A Stitch in Haste

Another major labor union is preparing to quit the AFL-CIO (WSJ – $):

Unite Here, which represents 450,000 apparel, hotel, casino and restaurant workers, is considering disaffiliating from the AFL-CIO, with a decision expected as early as tomorrow.

A defection would make it the fourth major union to depart from the big labor federation in the past two months. The Service Employees International Union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the United Food and Commercial Workers, representing more than four million workers combined, disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO in July.
…
The presidents of all four unions have been critical of the leadership of John J. Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, arguing that the federation directed too many resources toward political campaigns in recent years, and thus weakened its ability to organize workers at a time when union representation continues to sink.

To review, the defecting unions believe that the best way to increase the strength of Big Labor is to actually win hearts of minds of potential union members. The AFL-CIO believes that the best strategy is to continue to buy Democratic politicians.

Framing it in strictly those narrow terms, the defecting unions deserve at least some praise, although I think they are doomed ultimately to fail. As I have blogged repeatedly, unions are, at best, a Twentieth-Century solution to a Nineteenth-Century problem and have little if any role in the Twenty-First Century.