John Sweeney (labor Leader) - First Decade in Office

First Decade in Office

Soon after taking office, Sweeney initiated several programs intended to reverse the decline in union membership and recruit more new members, especially younger people. The AFL-CIO's organizing and field mobilization programs were separated. The Field Mobilization department was given control over the AFL-CIO's regional offices, which were reduced from 12 to four. Sweeney set a goal of spending one-third of the federation's budget on organizing by 1998. An ad hoc executive council committee was established to come up with an organizing strategy for the South and Southwest, while the Union Summer program was established to recruit and deploy college-age activists. A new department, the Working Women's Department, was created and charged with developing ways to give working women a voice and to inject that voice into the labor movement's deliberations.

Two new centers were also established. The new political training center's mission was to train political operatives and assist affiliates in training their staff in political work. The transnational corporate research center's mission was to help unions in organizing and/or contract battles with international corporations.

In August 1996, Sweeney created a Corporate Affairs Department. The department included three new centers: the Center for Workplace Democracy (to deal with labor-management partnerships), the Center for Worker Ownership and Governance (to deal with pension and investment issues) and the Center for Strategic Research (to assist affiliates with research in comprehensive campaigns). The department also was given responsibility for collecting statistics and conducting research on collective bargaining.

In May 1997, Sweeney announced four new organizing programs. The first program was an AFL-CIO-based effort to provide logistical, organizational and training support for state and local unions which wanted to create organizing programs. The second program 'Senior Summer', a program to leverage the labor movement's retirees by training retired workers in organizing and political operations. The third program was the "Union Cities" effort to encourage large central labor councils to be more active and effective, and to encourage smaller CLCs to merge or work more closely to enhance their influence. Lastly, the 'Street Heat' program funneled funds and staff to CLCs and unions so that they could develop rapid-response teams of union members to picket and/or protest when workers were intimidated, coerced or fired.

In October 1998, Sweeney renamed the AFL-CIO's 30-year-old Human Resources Development Institute (HRDI). It was now known as the Working for America Institute. Instead of focusing on education and training for displaced workers, the department's new mission was promote economic development, act as a think-tank and policy development foundation, and lobby Congress on economic policy.

But dissatisfaction began to build once again within the AFL-CIO. The elimination of a number of constitutional and administrative departments, such as the Industrial Union Department, was seen as a strike against those unions which had not supported Sweeney. The directorship of the AFL-CIO Organizing Department was a revolving door, organization of new members had not markedly increased and many unions had taken to raiding one another to increase membership. A number of unions were unhappy with what they saw as AFL-CIO criticism of their organizing programs.

In May 2000, the United Transportation Union disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO over a jurisdictional dispute. It was followed in April 2001 by the Carpenters union, which claimed that Sweeney's organizing efforts had failed and that the AFL-CIO structure must be abandoned.

Despite substantial investment in politics, the AFL-CIO had not succeeded in restoring the Democrats to a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Some union presidents began to argue that the AFL-CIO should stop spending money on political causes and divert resources to organizing new members.

Prominent among the dissatisfied leaders was Andrew Stern, president of SEIU and a Sweeney protege.

The growing unrest within the AFL-CIO became public when Sweeney announced on September 18, 2003, that he planned to run for another four-year term at the federation convention in the summer of 2005. When Sweeney had first been elected of the AFL-CIO in 1995, he had proposed a constitutional amendment which would bar anyone 70 years of age or older from seeking executive office. The proposed amendment was never acted on, but Sweeney promised the convention he would not remain in office beyond the age limit he had proposed. Many inside the labor movement felt that Sweeney's announcement was designed to forestall any candidacy by a dissident leader.