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Change to Win Federation (CTW)

UDR Story

  • Carpenter groups in NY and NJ split from UBC
  • Vindicating Clyde Summers, Unions and scholars petition NLRB: Make employers recognize non-majority unions

    Back in 2007 seven major AFL-CIO unions, including the Steel Workers and Auto Workers, petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to adopt a regulation that would require employers to recognize and bargain with unions, only on behalf of their members, in cases where a majority of the workers had not voted for union recognition. The petition was endorsed by Change to Win in 2008 when it still represented six influential unions. In June this year, 46 law professors around the country submitted a 60-page amicus brief in support of the union petition.

  • Just in time. Andy Stern retires from SEIU

    Andy Stern's retirement as SEIU president took everyone by surprise. He is only 59 and voluntarily stepped out at the height of his power inside the union. Why? It was a rare initiative among top leaders who usually try to hold on until they are tottering on canes. If he said that he yearned to spend more time with his loving family, who would believe him? But he explained that he always felt that leaders should quit early to make room for the younger generation. Believable, even admirable --- except for one element that may not ring quite true:

  • SEIU raw power is replacing falling moral authority

    How things have changed for Andy Stern in five years!

  • New stage in super bureaucratization of labor

    Four locals in California, with a combined membership of 40,000 janitorial service workers, were ordered by SEIU President Andy Stern to join together in a new district council called United Service Workers-West. Here is something drastically new in the SEIU. Unlike the various mega locals created earlier by Stern by dissolving several locals into one, these four locals each retain a separate existence, but only as desiccated shells deprived of substance.

  • SHORTS: photocopying hiring hall records, longshore reform victory, peace pipe for SEIU and CNA? and more.

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    Some stories we publish in Union Democracy Review are too short for a feature, but too important to leave out. Each issue we publish these "shorts." This issue's collection give a sense of how valuable these pieces can be.
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  • Four state nurses associations quit AFL-CIO union

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    In December, nurses associations in four states, New York, Ohio, Oregon, and Washington, withdrew from the United American Nurses, the national AFL-CIO union of registered nurses.

  • Black and white can unite vs. construction discrimination

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    The following was stimulated by an interesting article on black labor in the fall issue of Democratic Left:

  • Fifty-two playing cards = fearsome "Local 52"

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    To appreciate this story, remember that 52 cards make a deck (except for pinochle's 48.) From that obscure fact arises an imaginary Local 52...

    A group of members of the International Chemical Workers Union at the Colgate-Palmolive plant in Jeffersonville, IN, writes that, "Unhappy with our Local's officers..., Over the years, we have banded together informally to lobby for reform." They are represented by Local 15C.

FAQ Legal Rights

  • How can we change unions?

    A: We get asked this question a lot. People who are dissatisfied with their union, who see that their leadership is unaccountable, who only get stonewalled when they complain or make suggestions, often come to the conclusion that they need to "get a better union." This is a rational desire -- why not change unions until you find one that works for you? -- but it is usually not a practical solution. In fact, trying to get out of your union and into a new one may make it harder to end up with a good union.

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