More Perfect Unions?

Big labor’s split causes confusion, opportunity for charities

The labor movement is in the midst of a divorce, and the effects of the breakup are likely to be felt in many parts of the nonprofit world as unions encourage charity workers to join their ranks.

In July, three of the nation’s largest labor unions — including the fast-growing Service Employees International Union — split from the AFL-CIO. Observers predict a total of seven unions will leave the AFL-CIO, taking with them more than 40 percent of the federation’s 13 million members.

The Change to Win Coalition, the breakaway faction led by the service workers’ union, says it wants millions of employees to join unions in coming years. Among the first targets: employees at nonprofit hospitals and home-care workers, who are often employed by small charities.

In the short term, say observers, the split is sowing uncertainty among nonprofit workers and management. Charities whose employees are already unionized could be affected as rival labor unions look to convince workers to switch from one union to another. The defections from the AFL-CIO could also create big headaches for charities that work with labor unions on a wide range of economic-justice issues, and for those that depend upon their philanthropic dollars.

Recruiting Workers

For a glimpse of what a divided labor movement could mean for charities, one need look no further than California. There, the western division of United Healthcare Workers, part of the service employees’ union, has an ambitious plan to unite all of that state’s health-care workers into a single union by the year 2010, something the union believes will not only benefit the members, but will give them the political power necessary to improve the lives of all workers. The union’s 140,000 members already work in every part of the state’s health-care system, including its nonprofit hospitals.

The bold agenda gets to the very heart of the split in the labor movement. The Change to Win Coalition says that it is better for a small number of unions to dominate in a particular segment of the economy, such as health care, instead of the AFL-CIO model of many unions gathered into a loose federation.

The breakaway unions plan to put a strong emphasis on recruiting new members. “When it comes to organizing health-care workers, the split is good,” says Sal Roselli, president of United Healthcare Workers. “The coalition is going to focus on what the AFL should be doing.”

Bruce Fisher, executive director of the unionized Huckleberry Youth Programs, a San Francisco charity that provides crisis services to troubled youths, says he can’t predict how the split will play out among California nonprofit groups, but he does know that efforts to organize nonprofit employees have not always gone over well with nonprofit managers.

“We have seen some major organizing drives in San Francisco in the last five years,” he says. “In some instances, management did resist the efforts to unionize, and the methodology used by unions created bad feelings.”

As a result of this antagonism, he says, some unions approached local charities, including his, and established relationships with them as a way of mending fences. He hopes these collaborations will continue in the post-split era.

If the split in the labor movement triggers an increase in union-organizing efforts at charities — particularly in health care — it could result in a confusing landscape for nonprofit employees and their employers. While the Change to Win Coalition may be advocating for single-industry labor unions, the immediate future is likely to be chaotic, with multiple unions competing to organize the same groups of workers, say labor experts.

Stephanie Luce, an associate professor of labor studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, says that’s precisely what’s taking place in California, where the service workers’ union and the California Nurses Association have been battling over the same group of health-care employees.

“Workers had organizers from the two different unions come to their door and argue why the other union wasn’t a real union, or didn’t have their best interests at heart,” says Ms. Luce. “It gets very confusing.”

Such competition, she says, doesn’t necessarily bode well for management hoping to deflect union-organizing efforts.

“That’s the open question,” says Ms. Luce. “It could mean that management wins, but it could also mean that workers win. It all depends on the ethics of the unions involved. Will they use shady tactics? We don’t know what union competition will lead to. It could lead to union growth and power, as it did in the 1930s, or it could lead to chaos.”

‘This Is Brand New’

The AFL-CIO split may have played a role in efforts this August to organize 150 van drivers employed by the nonprofit Greater Lynn Senior Services, in Lynn, Mass. Workers “were told that it would be a mistake to join the Teamsters because we’re no longer part of the AFL-CIO,” says Edward A. King, an organizer for Local 42 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

He surmises that management may have hoped to convince the van drivers that the Teamsters, having left the AFL-CIO, would be too weak to win the workers many benefits.

For their part, managers at the charity chalk up the employee complaints to a misunderstanding. “This is the first experience that we’ve had with a union of any kind,” says Cathy Darby, the organization’s human-resources director. “This is brand new to us.”

While the drivers voted to join the union by the narrowest of margins, Mr. King says that the employer’s warning had an impact.

