Chicago, IL
The time has come for the American labor movement to rebuild its state and local power by creating a New Alliance among all our unions.
This New Alliance will enable America's working families and their unions to meet the new challenges of the 21st century and to take a leadership role in the renaissance of the union movement in this nation.
Over the coming years, we intend to engage every local union in this process, state by state and community by community -- with a goal of creating strong new state and local organizations fully supported by every union local and fully capable of effectively representing the interests of American working families in the face of relentless assaults and unheralded opportunities.
The unions of the AFL-CIO call on all union members, all union leaders at every level, and all local union affiliates to participate in this historic effort.
Background
For the past several years, the American labor movement has been engaged in a dialogue about its future -- led by Committee 2000 and focusing on several critically important issues. Of these issues, none is more important than the needs of our state federations and central labor councils.
Committee 2000 found in its deliberations and outreach a renewed sense of commitment and energy among local union leaders and a heightened understanding of the importance of building strong labor organizations to represent working people in our states and in every community.
The committee found that, more and more, state federations and labor councils are being asked to play key roles in the resurgence of the union movement. The political, legislative and organizing battlegrounds are sited increasingly at the state and local level. Yet these organizations face numerous problems -- including a lack of clarity as to their core responsibilities, competing demands on them, and a lack of sufficient resources for them to do their jobs.
National unions expressed concern about the lack of integration of their national priorities at both the state and the local level as well as a lack of coordinated planning and accountability.
All union leaders, whether at the national or at the state or local level, articulated the need to act now to insure that America's working families and their unions have an effective voice in the state federations and labor councils -- and that these organizations are re-tooled to meet the challenges of the coming millennium.
The Committee 2000 has overseen hundreds of conversations about this issue, formally visited many state federations and labor councils, consulted with every major national union, and has examined extensive survey data. Out of this process came the concept for the New Alliance.
I. Goals of the New Alliance
The New Alliance will reinvigorate, make more effective and further unify our state and local labor communities. It will create and sustain consensus on the proper roles and responsibilities and the core programs of these affiliated organizations. It will integrate national union priorities with state and local priorities. It will articulate clear goals and objectives, as well as standards for these organizations, and will provide sufficient resources to meet these goals -- by bringing about full participation of the entire labor movement. It will create new organizations to speak out for working men and women in our states and in our communities.
Creating the New Alliance state by state will restructure and re-map the union movement in our communities. It will provide an integrated and coordinated organization at the state and local level. It will establish clear work plans and budgets. It will create broad political support and representation among all our unions. It will provide the impetus for forging a stronger, more effective and more militant labor movement.
Finally, the New Alliance effectively balances the different needs and perspectives of local unions of differing size, in different states and localities, and in different industries and occupations -- and provides a unifying and common vision that will help build every local union.
II. The Roles of State Federations and Labor Councils
The mission of the American labor movement is to improve the lives of working families -- to bring economic justice to the workplace and social justice to our nation. State federations and labor councils contribute to this mission by building and sustaining organizations of workers on the job and in their communities to increase political and economic power for working people.
The role of our state federations in this mission is as follows:
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Building a strong political voice for working families by leading and coordinating programs for the engagement of working families in the political process.
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Building a strong and united voice for working families in the legislative and executive branches of state and national governments, representing the interests of working people and coordinating the grassroots mobilization of the labor community on state and national issues.
- Building a strong and united public voice in our state-wide communities, speaking on behalf of the interests and views of working people and participating with unions and their allies in public advocacy on a common agenda -- acting as a convener of the labor movement for their communities.
The role of our labor councils in this mission is as follows:
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Building a strong local movement of working people through mobilization and education to support working families' issues in their communities. This mobilization structure supports organizing, contract campaigns, grassroots lobbying around a working families' legislative agenda, progressive economic development, political action and all matters important to working people.
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Building a strong political voice for working families by engaging them and their communities in the political process. This political voice is leveraged in support of organizing, contract fights and in the advancement of a working people's agenda.
- Building a united and effective public voice for working families by fostering strong and diverse unions that participate actively and positively in their communities around a common agenda.
III. Creating the New Alliance State by State
We will engage the entire labor movement in every state in the task of creating this New Alliance -- and we will bring to this effort every national union and the national AFL-CIO as full partners.
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The AFL-CIO Executive Council will establish the broad guidelines within which these New Alliances will be created. This will include the criteria for approving New Alliance state plans, for the reorganization of state federations and the re-alignment of central labor councils, and for the approval of work plans and budgets.
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Every national union will participate by naming its official representative to the discussions.
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The national AFL-CIO will facilitate these efforts through its Regional Directors and State Directors.
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Every major local union in each state must be at the table for this effort to succeed.
- The final Draft Plan in each state will be approved by a special New Alliance Convocation of all local unions.
IV. New Alliance Drafting Committee
The national AFL-CIO will initiate this process in each state by officially convening a New Alliance Drafting Committee with broad representation from the current leadership of the state federation, the central labor councils and other major unions.
The major national unions in the state (including trade department affiliates) will be asked to participate and will be consulted in the creation of the Drafting Committee.
