The UniteToWin.org site is being discontinued, and vital content will be available on other sites instead. The UniteToWin.org site was set up to help stimulate discussion during a period of intense debate within the AFL-CIO about ways to rebuild the strength of working people. I want to personally thank everyone who contributed any of the thousands of comments that were posted on this site since it began last November.   That debate is now over, and the AFL-CIO and individual unions have made their decisions. SEIU is now part of a 6 million-member, 7-union coalition that operates ChangeToWin.org, where important news, documents, and news links will be available. News that is specifically about major SEIU campaigns and activities will continue to be available at SEIU.org. It's amazing to think about how much has changed in the nine months since this site was established. Other unions have stepped forward and taken leadership. New relationships have been built based on a commitment to common principles. Labor's fatalism and inertia have been swept away. The process of truly building something stronger will take time and will no doubt have plenty of bumps in the road. But the new unity reflected in the Change To Win Coalition makes me more hopeful than I've been in years about building a strong union movement that can change workers' lives. One era has ended, and a new one has dawned. The members and leaders of SEIU look forward to working with all of you to make the most of this historic opportunity.

Blog entry by Eliseo Medina, SEIU Executive Vice President "Change To Win" is not theory to Mirna Blanco. It's very real. She's a janitor in Houston, cleaning offices in the First City Tower. She works for ABM, a national building service company. She's paid $5.15 an hour, without benefits. She's been doing the work for five years without getting a raise. When Mirna or her husband or their three kids get sick, they don't have the money to go to the doctor. They can only pray that they don't need serious treatment. For ten days, janitors in Houston and Indianapolis were on strike after ABM responded to their efforts to secure a living wage and affordable health care with threats and intimidation. In a courageous show of unity, hundreds of janitors honored picket lines in two dozen cities across the country. They went back to work Thursday after the unfair labor practices that led to the picket lines were resolved. But the fight is not over. Friday, unions in the Change To Win Coalition announced they are backing the janitors in their struggle and will do whatever it takes to help them win good jobs with health care. At a rally Thursday night in Chicago, Teamsters Joint Council 25 announced that if the janitors reestablished picket lines in Chicago, Council 25 would sanction those strike lines for its more than 100,000 members. Teamsters Joint Council 25 members include garbage pick-up, delivery, garage and parking workers. Janitors in cities that have better pay and benefits supporting janitors in cities that don't, and truck drivers and delivery workers supporting them as well -- that's the kind of strategy the union movement needs to take on large multinational companies today. When it works, the janitors in Houston and Indianapolis will be one step closer to their goal of achieving the American Dream. We'll keep you posted on the janitors' campaign. In the meantime, you can go to Houston Justice for Janitors to stay tuned to the latest developments.

Blog entry by Anna Burger, SEIU International Secretary-Treasurer The opportunity to build new hope for working people in America grew again today as the 1.4 million-member United Food and Commercial Workers informed the AFL-CIO that they are disaffiliating from the federation. Three of the four largest AFL-CIO affiliates have now made that choice. As chair of the Change To Win Coalition, I've had the chance to work closely with Joe Hansen, the UFCW president, and have seen how committed he and his union are to changing and adopting new strategies to unite workers' strength in their core industries. Joe started out many years ago as a rank-and-file meatcutter and volunteer organizer and knows what it takes to build a strong movement from the bottom up. "The dynamics of the new economy demand industry-wide organizing and coordinated bargaining to improve living standards, ensure affordable health care and renew respect for work and workers," he said in the UFCW's disaffiliation letter. "Solidarity means workers in an industry standing together in their union, and supporting all other workers in their industry.... On this core issue -- redirecting resources to organize industry-wide for worker power -- there is a fundamental difference between the Change Coalition and the AFL-CIO." President Hansen told John Sweeney that "while our affiliation ends, our commitment to work with the AFL-CIO and unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO on issues and programs where we share common goals remains unchanged. I believe our movement is united in our basic principles and values, even if we pursue different strategies. The UFCW and its local unions will continue to fund and work with state and local federations in politics and lobbying, and for mutual support of worker struggles." I couldn't agree more. The national disagreement on basic strategy should not interfere with continued unity in the local labor councils and state labor federations. In many communities, local labor councils are the vehicle for coordinating local campaign support and strike support. Local councils and state feds can also be coordinating centers to make sure politicians stand up for the freedom of working people to form unions. At this time of new hope and opportunity for working people, when there will be more worker organizing activity, effective local and state labor bodies will be more important than ever. For our part, SEIU local unions will keep sending the usual payments for participation in local and state bodies they have been part of in the past, and will be showing up for meetings they would normally attend. The Change To Win unions and the AFL-CIO share the same goals even if we don't agree on how to get there. We agree with Joe Hansen and the UFCW that all of us should be doing everything possible to cooperate where we can and help each other succeed. What do you think?

