LaborTalk for October 25, 2006

CTW’s Tight Control by Seven Male Leaders;
No Elections or Accountability to Members

By Harry Kelber


The seven international union presidents who bolted the AFL-CIO to create a rival federation, Change to Win, operate under a constitution they drafted that gives them complete and permanent control of the organization.

The seven labor leaders who form the all-powerful Leadership Council are all male, with one Latino from the smallest union, the United Farm Workers. To avoid the charge it lacked diversity, the Council appointed Anna Burger, SEIU’s secretary-treasurer, as CTW Chair, and an African-American officer from UNITE-HERE, Edgar Romney, as CTW secretary-treasurer. There will also be three at-large appointees who must be national union officers.

But neither Burger nor Romney can make a move or issue a statement without the Leadership Council’s authority or approval. And besides, the constitution limits their term of office to two years. (Article VI, Section 2 explicitly states: “The Chair and Secretary-Treasurer shall not be allowed successive terms.”) But there’s no limit on the tenure of members of the Leadership Council.

The seven union presidents on the Leadership Council are: Andy Stern of the Service Employees, James Hoffa of the Teamsters, Joe Hansen of the Food and Commercial Workers, Terence O¹Sullivan of the Laborers, Bruce Raynor of UNITE-HERE and Douglas McCarron of the Carpenters. They run Change to Win like a private corporation, with one important difference: they don’t issue financial reports, nor does the constitution require them to be accountable to their members.

Although the constitution requires a national convention every two years, there is no provision for an election of officers, since members of the Leadership Council have permanent seats and can’t be challenged.

The Council’s wide-ranging authority is spelled out in Article V, Section 6, which states: “The Leadership Council is authorized to take all action and render all decisions necessary and appropriate to carry out the objectives of the alliance, including the direction and management of the affairs of this alliance, and to enforce the provisions of this constitution. This shall include the authority to:

“(a) Interpret this constitution and any decisions, rules or policies issued pursuant to this constitution.

“(b) Approve an annual budget for the operation of the alliance, including the budget for the Strategic Organizing Center.”

The only favorable mention of dues-paying members is in the “Preamble” that states: “We believe that uniting workers’ strength in each industry is key to building a democratic movement that can change America.”

We should remember that the members of CTW’s seven major unions never had a chance to vote on whether or not to quit the AFL-CIO. Andy Stern and a handful of his buddies made that decision. They are treating their unions as their private property, spending members’ dues money as they will, without ever accounting for a penny of it.

CTW is a showcase of corporate unionism with union members reduced to the status of powerless stockholders. Is this the way to build a bigger and stronger labor movement?

For more labor articles and background material, visit our Web site: www.laboreducator.org.

Harry Kelber's e-mail address is: hkelber@igc.org.




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