“We heard from people who were concerned. They wanted to know what was going on and we explained what was happening. Most of them didn’t know what the AFL-CIO was,” he says. “They voted to come with us because it gives them some hope for the future.”

Reduced Giving

The breakup of the labor movement is already having an impact on the AFL-CIO’s own philanthropy. As the split began to unfold in July, Interfaith Worker Justice, a Chicago charity, was in the midst of Seminary Summer, an annual program the group co-sponsors with the AFL-CIO that places future priests, rabbis, and imams with labor unions in order to teach them about organizing and labor rights.

But the new divisions within the labor movement could soon result in the division of the program, says Kim Bobo, the charity’s executive director.

“Over half of our students were placed with unions that have split off from the AFL-CIO,” says Ms. Bobo. “We made it through this year, but next year the AFL-CIO isn’t going to pay for students to go to unions that aren’t part of the federation.”

In addition to looming financial worries, Interfaith Worker Justice, which also runs a program called Labor in the Pulpit with the help of the AFL-CIO, has another problem on its hands.

To carry out its work, Interfaith Worker Justice’s 60 chapters nationwide rely on state labor federations and central labor councils that conduct much of the AFL-CIO’s day-to-day business. But with the fate of these structures now in doubt, Ms. Bobo notes, Interfaith Worker Justice is pondering how it can function in the post-split era.

“It’s really important for us to continue to work with all of the different unions and with the AFL-CIO,” says Ms. Bobo. “It’s going to be really hard and it may mean that we set up a structure to work with the unions that aren’t in the AFL-CIO any more. This is a whole new world and the transitions are going to be extremely challenging.”

During the past decade, the AFL-CIO has sought to reach beyond the members of labor unions, advocating policies it believed would help all workers.

To that end, the federation created several national nonprofit organizations. Among these organizations: the Alliance for Retired Americans; the American Center for International Labor Solidarity, which works on behalf of union members in other countries; and the AFL-CIO Working for America Institute, which advocates job creation. With the AFL-CIO split leading to deep budget cuts, all of these charitable organizations now face an uncertain future.

Nancy Mills, executive director of the Working for America Institute, in Washington, estimates that her organization receives approximately $200,000 from the AFL-CIO, including noncash donations. But, she adds, the federation’s new financial straits may put future gifts in jeopardy.

“When you consider what a reduced income stream the AFL is going to have, their ability to support the [charities] is obviously up in the air,” says Ms. Mills. She notes that the Working for America Institute already relies on government money and foundation support for most of its $2.5-million budget.

But Ms. Mills is also worried that the fracture in the labor movement could imperil her organization’s mission.

At present, the Working for America Institute collaborates with unions on both sides of the split: developing economic-development programs on behalf of the manufacturing unions that remain in the AFL-CIO and helping service workers who are not fluent in English — like many of those represented by the breakaway service workers’ union — learn job skills.

That could all change, notes Ms. Mills, if relations between the two sides of the schism further deteriorate, jeopardizing the access to a network of unions, workers, and their employers upon which the institute’s work depends.

Alliances at Stake

But the breakup of the labor movement will affect more than just the charities that work with state labor federations and central labor councils. In recent years, in an effort to increase membership and influence public policy, labor unions have increasingly reached out to nonprofit organizations that focus on issues related to economic justice: living wages, immigration, health care, and trade policy. Now, however, any nonprofit group that works with more than one union is likely to feel the effects of a divided movement.

Henry Allen, the senior program officer at the Hyams Foundation, in Boston, and a founding member of the Working Group on Labor and Community, a network of grant makers that encourages labor unions and charities to work together, worries that such divisions could discourage grant makers from supporting partnerships between unions and community groups at a time when such efforts had seemed to be gaining ground.

“Funders are asking questions,” he says. “They want to know if the split is going to have an impact on the ability of groups that work with labor unions to follow through on their agendas. That’s an important issue for a philanthropy that’s considering making a commitment.”

Meanwhile, at least one labor leader is encouraging nonprofit organizations to show patience in their dealings with labor unions during this period of transition.

“If you’re a nonprofit that has had labor unions as a partner, give them a bit of breathing room,” says Leslie Moody, president of the Denver Area Labor Federation and chair of the board of the Front Range Economic Strategy Center, a charity that unites Colorado labor unions and community groups to advocate local development strategies. “Some of the unions on both sides of the split may not be as strong community partners right now because of these internal issues.”

She also encourages charities to have a bit of perspective: “The progressive community certainly knows what infighting looks like.”