The following is President Stern's statement given at today's press conference Thank you for joining all of the SEIU executive officers today - Anna Burger, Eliseo Medina, Tom Woodruff, Gerry Hudson, and Mary Kay Henry. Yesterday, SEIU made the decision to not participate in today's AFL-CIO convention.   Last night, after years of discussion across all levels of our union, our International Executive Board met. Today, we have made the decision to disaffiliate from the AFL-CIO. I want to stress that this was not an easy or happy decision.   In itself, it represents not an accomplishment, but simply an enormous opportunity, and a recognition that we are in the midst of the most rapid transformative moment in economic history, and workers are suffering. We are walking down a road, and the mileposts are clear. A country that once had 35 percent union membership is now down to 8 percent in the private sector. And the results are that workers have less health care, less time to spend with their families, less secure pensions in their retirement, but more debt and more insecurity about the future. The American dream has slipped out of reach for too many. Our world has changed.  Our economy has changed.  Employers have changed...but the AFL-CIO is not willing to make fundamental change as well. By contrast, SEIU has changed. Our union was started in 1923, right here in Chicago.  In fact, we're meeting today at SEIU Local 1 - our very first local.  Those original members were janitors... Immigrants - Italian, Irish, Polish -- who traveled to this country in search of that same American dream. And despite the fact that other unions looked down on them, these workers united, found strength, and gave birth to a new union which has become the largest union in the AFL-CIO and the fastest growing in the world. In the past 9 years alone, we have united more than 900,000 workers - largely people of color, immigrants, and working women -- because SEIU members made decisions to: unite themselves into unions large enough to be successful devote the needed resources to organizing develop the strategies to unite workers and set high standards in whole industries, markets, and employers and make our union at all levels truly reflect the diversity of today's workforce. Those choices - the choices of our members - are at the heart of SEIU's disaffiliation decision.  Those choices are the very ones we proposed to the AFL-CIO. Those choices are at the heart of the Change to Win Coalition. I'm proud to be here today with President Hoffa and to stand with the other Change to Win Presidents who are committed to this type of fundamental change. A lot has been said about the differences between our strategy and the package proposed by the AFL-CIO leadership.   They are not differences in purpose or goal. They are fundamental differences in basic strategy. We believe in very fundamental change, not incremental reform. We believe in accountability, not what `should' happen but what "shall" happen. We believe we can and will succeed based on our own efforts - not a rescue by others. We know...that when you're heading down a road and you know where it ends...you have to get off that road and go in a different direction where there is hope. As I have said, many times before, the future of American workers is not a matter of chance but a matter of choice. Today, SEIU is respectfully making a choice to go in a different direction that we believe will work for working people. We wish the AFL-CIO well, and hope they are successful. We may disagree but we intend not to be disagreeable. But we know that working people in America can't afford to wait any longer. Our goal is not to divide the labor movement, but to rebuild it -- so working people can once again achieve the American Dream. Today, we take the first step down that new road.

