Reforming the AFL-CIO

Some of you have maybe already seen this, but here's the link to the New York Times long piece on SEIU president Andy Stern and his ideas to blow up the AFL-CIO and start a new labor organization. There are legitimate criticisms of the article here and here. But I feel that Stern is on the right track to try and do something about labor's increasing irrelevance in America.

Stern's basic argument is that the union movement as presently constructed in America has not made any adjustments to a post-industrial economy and therefore is obsolete. He suggests that the 58 present unions that make up the AFL-CIO be reduced to 20 and that each one focus on a particular area of the modern economy, i.e. service economy, teachers, etc. Right now there are many unions who are trying to survive by picking up locals here and there that have nothing to do with the core of the union. He also suggests that unions make a more concerted effort to become an international labor movement as a necessary response to globalization. Multinational corporations have different attitudes toward unions in different countries and it is necessary to build alliances with labor unions throughout the world so that unions in countries where organized labor is more accepted can put pressure on the companies for the workers is less advantaged places. Stern equivocates over the issue of organizing workers in Third World countries where American jobs have gone to and this is understandable. How can you justify to American workers organizing workers who have their former jobs? But I think this is a problem with a solution. After all, all workers deserve a high standard of living. And if a company knows you are going to organize wherever they move, they are less likely to move in the first place.

What's really impressive about Stern is not his ideas per se. These have their merits and their faults. Rather, what's impressive is his attempts to bring the progressive movement into the age of globalization. He is moving away from the 1930s and 1960s organizing eras that both labor and the Democratic party and most of the Left for that matter is stuck in, and proposing new solutions to new problems. We need more visionary thinkers like Stern throughout the country to try and move a new progressive platform forward.