AFL-CIO adopts major new approach to labor organizing

In a big change from past decades, the AFL-CIO has formally adopted an approach to labor organizing that the Progressive Review recommended as far back as 1995: organizing non-union as well as union workers. An early Review piece on this topic follows this story:
 
AFL-CIO - Today, in a culmination of months of listening sessions and reflection, the AFL-CIO announced that any U.S. worker can join the labor movement and that the labor federation will develop several new pathways for workers to join the labor movement, either through affiliate unions, AFL-CIO's community affiliate Working America, worker centers or as students.

To start growing the labor movement again, delegates at the AFL-CIO Convention passed a resolution calling for a more broad and inclusive labor movement that is not confined within bargaining units that are not defined by workers themselves and limited by unscrupulous employers. The AFL-CIO is going to expand existing forms of participation in the labor movement and create new forms of membership that are available to any workers not already covered by a collective bargaining agreement or who are not members of unions or represented by unions.

The AFL-CIO is inviting workers to join the labor movement by joining one of the federation's affiliates or through Working America. AFL-CIO will work together with the affiliates and Working America to develop new forms of workplace representation and advocacy that help members outside of collective bargaining units, seek to extend non-collectively bargained benefits to those members, educate and train new members and mobilize new members in electoral and political efforts.

The second major avenue for expanding the labor movement is for the AFL-CIO to expand its associations with worker centers, particularly in ways that don't undermine other unions and collective bargaining agreements. The federation also will work to find opportunities for worker center members to become union members.

Finally, in recognizing that students are not only the future of much of the workforce, they also have vital interests in making sure that workplaces are fair and just, the AFL-CIO is going to authorize Working America to create a student membership, expand their work with campus-based student organizations, advocate for issues of importance to students and work to make sure that student workers have the ability to exercise their right to organize and collectively bargaining.

 Progressive Review, 1995 - There are actually things we can do to moderate the ill-effects of these megasystems. We could, for example, regenerate the spirit of populism, the one native American movement that understood and challenged the industrial revolution's assault on freedom. We could, for example, start treating our largest corporations more like public utilities, demanding, as we did once, that they function in the public interest, convenience and necessity. We could press for real anti-trust enforcement, for public members on the boards of large companies and elected corporate regulatory commissions. We could create an American Association of Working People -- modeled more on the AARP than on the AFL-CIO -- to organize the masses of non-unionized employees of America into an effective political lobby. We could create state and city banks, countering the redlining of America's financial institutions by providing loans to excluded home-buyers and small businesses. And we could encourage as public policy the growth of cooperatives and community or worker owned companies. In short, we could finally recognize that much of today's political struggle is not between conservatives and liberals, but between corporatism and democracy.