I came back a few hours ago from a press conference of the Change To Win Coalition. The Chair of the Coalition, SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger, announced that: UNITE-HERE, Teamsters, UFCW and SEIU will not attend the AFL-CIO Convention. The leaders of those unions and the UFW and Laborers will not run or serve as part of the elected leadership of the AFL-CIO. Monday, our unions will meet to begin the long process of developing a joint plan for helping millions of workers join our unions and unite their strength with others in their industry. A reporter remarked to me afterwards that the leaders and delegates from the Change unions who were in the room conveyed such a feeling of hope and energy and determination.  You could feel the kind of unity that has been missing for so long in the labor movement. The world has changed, the economy has changed, our employers have changed, our jobs have changed, and there is no way to have unions stay the same and be successful. I believe that every leader of the AFL-CIO has the same goal that we do -- to insure that American workers have their hard work valued and rewarded. But it is clear that we have vastly different strategies to accomplish that goal.  So we intend to pursue our strategy to build growing strength for workers, respect the AFL-CIO as it pursues its strategy, and hope that we are both successful. We also announced we would pursue a strategy of trying to be good partners with the AFL-CIO even if we are not part of it. We will not try to re-organize workers already in unions, but focus on the nearly 90% of workers who are not in unions. The Change To Win unions will continue to make payments to and participate in local AFL-CIO Central Labor Councils because we think at a local level we need to coordinate and cooperate. SEIU is also willing to be part of and make contributions to the AFL-CIO political program. And we will always answer the call to help any worker or any union that wants our assistance. Solidarity is not about what initials are in your name, but an enduring belief in the right of all workers to have a voice and a job that allows them to raise a family. Today represented not an accomplishment, but an opportunity. We began to get off a road that is taking American workers in the wrong direction, and walk in a new direction where there is hope. Tomorrow, we will take another step in that journey.

Tomorrow the 50th anniversary convention of the AFL-CIO opens. No one disagrees that the AFL-CIO is in trouble. Yesterday I talked about the mileposts on the road we are traveling: fewer wage increases, less health care, fewer secure jobs, fewer pensions, less time for workers with their family. I think about all the American workers who are traveling on this road, and what our organizers say to them everyday about change. Organizers sit in their living rooms and ask them to tell their story. Usually, it is a story of hard work with too few rewards. Loyalty to their job and employer repaid with too little dignity and respect. We say to them that when you are going down a road, and you know that it ends in continued economic insecurity and a lack of value for your hard work -- get off of that road and walk in a new direction where there is hope, Organizers tell them about our unions, and how they can change their life. You know the person is scared, and understand the perils of standing up to their employer, for gaining a voice in their job, life and future. Because today under our failed labor laws, standing up for yourself and co-workers can mean every-day pressure, loss of promotional opportunities, and industrial capital punishment (loss of your job). We respond to those workers' legitimate fear, and say take each other's hands, walk together, let's get off of this road, because we can create a new road of hope by walking in a different direction. And everyday courageous workers  without any guarantees, join hands and begin to create a new road at their job and for their life. It is that kind of courage that inspires me. American unions are on a road of decline, and we know where it ends. Compared to that lone worker, we risk little when we change, but we owe it to them to do so. Today America's union leaders need to join hands, get off of our road to nowhere, and walk together with the confidence that we can make a new road by walking. There is no guarantee where our walk will end, but like the road we ask that worker to take, it is the only road to hope.

Yesterday, the AFL-CIO Executive Council met -- the highest ranking leadership group consisting of more than 50 union leaders.  As expected, without discussion, a majority of the Council adopted the AFL-CIO officers' proposals that are an alternative to those of us who have called for change. As the meeting went on, I found myself asking, how do great institutions change to meet the challenges of the time? Do institutions or companies in crisis have the ability to truly reinvent themselves or in some cases have they lived so long within their own house that rearranging a room or remodeling a floor come to seem like an enormous transformation? In IBM, it took an outside CEO to shake it up and right the ship. Competition from Japanese automakers shook the Big 3 into a quality orientation but serious management problems remained. Evangelicals  and mega-churches have been a wake-up call to traditional religious institutions. As critical as labor unions are to a democratic society and to rewarding work in a global economy, they too must change and make history because simply sticking to the status quo will relegate them to become history. In SEIU, change has required vision and courage on the part of literally thousands of people who had to leave behind their comfort zone and their traditions to adapt to a new world, and the process continues every day. The labor movement is walking down a road, and the mileposts tell the story. Fewer wage increases, less health care, fewer secure jobs, fewer pensions, less time for workers with their family, and more debt, more income inequality, and more children without the education they need to be successful. When you are on a road, and you know where it ends, leaders must get off that road and walk in a different direction, where there at least is hope. The leaders of the AFL-CIO are committed people. Most have given their life to help others. I respect their goals. But it is time for others who respectfully disagree to get off the old road and walk in a new direction -- to try to build something stronger that is dynamic, and strategic, and open to new ideas to really change worker's lives. In the midst of the most profound and transformative economic revolution in history, American workers need modern unions that fit the times. The only way to start making that new road is by walking.    

