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Labor looks to new leader, new blood
BY SAM HANANEL The Associated Press

    WASHINGTON — John Sweeney spent the past 14 years building the AFL-CIO into a political powerhouse for worker’s rights and other progressive Democratic causes.
    Yet over the same time, the ranks of union members continued to shrink, diminishing organized labor’s clout in the workplace. Frustration with Sweeney’s tenure and the dip in membership led seven unions to split from the AFL-CIO four years ago to form the rival Change to Win federation.
    As Sweeney, 75, prepares to step down next week as AFL-CIO president, his successor and longtime deputy — Richard Trumka — wants to aggressively recruit younger workers and boost membership as a means of expanding labor’s political influence.
    Trumka, 60, officially takes the helm of the AFL-CIO at its quadrennial convention, which opens Sunday in Pittsburgh. On Tuesday, President Barack Obama addresses the nation’s largest labor federation, which represents about 11 million workers in 56 unions.
    By many accounts, Sweeney transformed a moribund labor movement in the mid-1990s by firmly aligning the AFL-CIO with the Democratic left. The son of working class Irish immigrants from the Bronx repositioned the AFL-CIO as a champion of social Democratic causes by forging alliances with civil rights leaders, women’s groups, environmental and anti-poverty groups.
    Besides giving the federation more political heft, he mobilized rank-and-file union members to boost political activism, beef up voter registration drives and expand get-out-the-vote efforts. Sweeney also started Working America, an AFL-CIO affiliate for people who don’t have a union at work, that now boasts 3 million members. ...................>>>>.............................>>>>....................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00500&AppName=1

If the union membership keeps dropping because the union bosses insist on following their progressive Democratic causes maybe it's time for a change in the direction that the unions headed. Unions were formed to help union members get fair wages and benefits not become one of the biggest lobbyist groups in the nation where the leaders of the union get rich and the workers get to pay higher dues so the union bosses can contribute large amounts of money to political parties.  

With the WORLD WIDE WEB/TWITTER/BLOGGING/CELL PHONES.....no one needs a boss to speak for them anymore.....