Ohio’s working families approved a sweeping new plan that unites the grassroots power of the state’s union movement to build year-round organizing and political strength. More than 600 union activists from some 30 unions, the state’s three dozen central labor councils and the Ohio AFL-CIO voted April 8 to restructure the state’s unions into a New Alliance.Ohio’s working families approved a sweeping new plan that unites the grassroots power of the state’s union movement to build year-round organizing and political strength. More than 600 union activists from some 30 unions, the state’s three dozen central labor councils and the Ohio AFL-CIO voted April 8 to restructure the state’s unions into a New Alliance.
Under the reorganization plan, the Buckeye state’s central labor councils and affiliated local unions will combine their strength and harness their organizing and political efforts into six area labor federations. For instnace, the Cleveland AFL-CIO Federation of Labor will become part of the new North Shore Federation of Labor.
The New Alliance is “a major step forward in building a state and local union organization that can lift the voice of working families,” says AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson, who took part in the statewide conference that approved the changes.
Ohio AFL-CIO President Bill Burga says the New Alliance’s area labor federations will allow for “seamless strategic planning among all parties and make us as powerful and united as possible. The whole purpose is to make us stronger in organizing, politics and legislation.”
Each area labor federation will connect and steer year-round member mobilization and provide local, movement-wide support for local affiliate organizing campaigns and political action within their regions.
The key political battles this fall in Ohio are the U.S. Senate race and a ballot initiative to make a real increase in the state’s minimum wage.
The Senate battle includes incumbent Sen. Mike DeWine (R), whose AFL-CIO lifetime voting record in favor of working families is a dismal 19 percent and Rep. Sherrod Brown (D), who has a 97 percent pro-working families voting record.
Working family activists are mobilizing to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to raise the state’s minimum wage to $6.85 an hour. While the federal minimum wage has been stuck at $5.15 an hour since 1997, Ohio’s minimum wage had been a miserly $4.25 an hour.
Only recently, in an effort to head off the campaign to raise the state’s minimum pay level to $6.85, did the Republican-controlled legislature pass and Gov. Robert Taft (R) sign a bill bringing the state level up to $5.15 an hour.
John Ryan, executive secretary of the Cleveland AFL-CIO Federation of Labor, sees the New Alliance as providing the horsepower needed for statewide campaigns such as the minimum wage.
The New Alliance “will further help us as we approach important statewide elections and the minimum wage campaign,” Ryan writes in a blog post on the Cleveland labor federation website. Ryan will lead the new North Shore Federation of Labor.
Ohio joins Arizona, Colorado, the District of Columbia/Maryland, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Oregon and Pennsylvania as state union movements that have remade themselves into New Alliance organizations.
by Mike Hall
Under the reorganization plan, the Buckeye state’s central labor councils and affiliated local unions will combine their strength and harness their organizing and political efforts into six area labor federations. For instnace, the Cleveland AFL-CIO Federation of Labor will become part of the new North Shore Federation of Labor.
The New Alliance is “a major step forward in building a state and local union organization that can lift the voice of working families,” says AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson, who took part in the statewide conference that approved the changes.
Ohio AFL-CIO President Bill Burga says the New Alliance’s area labor federations will allow for “seamless strategic planning among all parties and make us as powerful and united as possible. The whole purpose is to make us stronger in organizing, politics and legislation.”
Each area labor federation will connect and steer year-round member mobilization and provide local, movement-wide support for local affiliate organizing campaigns and political action within their regions.
The key political battles this fall in Ohio are the U.S. Senate race and a ballot initiative to make a real increase in the state’s minimum wage.
The Senate battle includes incumbent Sen. Mike DeWine (R), whose AFL-CIO lifetime voting record in favor of working families is a dismal 19 percent and Rep. Sherrod Brown (D), who has a 97 percent pro-working families voting record.
Working family activists are mobilizing to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to raise the state’s minimum wage to $6.85 an hour. While the federal minimum wage has been stuck at $5.15 an hour since 1997, Ohio’s minimum wage had been a miserly $4.25 an hour.
Only recently, in an effort to head off the campaign to raise the state’s minimum pay level to $6.85, did the Republican-controlled legislature pass and Gov. Robert Taft (R) sign a bill bringing the state level up to $5.15 an hour.
John Ryan, executive secretary of the Cleveland AFL-CIO Federation of Labor, sees the New Alliance as providing the horsepower needed for statewide campaigns such as the minimum wage.
The New Alliance “will further help us as we approach important statewide elections and the minimum wage campaign,” Ryan writes in a blog post on the Cleveland labor federation website. Ryan will lead the new North Shore Federation of Labor.
Ohio joins Arizona, Colorado, the District of Columbia/Maryland, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Oregon and Pennsylvania as state union movements that have remade themselves into New Alliance organizations.