Yesterday I arrived in Chicago for the meeting of the AFL-CIO Executive Committee before next week's convention. As expected, there were, without debate, more words, resolutions, and efforts to finalize proposals that are well intentioned but far too incremental at a time we need innovation that is fundamental and will make a difference in workers' lives. The AFL-CIO leadership introduced new resolutions to change Federation membership in Trade Departments from voluntary to mandatory, and allowing the Fed to sue affiliates. It all seemed like just another effort to enforce accountability in a place where it matters least -- in Washington DC -- while continuing to avoid it where it matters most at worksites and bargaining tables where workers' livelihoods are at stake. The time is near to allow all of us to pursue our values, beliefs, and strategies, and wish each other the best -- because working people deserve organizations that have a plan to win. The only real news today has been that the United Farm Workers have joined the Change To Win Coalition. The UFW has long been the moral center of the union movement, going back to the days of Cesar Chavez when I first started as a union member. It's an honor to have them side by side with us looking for innovative ways to win economic and social justice in this country.

On the plane to Chicago for the AFL-CIO convention, I was thinking about what this convention could have been if the AFL-CIO officers had made different choices. Instead of headlines like "New Split in Organized Labor?", the headlines could have been "New Hope for American Workers." New hope for Fed Ex workers to unite with their Teamster brothers and sisters at UPS so everyone who works in that industry would have their hard work rewarded. New hope for security officers across America -- many of them African American -- trying to win a paycheck that supports a family, health care, and a pension. New hope for Wal-Mart workers -- a majority of whom take home wages below the poverty line without affordable health coverage or retirement. New hope for workers in manufacturing, construction, transportation, health care, property services, public employment, and other sectors given the chance to unite behind strategies for growing strength in their industries -- instead of being divided into many competing unions that don't coordinate. New hope for the 13 million current union members who cannot consistently win and maintain middle-class standards as long as 9 out of 10 workers in America have no union. This convention could have been a chance for workers to celebrate the union movement's modernization after 50 years of change in our economy -- a dramatic event as historic as the founding of the CIO in the 1930s. It could have been an inspirational discussion of strategies to unite workers in each industry or occupation -- and to build unions with the focus and resources to do that. It could have highlighted new global union partnerships that are not just about general solidarity but about specific campaigns uniting the strength of employees of the same global corporations. It could have made historic progress on diversity not only through standards and timetables but by setting the stage to help millions of people of color and working women to form unions and change their lives and communities. All this was possible earlier this year when it became clear that 40 percent of the AFL-CIO, including 3 of the 4 largest affiliates, was prepared to support real change. The AFL-CIO officers could have chosen to use their powers of persuasion to build on that base and organize a majority. Instead, they chose to start with the 50-year-old structure of 57 separate and overlapping unions as a given and then water down every proposal so it wouldn't offend entrenched interests and outmoded traditions. They chose not to lead and to help workers win -- but to play it safe and do nothing that might disturb the lowest common denominator status quo. The AFL-CIO's opportunity appears to have been lost, but the crisis facing working people in America remains. It will apparently take another convention this fall of unions committed to change to provide the new hope working people need.

Let's say two people are in Chicago and one says they want to go to St. Louis while the other wants to go to Timbuktu. One says, "Look, if we want to go to two different places, we should just wish each other luck and get going." The other says, "We don't have to agree on where we're going. The most important thing is that we go together. So let's just talk about which intersection we're going to come to first and which way to turn when we get there." The first one says, "To know what to do at each intersection, you have to know where you are going. It makes no sense to negotiate over the details of the route if you really don't agree on the final destination." That little story captures what's going on in the so-called "debate" about the future of working people and the union movement. Some of us say that we need to concentrate on uniting more workers and doing it by industry, and that we need the structure and resources and mutual accountability to pursue that strategy effectively. Then the AFL-CIO officers, who have chosen to lead the labor movement in a different direction than that, say to us, "Forget about your core principles and goals. Let's see if we can agree on wording for the AFL-CIO constitution that we can all live with." We have meetings and we get proposals, and we're asked: "What do you think of this? What do you think of that?" The phrases change. New adjectives or qualifiers come and go. A sentence is added here and there. But what remains the same is that the AFL-CIO officers think it's possible for 57 separate unions, more than 40 of which each average 75,000 members or less, with each union free to divide workers and negotiate lower standards in any industry, to rebuild the strength of working people in America. So the proposals include industry coordinating committees without the authority to coordinate or a clear set of defined industries, standards that aren't enforced, merger language that doesn't unite workers' strength by industry, diversity seats on an executive committee but the committee has no real power and the seats aren't really reserved for diversity, and on and on. To return to the analogy I started with, what we get from the AFL-CIO officers is, "We don't really want to go to St. Louis, but what would you say to agreeing that we'll turn right at First and Main and then left at Third Street." The union movement has been operating this way for years, with the result that reaching any destination at all has been the rare exception and not the rule. As Joe Hansen of the UFCW said recently, AFL-CIO officers' proposals without accountability to clearly defined industry principles are "a recipe for chaos, or a way for insuring that nothing significant will be accomplished."

