[LABNEWS] - Labor Reformers Say They Underestimated Task (fwd)

[Chegitz Guevara <mluziett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Labor Reformers Say They Underestimated Task

   By KEVIN GALVIN

   Associated Press Writer

   WASHINGTON (AP) - The AFL-CIO's new leaders sailed into power on a
   wave of enthusiasm, ready to rejuvenate the moribund labor movement.
   But overhauling the federation's headquarters is proving tougher than
   expected.

   Supporters of the new president, John Sweeney, grope for analogies to
   describe the effort: "like swimming through peanut butter" or "like
   nailing Jell-O to the wall."

   Still, they remain upbeat.

   "There's an energy level here that hasn't been here in a long time,
   and that's really critical," said Steve Rosenthal, the AFL-CIO's
   political director. "We have a lot of work to do to turn around this
   organization."

   Sweeney, elected in October, presented the executive council with a
   list of sweeping changes last week, including recommendations to
   create a new organizing department to help unions enroll members, and
   efforts to strengthen labor's hand in the political arena.

   But now that the blueprints are in, Sweeney's team must carry out a
   cultural revolution within an institution that some describe as a
   "gerontocracy" and "Balkanized."

   One sticky problem is something labor officials least want to
   confront: Federation employees are protected by a half-dozen union
   contracts, which would make it difficult to force changes.

   Several sources said officials were examining ways to encourage some
   workers to retire.

   "It is certainly true that people have good pay and good benefits,"
   said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "What I would
   say is more that there hasn't been necessarily a high enough standard
   of work performance to go with the good pay and good benefits."

   Apathy pervaded the headquarters when the new leadership arrived,
   officials said, aggravated by a lack of accountability, poor
   accounting systems in most departments, an antiquated personnel
   system, and an inefficient mail room.

   Labor officials who reviewed the federation's structure also found
   many cases of offices performing similar tasks, but separated because
   their managers didn't get along. Sweeney plans streamlining to correct
   that.

   To lead the new organizing push, Sweeney named Richard Bensinger, a
   former regional organizing director for the Amalgamated Clothing and
   Textile Workers Union.

   Politically, Rosenthal said he aims to build a base of 100 activists
   in each congressional district, to target 75 House districts in 1996,
   and to develop a $20 million media fund to advocate workers' issues.

   The federation hopes to have 2,500 union activists and staff involved
   in get-out-the-vote drives across the country during the last six
   weeks of the fall campaign.

   The union federation already is airing commercials and campaigning at
   the grassroots level against proposed cuts in Medicaid, Medicare and
   worker safety laws, Sweeney noted.

   "Our goal in 1996 is to educate and mobilize our members as we have
   never done before, creating both a grassroots model and a grassroots
   movement to serve us in the future," Sweeney said.

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Marc, "the Chegitz," Luzietti
personal homepage: http://shrike.depaul.edu/~mluziett
political homepage: http://shrike.depaul.edu/~mluziett/chegitz.html

o/~ When an eel lunges out and it bites off your snout, 'ats amore o/~




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