The national AFL-CIO will nominate a chair for the Drafting Committee (normally either the state director or the deputy regional director) and will staff the committee. Staff from the state federation and central labor councils will also participate. The Drafting Committee will organize its work by using smaller workgroups when needed.
The Draft New Alliance Plan developed by these committees will reflect the special needs of the labor movement in each state.
V. Draft New Alliance Plan
The Drafting Committee will engage in a complete review of the current roles, responsibilities, standards and resources of the state federation and all the state's labor councils. They will evaluate the current organization of the labor movement against the roles and responsibilities of state federations and central labor councils established by the Executive Council.
The Drafting Committee will review the current participation of each local union in the state federation and in the labor councils. National unions will provide the committee with this information where necessary.
The Drafting Committee will propose a plan to reorganize and re-map the state through the creation of a reorganized state federation as well as the creation of new area-wide labor councils with sufficient resources to carry out the goals established by the Executive Council, and by partnering the smaller labor councils with the new state federation or new area-wide councils, as appropriate.
This reorganization and re-mapping will establish clear roles and responsibilities, establish clear relationships among the state federation and the labor councils, recommend the level of resources needed for each organization, and provide for broad participation and leadership.
The Drafting Committee will seek to insure that the priorities of all union affiliates are addressed in the creation of the Draft New Alliance Plan.
In drafting this New Alliance Plan, the Drafting Committee will seek to maximize the effectiveness of the labor movement in the state by eliminating duplication of responsibilities and assuring complete coordination among the reorganized affiliated organizations. The Drafting Committee will specifically review staffing levels and assignments among the state fed, the CLC's and the national AFL-CIO.
VI. Full Participation and Diverse Leadership
The Draft New Alliance Plan will provide for eventual full participation and fair affiliation by the major unions in the state and in each community.
The Drafting Committee will negotiate the phase-in of full affiliation over a reasonable period of time for those unions who need such a phase-in. Such negotiations shall be done with the involvement of the national union and the national AFL-CIO.
The Drafting Committee will recognize the need to maintain structures for coordinating the work of local unions in every community. In establishing area-wide labor councils, consideration shall be given not only to the resource requirements, but also the ability of local unions to participate. Chapter structures shall be established where needed.
Smaller, community-based labor councils will be created and maintained where there is sufficient union membership to require an organized presence but insufficient membership to sustain the activities of an area-wide council. The New Alliance Plan will provide for the full integration of these important organizations in the work of the state-wide labor movement, while recognizing the unique needs of the local unions in the community. Different organizational models may be adopted in different states.
It is critical that the leadership bodies created under the Draft New Alliance Plan reflect the diversity of the labor movement in the state in every dimension -- by gender, race and ethnicity, by industry and craft, by geography and by size. Governing bodies will be expanded as necessary to accomplish this goal.
VII. Fair Affiliation by All Local Unions Over Time
In drafting the New Alliance Plan, a major goal is the eventual full participation and support of all local unions.
The new budgets that are developed may be at the same level as current budgets, or may call for modest additional spending as needed and determined by the locals in these states -- but these increased budgets should be supported by increased affiliation. This will often result in a phased-in lowering of the per capita tax rate as the number of members affiliated increases.
Because some union locals are now under-affiliated (and unaffiliated), it will often be necessary for these locals to phase-in their increased affiliation over a period of time.
National unions will make their best effort to work with affiliated local unions to achieve this phase-in and assure full participation. Once a local union has committed to participate, and a budget has been approved by the Executive Council, national unions will have a special responsibility to insure that their local unions remain affiliated at the expected level during the budget cycle.
The Executive Council shall monitor this issue and work with specific national unions that face such situations.
VIII. Re-Mapping CLC's State by State
Today there are more than 600 AFL-CIO chartered central labor councils in America's largest cities and in hundreds of smaller communities. Regardless of their size, or their resources, they remain today, by and large, critically important organizations for the unions and the union members in these communities -- and are becoming more and more critically important organizations for national unions and the national labor movement.
Today's resurgence of the union movement can be seen in national unions in every industry and occupation, at the state level, and in scores of cities and smaller communities across the country. Union members are organizing and agitating and making their voices heard for working families -- in support of organizing and contract campaigns and political efforts. "Union City" has become a badge of honor for dozens of central labor councils who are -- through their affiliated local unions -- making the voice of working people heard again in city after city.
The national labor movement understands that it needs these organizations to be both vibrant and effective but also rooted in the community and the local unions. Our strategy for rebuilding the labor movement has at its core an energetic and committed labor community -- in every community and in every state.
In order to balance the need to have both strong, well-resourced local organizations -- as well as organizations that are rooted in as many communities as possible -- we propose to re-create the central labor council structure for the 21st century by working to construct both strong area-wide labor councils in larger cities and regions, while at the same time insuring the continuation of central labor councils in smaller union communities.
The state-wide New Alliance Drafting Committee will propose a re-mapping of the state to accomplish these goals in a way that meets the needs of the labor movement in that state.