Blog entry by Anna Burger, SEIU International Secretary-Treasurer Let's talk about mergers, and take the latest example. Last fall, the Transportation Communications International Union (TCU) approached SEIU offering us its 46,000 members, many of whom work in the railroad industry. In a 3-page proposal, TCU never presented any argument that such a merger would make strategic sense for rail workers. To the contrary, TCU was amazingly honest about its motivation. "It is fair to ask -- why at this point are we exploring affiliation and merger possibilities? Frankly, the answer lies in our officer and staff pension plan and the accelerated funding requirements of ERISA." "In light of our current [officer and staff] pension funding obligation, our actuaries have advised that a merger with a labor organization with a larger over-funded plan will correct our under-funded position while minimally impacting the larger plan absorbing ours." The proposal went on to point out that "many of the usual structural and political impediments to an affiliation do not exist in TCU's case.... Membership ratification is not required." SEIU wrote back to TCU last November, saying that our union is focused on long-term care, health systems, building service, and public service, and recommending that TCU "approach other transportation unions and unite the strength of your membership with other workers who do the same kind of work." Now, the Machinists (IAM) have announced that they have acquired TCU's members. According to IAM President Tom Buffenbarger... "This voluntary affiliation between two AFL-CIO unions serves as a good example of the kind of consolidation that honors our democratic traditions and avoids the complications of forced mergers." I have to agree with Tom that this merger avoids certain "complications" -- and that's just the problem with it. It avoids the complicated task of uniting the strength of everyone who works in the same industry to deal with serious threats to their jobs, health care, retirement benefits, and other rights and working conditions. Instead, it continues to divide workers and keep them from developing a united strategy. The Teamsters represent 40 percent of railroad union members in the U.S. The remaining workers are divided among at least a dozen other unions, including 11,000 rail members in the Machinists. The United Transportation Union, a non-AFL-CIO union, announced in mid-June that it is considering merging with the Sheet Metal Workers International Association. Under the current AFL-CIO leadership and rules, the officers of any two of the 57 AFL-CIO affiliates can get together and make whatever merger deal works for them, whether it unites the workers in an industry or not. Mergers don't flow from an overall plan based on what makes workers strong. When Tom Buffenbarger talks about "democratic traditions," I'm not sure what he's referring to since the TCU members won't be voting on this merger, as they would under the proposals submitted to the AFL-CIO by the Change To Win Coalition. In fact, you might even call the IAM-TCU deal a "forced merger" from the members' point of view. What the union movement needs is a new and truly democratic tradition that would give rail workers and other union members the chance to unite their strength in unions with the industry focus, strategy, and resources to win. When SEIU members in the utility industry were given that chance, they voted to join the Utility Workers union because they knew that would make them stronger. The same when SEIU members at Disney World voted to join HERE, and SEIU laundry workers voted to switch to UNITE, and when UNITE workers in nursing homes voted to join SEIU. It can be done -- but it takes a commitment to real democracy and to taking on "complications" that stand in the way of worker strength.

