Columnist Jeff German: Labor rift testing unity of Nevada’s unions

Friday, July 29, 2005 | 11:27 a.m.

Jeff German's column appears Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays in the Sun. Reach him at german@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4067.

WEEKEND EDITION

July 30-31, 2005

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney is playing hardball with the unions that bolted from the ranks of the national labor federation last week.

And it's forcing Nevada labor leaders to scramble to stay united.

Danny Thompson, executive director of the Nevada AFL-CIO, says union leaders here already have a name -- Nevada Federation of Labor (NFL) -- for a second organization that is expected to be created to hold the labor movement together here.

Thompson plans to play a key role in both organizations.

Nothing, however, is etched in stone because of the fluid nature of the growing national labor rift.

Nevada labor leaders are meeting Monday to discuss labor's future here in the wake of an edict that came down from the just-re-elected Sweeney.

In a three-page memo last Thursday, Sweeney told local and state labor federations that disaffiliated unions can't belong to their organizations.

The memo was aimed at the dissident Change to Win Coalition, a group of seven unions at odds with Sweeney over the future direction of the labor movement. These unions believe in dramatically stepping up organizing efforts to bring back labor's declining numbers.

Two of the coalition's largest members, the Teamsters and the Service Employees International Union, left the AFL-CIO last Monday. They were followed Friday by the United Food and Commercial Workers.

The other coalition unions -- UNITE HERE, Laborers, Carpenters and United Farm Workers -- are still in the AFL-CIO. But UNITE HERE, which includes the influential local Culinary Union, has threatened to leave the federation.

Thompson says the Nevada Federation of Labor, which he expects would work hand-in-hand with the state AFL-CIO, would include the Change to Win members and any other labor group that wants to join.

Jane McAlevey, executive director of the local SEIU, downplays the organizational upheaval.

"The commitment to workers supporting workers transcends organizational form," she says. "In Nevada we're all committed to helping each other."

Thompson echoed those words all last week, as labor nationally split apart.

But Nevada's labor movement still has a long way to go before it can truly say that it is united.

Despite the calming words of its leaders, the movement looks in disarray.

The departure of the United Food and Commercial Workers has additional ramifications for labor in the state.

UFCW President Roberta West recently was appointed president of the Nevada AFL-CIO's 15-member executive board.

She says she now plans to step down and focus her attention on securing a leadership position in the Nevada Federation of Labor.

For Thompson, the breakup has been frustrating.

"I have no control over what happens in Washington," he says. "But we are determined to stay a cohesive group in Nevada."

That will be complicated further, however, if UNITE HERE, a political force in Nevada with 50,000 members, pulls out of the national AFL-CIO.

So far, UNITE HERE officials have been in no rush to make a decision.

But they may have to make one soon -- if for no other reason than to bring some clarity to the unsettling labor scene in Nevada.

archive