ONLINE VERSION	VOLUME 106 - NUMBER 10 - NOVEMBER 1997

AFL-CIO Convention Held in Pittsburgh

Fleming Re-elected as Vice President The Twenty-Second Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO was held September 19-25, 1997, in Pittsburgh, Penn. to commemorate the first conventions of the AFL and the CIO in 1881 and 1938 in Pittsburgh. On November 16, 1881 in Turner Hall, located on Grant Street in Pittsburgh (now the site of the William Penn Hotel), representatives of some two dozen trade unions formed the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Organizations, later to become the American Federation of Labor. The architects of the federation were Samuel Gompers of the Cigar Makers and Peter J. McGuire of the Carpenters. Originally formed as the Committee for Industrial Organization in 1935, those unions within the AFL who advocated industrial unionism sought to have the older federation endorse mass organization in the basic industries. United Mine Workers President John L. Lewis called a meeting in Pittsburgh's Islam Grotto on November 14, 1938 in which the Committee became the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Representatives came from 34 international unions, eight industrial organizing committees and more than 240 city, county and state councils and local industrial unions. The first constitutional convention declared that its purpose was to "organize workers into powerful industrial unions." Within two years the CIO would claim more than four million affiliate members. Lewis was president until 1940, followed by the Steelworkers' Philip Murray and then the Auto Workers Walter Reuther. The AFL-CIO merged in 1955. BMWE Members Represented In a delegation headed by President Mac A. Fleming, BMWE members were represented at the 1997 convention by Secretary-Treasurer W. E. LaRue, Southeast Vice President R. A. Lau, Executive Board Secretary and General Chairman R. B. Wehrli and Executive Board Member and General Chairman T. R. McCoy, Jr. Director of Research Joel Myron served as an alternate. President Fleming was re-elected as Vice President on the Executive Council. President Fleming presented a resolution to the delegates calling on the AFL-CIO to provide strategic and political assistance to Amtrak workers to help them obtain a fair and just settlement of their contract. The resolution passed easily. Changing to Organize, Organizing to Change "Everything we do is connected to organizing," AFL-CIO President John Sweeney told the delegates in his Sept. 22 keynote speech. Flanked by more than 60 workers fresh from recent organizing wins, he said, "The real heroes of our new movement are the thousands of workers ... who decided to put their jobs on the line and their lives on hold to help their co-workers win the dignity, rights and respect that come only with a union contract." He noted there have been more than 2,000 organizing victories in the past two years since "we've created a new culture of organizing and begun devoting substantial new resources to organizing." The AFL-CIO has committed 30 percent of its budget to organizing and is challenging unions at every level to do the same by the year 2000. Into the 21st Century Resolutions passed by convention delegates will shape the AFL-CIO's agenda. "Building a Broad Movement of American Workers" calls for a massive shift in resources aimed at organizing and calls for the right to organize to become the "next great civil rights issue for our time." "Making Government Work for Working Families" will mobilize and educate working families around economic self-interest and workplace concerns in order to offer policy-makers "an alternative vision--honoring work and making the economy work for working families--in legislative and policy debates, in elections, through the media and, most important, through grassroots activities." It also promises to hold lawmakers accountable. "Economic and Social Justice" calls for a renewed commitment to the social safety net for working people and the poor in areas such as health care, retirement security, income security and education. "Our Work and Our Family" calls on the AFL-CIO to support family life through expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act and child care and fighting attacks on the 40-hour work week and Fail Labor Standards Act. Clinton Says "Labor Is Back" Praising the Teamsters' big UPS victory, the Farm Workers' and AFL-CIO strawberry campaign and labor's work to defeat a barrage of anti-union legislation in Congress, President Clinton told the AFL-CIO Convention Sept. 24 that "our nation can clearly see and hear that American labor is back." He received sustained applause when he noted that he had "vetoed every piece of anti-labor legislation that has crossed my desk, and I will continue to do so," but his call for fast-track authority for international trade deals was met coolly by the delegates. Acknowledging disagreement over the issue, Clinton said, "We share too many values and priorities to let this disagreement damage our partnership." Carrying signs that said, "Fast Track Railroads Working Families," delegates staged an anti-fast track floor demonstration that afternoon. "NAFTA's failure shows why tough and enforceable labor and environmental standards must be at the core--not on the side--of any new trade agreements, and fast-track doesn't do that," House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) told the convention Sept. 23. He used photos of hungry Mexican children and their families' dilapidated hand-made shacks lined up before modern post-NAFTA factories, as examples of "the race to the bottom" that will occur if fast-track passes and NAFTA-like trade deals are extended to other nations. "We need labor law reform to make corporations play fair when it comes to union elections ... Workers must be free to organize ... with free elections without corporate interference. And workers must have--and use--the right to strike," the Rev. Jesse Jackson told the convention Sept. 25. "When the economy enters a crisis, workers are always asked to share the pain. When the stock market hits 8,000, workers should also get to share the gain." Delegates unanimously re-elected AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka, Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson and the Executive Council. Earlier they approved a change to the AFL-CIO constitution to set officers' terms at four years instead of two.