Unions leave AFL-CIO, vow to organize Wal-Mart

When I was 8 I asked my father what that little blue book was with his name on it. He told me it was his Int'l Machinist Workers union dues book and that even though he worked for a nonunion shop he still paid his dues. My mother recounts her experience as an office worker in the 30's at a Brooklyn NY factory where the union rep always came on pay day and took money from the illiterate factory floor workers (mostly black) whom the union never helped.

The moral: unions are good and unions are bad.

Today the Service Employees Int'l Union (SEIU) and the Teamsters announced they are leaving the AFL-CIO. Several other unions including United Food & Commercial Workers may also leave the umbrella organization.

Before they left, they gave the AFL-CIO a chance:focus on organizing new workers by using the unions' money. D'uh. That makes so much sense I can't even think of anything witty to say. I have friends that moan and groan about how much they hate Wal-Mart because 'Wal-Mart treats their employees bad'. Okay. But where are the unions? Why haven't they tried to organize Wal-Mart, or Borders, or Lowes, etc? Wal-Mart would rather close a store than succumb to the union. Which is why the lone store strategy doesn't work. If there was a state wide effort to organize, Wal-Mart could not afford to leave the state. But the AFL-CIO would rather give all their money to Democrats and who knows what than organize new workers.

Of course there are other issues that need to be addressed but with a diminishing amount of union workers (only 8% of the workforce) these issues are moot.

I hope the split will see less union money going to democratic candidates who have done nothing for the unions. Imagine if all the money the unions spent on John Kerry were put to organizing: Wal-Mart would be a great place to work and my friends will have to look for something new to complain about.

Change to Win Coalition ; Money- Big Labor in Big Fight With Itself