to Sweeney if he leaves," Mr. McEntee said.

Mr. McEntee said the dissidents appeared to favor the president of the Laborers' International Union of North America, Terence O'Sullivan, or a top official of Unite Here, John Wilhelm, as an heir apparent to Mr. Sweeney. Many of the current president's allies prefer Mr. Trumka.

At a Change to Win event yesterday afternoon that doubled as a rally and a press conference, the leader of one of the rebel unions denied that the dispute centered on who would lead the federation. "It was not about people," the president of the United Food and Commercial Workers, Joseph Hansen, said. "We don't have any quarrel with who the AFL-CIO might or might not elect."

However, another labor official conceded that the decision to boycott the convention was prompted by a sense that the federation's leadership was not committed to serious changes. "There are fundamental differences. Those differences of course involved people," the president of Unite Here, Bruce Raynor, said.

Two unions in the dissident coalition, the Laborers and the United Farm Workers, said they will attend the convention because of commitments made earlier in the year, but will reassess their ties to the federation after the session concludes.

The two pre-convention events staged yesterday in many ways reflected the differences between the two camps. The rally on behalf of Mr. Sweeney was far larger, involving perhaps 2,000 people or more, but it seemed to lack energy. Much of the crowd filed out while the federation president was still on stage, holding hands with other labor chiefs as they sang "Solidarity Forever."

The dissidents' press event included only a few hundred union members at most, but nearly every one seemed to be brimming with enthusiasm about the new coalition, which includes some of the fastest-growing unions.

Members of both groups said they doubted that the split would have much impact on the union movement's political organizing.

"Our politics will remain similar if not identical. Our agenda will remain similar if not identical. If they find a new way to do it and a better way, so be it," Mr. Schaitberger of the Fire Fighters' union said.

Mr. Stern of the Service Employees said he has proposed continuing to support the AFL-CIO's political operation financially. "The AFL's making a huge mistake and creating a self-fulfilling prophecy if they choose not to work with us," he said.