Just Trying to Survive

 

Over the next six months, the group will engage in an unprecedented self-evaluation that will result in a new strategic plan that leaders say could open the door to nonunion workers and alliances with old rivals.
                                                        
But with union membership sinking to historic lows and their dominance in Democratic politics threatened, unions realize they must reinvent themselves to reassert their remaining influence.

“We’ve been talking about the crisis that we’re in and the fact that we need to change and I wanted to make sure that we used this process to address that and be honest with ourselves,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told reporters. “Not to play ‘I gotcha,’ but to be able to say, ‘Here’s where we’re doing things right. Here’s where we’re doing things mediocre. Here’s where we’re doing things terrible.’ We have to change so we bring the bottom of the floor level up.”

Top union leaders spent hours in their executive council meeting this week at the Buena Vista Palace Hotel in Orlando, Fla., putting in place a process that will focus on growth and innovation before their quadrennial convention in September.

Their goal: unify unions going forward and make strategic decisions that will woo new members.

Trumka’s comments are a the first time he’s so publicly addressed the need for unions to adapt in order to survive. The self-examination comes as unions face dwindling numbers — the Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers last month put unions membership levels at its lowest in nearly a century —and are trying to reassert their relevance in today’s workforce.

They are also facing competition in Democratic politics. For years, they were the behemoth in organizing voters. But now several groups, including President Barack Obama’s vaunted Organizing for America, are challenging that supremacy. OFA played a significant role in the 2012 presidential race and got much of the credit for Democratic voter turnout in key battleground states.

AFL-CIO’s process is expected to include state level officials, the central labor council, nonunion workers and others to create a unified strategic plan.

“It is going to take structural changes. It’s also going to take us trying new stuff,” said Trumka, who was voted in as head of the ALF-CIO in 2009.     Read more: