Is This the Reform of the Labor Movement Andy Stern Wants?

By DHinMI

A few months ago I posted a piece based on an interview of Service Employees International Union president Andy Stern conducted on behalf of Daily Kos.  Stern is among the leaders of an insurgency in the ranks of the AFL-CIO which includes, among others, the Teamsters.  They are agitating for a new way to emphasize organizing, and Stern in particular believes there's a great need to embrace new ideas, tactics and coalition partners.  In light of the latest statements by Teamsters president James Hoffa, I wonder if reforming the AFL-CIO includes plans to completely screw up Social Security?

Teamsters President James P. Hoffa, breaking his estrangement from the White House, praised President Bush on Tuesday for attempting to fix Social Security and said Democrats were wrong to oppose any discussion until Mr. Bush drops his personal retirement accounts plan.

Mr. Hoffa said preserving Social Security's long-term solvency and pension retirement reform were major concerns in his 1.4-million-member union and that he was willing to work with the administration and the Republican majority in Congress to come up with bipartisan solutions to both issues...

The once-cozy relations between the Teamsters union leader and the White House have been virtually nonexistent over the past couple of years, and Mr. Hoffa campaigned against Mr. Bush's re-election. But some White House advisers saw Mr. Hoffa's words of support for the president's efforts as a calculated move to show that the Teamsters are willing to work more closely with the administration and Republicans on issues of mutual interest.

"I think it's a huge olive branch to the White House and I hope the White House grabs it," said Derrick Max, executive director of a coalition that is lobbying for Mr. Bush's reform plan.

The White House did just that yesterday, saying, "We welcome his comments and hope that it's a sign of things to come.

"This is the latest influential voice on the Democratic side that has urged Democrats to come forth with a plan," White House spokesman Trent Duffy said.

Although he does not support Mr. Bush's proposal to let workers invest part of their payroll taxes in personal retirement accounts, Mr. Hoffa said, he disagreed with Democratic leaders who say they will not join any effort to work out a solution until the president abandons his personal account plans.

"He said that was not his position," Teamsters political director Mike Mathis told The Washington Times yesterday.

Stern's SEIU is the largest union in the AFL-CIO, and the leading force behind the "New Unity Partnership," which is pressuring the AFL-CIO unions and may try to build support to overthrow current AFL-CIO president John Sweeney.  Let's hope the NUP unions like the Teamsters keep their intramural conflict from spilling over into national politics in ways that allow the White House to claim that an "influential voice on the Democratic side" supports the President's desire to destroy Social Security. 

Comments

[Meteor Blades]

Is there no end to the damage the Teamsters cause for labor, the Democrats and, now, America's rank and file?

To decades of thuggery, thievery, corruption, mob ties and endorsement and funding for the campaigns of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, Hoffa Jr. now proposes to assist Dubyanocchio in wrecking perhaps the greatest legacy of the New Deal?

Given the history of quid pro quo between the GOP and the Teamsters, one can only ask what Jr. hopes to gain from this latest betrayal of working-class Americans. Is there some new scandal he doesn't want investigated? If so, he can surely count on Republicans to help with that, as they did for 20 years after the Nixon endorsement.

Makes one wish the Teamsters had never been pressured to rejoin the AFL-CIO.

[RonK, Seattle]

Teamsters have been embracing new coalition partners for generations.

Remember, kids, every time you embrace new coalition partners, you are embracing new coalition partners with everyone they've ever embraced new coalition partners with.

[janinsanfran]

Thanks for posting about Hoffa. I've just spent some time reading labor blogs -- why isn't everyone screaming about this?