Sweeney, Unhappy with $40 Million,
Wants New Tax on Union Members

President John Sweeney, not content with the $40 million that the AFL-CIO currently has in its political war chest, is trying to pressure international unions to agree to an added tax of 12 cents a month per union member.

Sweeney has not mentioned, either on the federation’s web site or in his public statements, why a tax bite on the membership, that could amount to as much as $15 million a year, is necessary. Nor has he given a clue how the additional money would be spent. Sweeney’s top ally in the quest for more funds is Gerald McEntee, long-time head of the AFL-CIO Political Committee, who is also president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

It was only two years ago that the delegates to the AFL-CIO convention had voted to increase the per capita tax another 12 cents per month per member, to compensate for the loss of dues payments from the seven unions that had left the federation to form a rival organization, Change to Win.

Sweeney’s request ignores the fact that AFL-CIO’s international union affiliates — as well as Change to Win — will be spending millions of dollars from their own coffers to strengthen the chances for a Democratic victory in the 2008 elections.

Where Is Their Plan to Rebuild the Labor Movement?

AFL-CIO leaders have all but given up efforts to organize new workers and have decided to focus almost exclusively on the Democratic Party campaign to capture the White House and expand its control of Congress. In the meantime, why are they ignoring the many millions of unorganized workers who have said, in several polls, they would like to join a union?

Why doesn’t the well-funded AFL-CIO Organizing Department tell us what their staff of more than 20 organizers is doing to dispel our suspicion they are doing hardly anything, but waiting for the day, somewhere in the future, when Congress will pass the Employee Free Choice Act?

Why has the AFL-CIO been officially low-keyed or remained silent about the concerns of working people? Why haven’t top leaders had anything to say publicly about the mortgage crisis and the foreclosure of tens of thousands of workers’ homes? Or about the war on undocumented workers and its effect on the future of unions? Or what to do about the export of American jobs? Or what to do about stagnant wages, while productivity and profits continue to rise?

The same charges can be made about the leaders of Change to Win, who run their unions like private fiefdoms, denying basic democratic rights to the six million union members they claim to represent.

Remember the rallying cry that led to the American Revolution: “No taxation without representation!” Those fighting words still apply.

Our weekly column, “The World of Labor,” reports the struggles and victories of unions in countries around the globe. Check our web site: www.LaborEducator.org.