Area Labor Federations will be established in urban areas encompassing a sufficient critical mass of union membership to support a minimum program -- probably a minimum of three full time staff. By redrawing the boundaries and combining current central labor councils where appropriate, the same resources can be reorganized to create more organizations that can support the level of activity needed for these urban areas.
Central Labor Councils will be maintained in smaller communities where union membership was not sufficient to support such a level of activity. In these communities, the union movement will develop, where appropriate, partnerships with the state federations in order to carry out the activities needed by the labor movement in the state among these union locals and these union members.
Each state will, of course, have different structures, but our goal is to have each union member and each union local be part of a strong and effective organized union movement in their community.
The New Alliance Planning Committee will consider both the geography of where members live and where members work in developing these proposed organizations.
IX. New Alliance Approval and Implementation
Once the Drafting Committee has completed the Draft New Alliance Plan, and it has been reviewed and approved by the national AFL-CIO, a New Alliance Convocation shall be called in the state for the purpose of ratifying the New Alliance.
All local unions shall be invited to participate in the Convocation by sending one official delegate. These delegates shall be organized by national affiliation. Each national union delegation shall select one participant to be the official spokesperson for the delegation who will officially represent the views of all the locals of that delegation before the Convocation.
The Draft New Alliance Plan shall be approved by a vote of the delegations at the Convocation, with each national union delegation casting a unified vote equal to the proportion of members affiliated with the national AFL-CIO that are determined to be residing in that state. This approval shall have the effect of implementing any required constitutional changes needed by the state federation or central labor councils. The national AFL-CIO will provide technical assistance in amending these constitutions to comply with the New Alliance Plan.
Once the New Alliance Plan is approved, an Implementation Work Group shall be selected representing the major unions in the state to oversee the steps needed to implement the plan.
X. Creation and Approval of Work Plans and Budgets
After the New Alliance Plan is adopted, the newly reorganized state federations and the new area labor federations will develop two-year work plans and budgets designed to meet the goals and objectives of the New Alliance.
The national AFL-CIO, in consultation with leadership of the key national unions in the state, will facilitate this work and provide technical assistance where necessary. These work plans and budgets shall be developed in an integrated manner.
The Implementation Work Group will oversee the entire process to insure that these efforts are coordinated and shall resolve any issues concerning roles and responsibilities.
These work plans shall provide for the support and integration of the central labor councils through partnerships with the state federation or area labor councils.
The state federation and the area labor federations will submit the final work plans and budgets to their governing bodies for approval and, once adopted, will submit them to the national AFL-CIO for its review and approval.
The work plan and budget shall be referred to the Executive Council's Committee on State and Local Central Bodies for final review and authorization.
XI. New Alliance Oversight
The Committee on State and Local Central Bodies shall provide continuous oversight of the New Alliance creation and implementation and shall monitor the continued efforts of the state federations and labor councils to carry out the work plans. This Committee shall be expanded to include representatives of state federations and labor councils.
Any disputes arising out of the New Alliance plans, including issues of full participation and per capita tax payments, shall be referred to the committee for resolution. The committee will work with the national union involved to resolve these matters.
The Executive Council will rule on any policy matter or issue arising out the creation or implementation of the New Alliance.
XII. Support for the New Alliance
The national AFL-CIO will provide broad support for state federations and labor councils in the creation and implementation of the New Alliance. Subsidies for state federations (and other support for state and local central bodies) shall be provided in the context of support for the New Alliance plans.
The George Meany Center for Labor Studies will work with the state federations and labor councils to develop specific education and training opportunities for their leadership and staff to insure that they have the information and skills required to carry out their responsibilities and meet the goals and objectives of the work plans.
A Technology Initiative will be developed to renovate the information systems and technology tools available to state feds and labor councils. A significant effort will be made to insure that accurate membership lists are maintained. The national AFL-CIO will work with national unions and state federations to review the current administration and use of membership lists to find the best ways to support the goals of the New Alliance.
For the New Alliance to be effective it must have the full and enthusiastic support not only of the local unions in the state, but the national unions as well.
National unions need to take steps to endorse the New Alliance efforts, to work with the national AFL-CIO and the local unions in each state in developing the Plan, and then making their best efforts to insure that their local unions participate fully once the New Alliance is adopted.
XIII. Achieving the New Alliance: Flexible Time Lines and Review
The complexity of this process will vary by state. National unions may wish to focus their attention on certain priority states. For this reason, the AFL-CIO may want to give priority attention to some states, while continuing to work with every state at some level. It is the goal of the AFL-CIO that the drafting process begin in as many states as possible during the year 2000 -- and that the development and approval of a New Alliance Plan be completed before January 2001 in as many priority states as is possible.
The AFL-CIO recognizes that the financial impact of the New Alliance will vary by local union and by national union, and that consideration must be given to this impact in deciding how quickly to proceed in any given state.
The Executive Council Committee on State and Local Central Bodies shall provide the full Executive Council with regular reports on the implementation of the New Alliance and shall make a report to the 2001 convention on the progress being made.