By Jesse Russell

When seven unions came together last year to form the Change to Win labor federation, some of them breaking off from the AFL-CIO, headlines and critics hailed it as an end to the labor movement. Greg Tarpinian is Executive Director of Change to Win, he says the federation has made great strides in the past year by working together from both end of the supply chain. He gave examples of organizing janitors in Houston and Miami, taking on printing company Quebecor World, and strengthening a union presence at the ports. Right now the member unions are working with UNITE-Here in a major national hotel contract battle:

[Tarpinian]: For example in support of the Hotel Workers Rising campaign been able to reach because of the working together of all of our affiliates, have been able to reach workers at every facility of major hotel targets across the country.

Tarpinian said that while great strides have been made in the past 10 months since the organization officially formed, there is still much work to be done on the ultimate goal:

[Tarpinian2]: We have not fundamentally changed the equation between workers and employers in society and that’s our long term strategic objective. And we are very, very focused - like a laser beam - on the question of organizing people in the workplace.