LAS VEGAS – After three days of meetings, the executive council of the AFL-CIO adjourned yesterday without acting on any plan to reform the federation in the face of declining membership and repeated losses on the political front.

The failure of the federation’s governing board to vote on a concrete reform proposal illustrated the deep divisions that remain among the organization’s 58 member unions.

To quell more radical proposals, the president of the AFL-CIO, John Sweeney, has offered a plan under which the federation would refund up to $15 million in dues each year to unions that make strong organizing efforts. He would also increase the federation’s annual political spending to $45 million a year or more, even in years with no major federal elections.

While the rough outline of Mr. Sweeney’s plan was approved on Wednesday by an elite group of union leadership, the 25-member executive committee, he did not bring it to a vote before the larger group yesterday morning. He said more time was needed to iron out details; critics of the plan openly denounced it as a sham.

“That proposal allocates zero new dollars for any of the AFL-CIO’s organizing efforts,” said a top official with the hotel, restaurant, and laundry workers’ union, John Wilhelm. “It’s a wash in terms of money, and most people don’t get that yet.”

Mr. Wilhelm, who has been mentioned as a possible candidate to replace to Mr. Sweeney at the AFL-CIO convention in July, said the federation’s current leadership has not grasped the magnitude of the challenge facing the union movement.

“We’re in deep trouble. We need to fundamentally re-examine everything we do and how we do it,” said Mr. Wilhelm, who heads the hospitality division of Unite Here. “There’s an uncomfortable number of people in the labor movement, at leadership levels, who think that the status quo with a little bit of change-rhetoric plastered on top is sufficient… It’s not sufficient.”

Asked if he planned to challenge Mr. Sweeney, Mr. Wilhelm said only that the issues of leadership and restructuring “will collide” if serious changes do not move forward.

Mr. Sweeney insisted that dramatic reforms are on the way. “The executive committee has given us a mandate for really big changes in the labor movement,” he told reporters.

The AFL-CIO president said that his plan would direct more money toward organizing, but he declined to say precisely how much. “Organizing is not just about rebates,” he said.

Mr. Sweeney said he is prepared to face a re-election battle at the July convention, if it comes to that. “I never take anything for granted. I really want to lead the change process,” he said. “I have been a champion of change throughout my years at the AFL-CIO.”

Mr. Sweeney also said he would attempt to resolve a dispute over organizing between the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The fight involves efforts to organize child-care workers in Illinois.

The president of the Service Employees, Andrew Stern, who is already at odds with the AFL-CIO leadership, suggested yesterday that if the dispute is not resolved in his union’s favor, he would be more inclined to move to withdraw his union from the federation.