05-04-06,9:09am

More than 125 state and local labor leaders have urged presidents of Change to Win unions to drop a plan that threatens to shred union movement unity in states and communities.

As we noted here, the Change to Win group of unions that have disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO told its local unions to stop paying per capita membership fees to AFL-CIO state and local labor councils. More than 1,100 locals of the disaffiliated unions have joined state and local labor councils through nearly 1,700 Solidarity Charters, which unite diverse unions in shared organizing, political, legislative and bargaining campaigns. Withholding per capita fees would severely compromise state and local union movements’ ability to fight for working families.

Working together under the Solidarity Charters partnerships “is the only way we can have the kind of unified coordinated and powerful voice for workers that our members and working families need this year,” the state and local labor leaders said in an open letter to the Change to Win presidents. Titled “Unity on the Ground,” the letter urges Change to Win to continue negotiating with the AFL-CIO on unresolved issues without “holding state feds and CLCs hostage financially.” It goes on:

At the local and state level, we have worked together, AFL-CIO and CtW locals, for years. We have walked each other’s picket lines, attended each other’s rallies and walked the same neighborhoods for pro-worker political candidates. We go to the same churches and temples, our kids are in the same sports leagues and schools. We are friends, co-workers and neighbors….

Our request is simple. Let us continue to fight together, for workers in our states, cities and towns, and to win elections in November. Let us live. Don’t walk away.

By Donna M. Jablonski, blog.aflcio.org