Blog entry by Tom Woodruff, SEIU Executive Vice President I just found out the other day that this whole debate about how to rebuild workers' strength in America wasn't needed. It turns out there is no crisis, and we can all relax. I learned this from a letter written by Tom Buffenbarger, president of the Machinists and circulated to all unions. Tom explains to those of us who are impaired in our understanding of statistics that the reason it appears that the percentage of union members in the workforce is dropping is NOT that union membership is going down but that the overall workforce is growing so fast. Why, if the population of the United States were the same today as it was in 1955, then the percentage of the workforce that is union wouldn't be much lower than it was back then! Right. I get it. It's kind of like saying that if the population of the U.S. were still the same as it was in 1955, the 50 million votes John Kerry got last year would have been plenty to win the presidency. Attacking what he calls the "sky-is-falling crowd" that "bemoan the fact that the American Labor Movement represents 8.5 percent of the workforce," Buffenbarger concludes with great irony and sarcasm: As a percentage of the labor force, the federation shrunk from 9.8 to 8.6 percent during the last ten years. Is that whopping 1.2 percent decline a crisis? Well, apparently a drop from 35 percent of the workforce in the 1950s to 8 percent in the private sector today is not a crisis over at IAM headquarters. But if you step outside that building and talk to airline workers who belong to the IAM, they can tell you that because of labor's declining strength families are losing pension benefits and health care and paychecks they worked all their lives for. They can tell you how corporations and their CEOs are making more money than at any time in history, while our children and grandchildren are for the first time in American history facing lower living standards than those who came before. They can tell you how companies like Wal-Mart are coming into their communities, paying poverty wages without affordable health care or pensions, and how other employers are now citing that as a reason to reduce what they pay as well. Sure looks like a crisis to me. But I've got to say that I admire Tom Buffenbarger. Because at least he comes out and says what some other union leaders are thinking - that there is not enough of a crisis to justify fundamental change, taking risks, trying new strategies, and breaking the chains of tradition when they hold workers back from winning. Buffenbarger's letter helps make clear what a deep and irreparable split there is in the labor movement. It's hard to find common solutions when some leaders don't even acknowledge the crisis in the first place.

An old saying says that where there's a will, there's a way. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true -- where there isn't a will, there isn't a way. That's the best way to sum up the problem with the proposals by the AFL-CIO officers to form Industry Coordinating Committees and to change the guidelines for Article XXI of the AFL-CIO Constitution that governs jurisdiction in organizing campaigns. The proposal has no means of effective implementation or enforcement. That's no surprise since the AFL-CIO officers still don't have the will or commitment to fight for the fundamental principle of uniting all workers who do the same work in unions with the strategy, focus, and resources to win. The concept of lead unions that unite workers in core industries or occupations is crucial to building new strength for working people -- but it offends unions that want to be free to divide workers by organizing in any industry and making deals with employers that undercut pay and benefit standards. The AFL-CIO officers have not been willing or able for the past 10 years to go beyond the lowest common denominator and establish a core industry policy that will win for workers -- and they aren't willing or able to do so now. Without first recognizing lead unions for core industries or occupations, their proposals remind me a lot of student government in high school. There are all the forms -- elections, officers, meetings, minutes, reports. But there is no clear underlying purpose. If one or more unions asked for recognition as a lead union with a clear strategy for an industry or occupation, other unions could block it by endless debates and delays before an unwieldy Executive Council that only meets twice a year. And at the Executive Council, votes are not cast on the basis of the union's membership strength, so workers' interests can take a back seat to internal federation politics. To avoid controversy, the AFL-CIO officers don't take the lead and put on the table what industries should have coordinating committees and how they should be structured. So a union could come forward and say it wanted an industry coordinating committee for one small part of an industry in one market, and the Executive Council could say yes for political reasons even if that kind of segmentation made no sense in terms of uniting workers to take on national employers in that industry. If by some miracle a union were actually found guilty of making deals with employers to lower pay and benefit standards, the penalty would essentially be that the lead union in that industry would have the right to try to undo the damage by raiding that unit -- over the combined opposition of the employer and the offending union. Kind of reminds me of the "please don't do it again" penalties for employers under the National Labor Relations Board. Under the current AFL-CIO leadership, there has been in place a strategic campaign registration program that allowed unions to ask for recognition of their lead union strategy in a core industry or occupation. This program has been a big failure. Why? Because there was no agreement on guiding principles to begin with, and unions were able to block others from pursuing industry strategies. The AFL-CIO officers refused to lead and to take a strong stand for a strategy that would build worker strength in each industry. The new proposals from the AFL-CIO officers have the same fundamental problem and would be equally ineffective. No deadline, no commitment to core jurisdictions, no workable oversight process, no meaningful penalties. Just a smokescreen intended to get them through the convention. The Change To Win unions have submitted a package of resolutions that would actually unite workers' strength in industries and occupations, with clear and effective procedures for implementation and enforcement. While the AFL-CIO officers use many of the same words, they have shown once again that they don't have the fire in the belly to fight for a strategy that would empower working people to change their lives.

