How Did We Allow 800,000 Members
To End Ties with the AFL-CIO in 2008?

While our leaders were occupied elsewhere, the AFL-CIO lost 800,000 members in one year—2008. As a result, union membership in the private sector fell from 7.6 percent to 7.2 percent in 2008, the lowest rate in decades. You can check it out with the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Those figures should have sounded alarm bells ringing throughout the labor movement. How could this catastrophic loss of members happen? Why didn’t our leaders stop the exodus before it reached such astonishing numbers? Surely, the situation cries out for an immediate investigation to pin down the reasons for this massive drop in union membership.

But nothing happened. Neither Trumka nor the AFL-CIO Executive Council thought the loss of 800,000 union members was sufficiently alarming to command their attention. Nor were there any comments on the AFL-CIO web site.

Not one message of concern came from the thousands of local union officers and labor activists. What will it take to stir the AFL-CIO’s leaders and members to action on a trend that may endanger the very survival of the labor movement?

Undoubtedly, the recession had a lot to do with the slump in union membership. For most laid-off workers, dues payments to their union ceased under the company’s payroll check-off system. Many were too busy trying to prevent eviction from their homes and feeding their families to think about dues payments.

So the unions dumped them from the membership rolls for non payment of dues. That was no less cruel behavior than a bank evicting a family for not keeping up with the mortgage payments.

There are workers who have been loyal union members for 10, 20 or more years, and have now been dropped from the rolls. This is not only inhumane; it makes no sense from the union’s viewpoint.

Finding Ways to Keep Laid-Off Workers Within the Unions

It’s to the union’s advantage to keep in touch with every former member who, for whatever reason, has stopped paying dues. It pays to treat these workers in a friendly and hospitable manner, because they’ll remember it when they finally get back on a job. We can’t afford to lose any member, especially now, when unions are under attack from aggressive employers.

We’ve got to find out why those 800,000 workers quit their unions and do everything possible to help them retain their membership. Many may not be able to afford the dues payments. (Charge them $1 a month until they get a job). Others may say the unions do nothing for working families, so why pay them dues? (Let’s try to convince them by talking about the benefits that unions offer.)

Still others may say the AFL-CIO is undemocratic; it doesn’t hold free and fair elections. (Let’s try to convince them otherwise.) Young workers may say the AFL-CIO is out of step with their needs and career choices. (Let’s tell them we’re starting to change.)

Can we afford to lose 800,000 union members without putting up a spirited fight to reclaim them? It’s hard to believe that the labor movement will meekly surrender. Think of it: 55 of the AFL-CIO’s 57 international unions have memberships that don’t even come close to the 800,000 unionists that our leaders are willing to abandon. —Harry Kelber

LaborTalk (36) will be posted here on Tuesday, February 4, 2010 and on our two web sites: www.laboreducator.org and www.laborsvoiceforchange.org