Split to Win?: Assessing the State of the Labor Movement

More than A decade ago, John Sweeney ousted Lane Kirkland and promised to revitalize the labor movement. He put a greater emphasis on organizing and more militant action on behalf of America's working families. Sweeney and his team brought many positive changes to the AFL-CIO—a willingness to reach out to students and the broader progressive community, a new approach to the international economy free of cold war concerns, a robust political program—yet labor's decline continued. Last year, seven unions with a combined membership of six million workers left the AFL-CIO to form a new labor federation called Change To Win (CTW). The unions in CTW argue that the AFL-CIO as currently structured, a loose federation of independent unions, each responsible for organizing in its own jurisdiction, is incapable of addressing the crisis of American labor. Modeled, in part, on the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), the new federation promises a single-minded focus on organizing. It plans to mount large-scale, multi-union organizing campaigns focused on jobs—such as retail, building services, hospitality, health care, food service—that cannot be outsourced. Labor's revitalization remains a prerequisite for a progressive politics. Its steady decline has led to lower living standards for millions of workers, a frightening growth in inequality, a weakening of liberalism. We have asked some close observers of the labor movement to evaluate these recent developments. Does Change to Win represent a new approach to dealing with labor's crisis? Was the split necessary? Is the labor movement weakened by the split? What will be the political impact of the split?