Blog entry by Anna Burger, SEIU International Secretary-Treasurer What if they had an AFL-CIO national convention and didn't let the voice of the 13 million members be heard? Well, that's exactly what's about to happen. The national unions come to the convention to represent their members. But it turns out that only 43 percent of the delegates represent members from national unions. The other 57 percent are from central labor councils and state federations. The CLCs and state feds should certainly play an active role in the debate. But the members who pay the dues ought to be heard on the major decisions that affect their future. The AFL-CIO officers have been asked to commit to one member, one vote through roll call, per capita voting where each national union votes the number of members it has. But so far they have refused. Think about what's at stake, no matter what your views may be. Our movement's fundamental strategy. Its priorities. Its structure. Its finances. And, as a result of those decisions -- whether working people will have the strength to win a paycheck that supports a family, affordable health care, and a retirement with dignity. Maybe you agree with the Change To Win resolutions posted at ChangeToWin.org. Maybe you agree with the AFL-CIO officers.   But it seems that we should all be able to agree on one member, one vote democracy through roll call, per capita voting. What do you think?

Check out the detailed resolutions submitted by the Change To Win unions for consideration by the AFL-CIO national convention if you want to see how the union movement would be stronger if our coalition's vision were adopted. These specific resolutions spell out how the Change To Win principles would be implemented. They stand in stark contrast to the status-quo proposals of the AFL-CIO officers. They get beyond the wishing and hoping of the past 10 years and set up real structures, incentives, accountability, and remedies so that... Workers' strength would be united behind a unified strategy in each industry or occupation, including sectors where there are virtually no unions now. Uniting more workers with us would be the union movement's first priority. Unions could no longer make deals with employers to undercut pay and benefit standards won by members of other unions. Central labor councils, constituency groups, retiree organizations, and trade departments would be open to all appropriate unions, whether affiliated nationally with the AFL-CIO or not. Diversity would be assured at every level of the labor movement, including a streamlined AFL-CIO executive committee with real authority to develop strategy and make decisions. All unions would be held accountable to standards for organizing, bargaining, political action, and membership mobilization. In the past few months, the AFL-CIO officers have adopted nearly every phrase the Change To Win unions have used -- everything except the substance of what we propose. They've learned how to talk the talk, but then they've watered down every proposal to the point where it would not change the status quo or address the crisis working people face. Take a look at the specific resolutions and I think you'll see what I mean. Then post your comments here.

Another historic step toward rebuilding workers' strength and unity in America -- the 550,000-member Carpenters joined the Change To Win Coalition yesterday. Four years ago, the Carpenters disaffiliated from the national AFL-CIO over many of the same differences the Change To Win unions have with the AFL-CIO officers today. They had the courage to change themselves, but found themselves at odds with unions who refused to change. Despite those differences, the Carpenters continued to coordinate in areas where it made sense, including continuing to belong to the Building and Constructions Trades Department. With the Carpenters joining us, the Change To Win Coalition now includes nearly 6 million workers. Another 2.7 million workers belong to the National Education Association which is not part of the AFL-CIO, along with CNA, PSE, NTEU, and many other strong unions. This means that the unions supporting the AFL-CIO officers and the status quo represent less than half of organized workers in America. Our union intends to work cooperatively with all unions on common concerns, whether we are in or out of the federation. At the same time, it is clear that if the trend continues the AFL-CIO may soon be "a" voice for union members but no longer "the" voice. As many of you have said in comments over the past few months, the mere formation of Change To Win does not automatically solve all of our problems. What it does do is take historic steps to put working people in a position to fight and win again. Uniting millions more workers with us won't happen overnight. But the unity for change that continues to build creates real hope that we can rebuild workers' strength and restore the American Dream.