Why the 51-Member AFL-CIO Council
Does Very Little for Working Families

The AFL-CIO Executive Council, the top decision-making body of the labor federation, has remained a largely secretive group to the average union member, who has no idea of how the federation's top leadership functions. For one thing, the 51 members of the Council have been elected and re-elected four times since 1995 without opposition at AFL-CIO conventions, and without having to campaign or even utter a word about their qualifications for a Council vice-presidency. And at a time when organized labor was declining in numbers and bargaining power.

Council members remain virtually anonymous to union dues-payers. We do not know how most of them look or what they've done or said for working people. Council meetings are held behind closed doors, and whatever statements it issues are almost always unanimous. We are not informed about any differences of opinion or the views of a minority on any issue Policy differences, when they occur, are not advertised, in accordance with a "gentleman's agreement." If you really want to know what took place at the Council meeting, you can find out from the George Meany archives in Maryland - in 25 years.

Executive Council members rarely appear on talk shows and press conferences to defend unions and rebut the arguments of anti-labor critics, They have almost nothing to say on the AFL-CIO's web site (AFI-CIO Now). Many of them are fearful about speaking to a large public audience. Thus, right-wing commentators on radio and TV have a field day to bad-mouth unions.

Council Meeting Avoids Many Major Economic Problems

Union members, especially the hundreds of thousands who lost their homes and jobs, were probably eager to know what actions the Council took at its two-day meeting in behalf of working families. Since the Council did not release a summary of the meeting, the best they could do was to surf the AFL-CIO website for information.

The three topics about the two-day meeting, featured on the website, were:

(1) Obama, in a video speech to the Council, is counting on the union vote.

(2) "Executive Council Welcomes 3 New Members; Honors 4 Retiring Members."

(3) "AFL-CIO Emphasizes Education for a 21st Century Workforce," featuring a new education and training initiative by the American Federation of Teachers and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers."

However, if you clicked on a link on the website, you could see a list of 15 policy statements adopted by the Council at its two-day meeting. The statements, which include "Corporate Greed and Retirement Security," "Labor Departments Secret OSHA Rule" and "The State and Local Fiscal Crisis" were written by AFL-CIO staff people in advance of the meeting. They are each a page or more of single-spaced text. It is highly doubtful if many of the Council members read the text before giving their approval. The Council also listed, without comment, some 20 additional policy statements that it had approved at its March meeting,

How Council Members Get Re-elected Without Opposition

An outrageously undemocratic provision in the AFL-CIO Constitution virtually guarantees that a bloc of presidents of large international unions automatically win seats on the Executive Council. Under Article IV, Section 4, each international union can cast the number of convention votes equal to its entire membership, while each state federation and central labor council is entitled to only one vote, no matter how large it is.

Here is an example of how it worked out in practice at the AFL-CIO's 2005 convention. State Feds and CLCs had a combined total of 475 convention votes, while the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) had 1,300,873 votes and was entitled to 26 delegates. Even a small union like the Asbestos Workers had 18,311 votes, nearly four times the combined total of state federations and central labor councils.

Unless this absurd provision is eliminated from the Constitution and replaced by one that states each delegate can have one - and only one - vote, there will never be a free election for the AFL-CIO's top national leadership. The Executive Council will remain a self-perpetuating, self-serving group.

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