Chicago, IL
The most significant challenge facing the labor movement is to reverse the decline in union density and begin growing American unions once again. We cannot hope to accomplish our political goals nor protect the members we now have at the bargaining table or in the political arena unless we are all growing again as both individual unions and as a labor movement.
In recent years, many national unions have taken significant steps to accomplish this by shifting resources into organizing, by adopting new strategies in organizing campaigns, by linking their bargaining and political work to organizing goals, by recruiting and training a new generation of organizers, by building strong links to the communities, and by advancing Voice@Work strategies in their organizing.
The national AFL-CIO has increasingly supported such important work. Through its organizing fund, through its recruitment and training programs and through its Voice@Work campaigns, the federation has assisted the national affiliates who must in the end carry out this critically important work.
A major step forward was accomplished this year with the creation of formal organizing partnership agreements between the federation and national affiliates whose organizing is supported by the federation. These agreements spell out how, working together, the national union and the federation can work towards meeting specific strategic organizing goals. While there is still much to be done to fine-tune these partnerships and while we have much to learn about how best these partnerships can be constructed, they are sound building blocks for future work.
Taken together, these individual agreements and national plans comprise the beginnings of a national labor movement organizing plan that is sectoral specific and that defines the specific priorities for the labor movement in each sector - and the responsibilities of national unions, and the federation, in meeting these priorities.
The next step in this process is to build a labor movement-wide support system for these individual national union efforts, to link up these efforts where possible, and to measure these efforts against the challenges the movement as a whole faces in each industry and sector.
These plans are building blocks for something larger and more ambitious - a unified labor movement effort to greatly expand workers' freedom to choose a voice at work in America, sector by sector - a labor movement organizing plan.
Investing more in organizing by national unions and their local affiliates remains the critical first step. Using those additional resources in more effective and strategic ways, and linking all the other resources of the union movement to organizing, is an important next step, as is the building of broad public and political support for organizing through Voice@Work strategies. Bringing all these expanded national union efforts together in a unified labor movement is the next challenge we face.
Finally, we must conduct this unified effort within a larger struggle to restore the right to form a union to American society. This will require a substantial political effort to achieve a change in our nation's labor laws.
While such a reform campaign will never be easy, and while the current political environment is openly hostile, there is no sense waiting for the perfect time for such an attempt. We must begin the massive effort needed to accomplish this now - but do so as part and parcel of the greatly expanded and unified organizing movement that needs to be built in the coming years.
The first step in such a campaign is a simple one - to decide together to take on this challenge. Under the best of circumstances, such a campaign will be daunting. Without complete commitment of the national union affiliates and a unified effort, such a campaign will be impossible.
To take the next steps in planning and building a labor movement organizing
plan, and to express our resolve to mount an effort to restore the right to organize, the
AFL-CIO Executive Council calls for a National Organizing Summit and General Board Meeting early in 2003. Between then and now, we charge the Organizing Committee with developing proposals for the next steps to take in creating sectoral specific organizing efforts in as many sectors and industries as possible. Some such efforts are already in the planning stage and others can be started in the coming months.
We also charge the Organizing Committee, working with the Legislative and Political Committees, with developing a proposal for a campaign to restore the right to join a union in America. Such a campaign must become the public policy priority for our movement, and all of our resources must be brought to bear on accomplishing this goal.
We, the leadership of the American labor movement, resolve to take on any challenge and to carry any burden to meet our responsibilities to lead the efforts of American workers to have a union. There is nothing that is more important or more urgent.