If I went to work in a factory the first thing I would do is join a union.  - Franklin D. Roosevelt

One Dellegate, One Vote!

July 23, 2010

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Will Each Executive Council Member Vote for Honest AFL-CIO Elections?

By Harry Kelber

When the AFL-CIO Executive Council meets in Washington on August 4-5, it will have an opportunity to rectify a disgraceful situation that deprives  union members of honest elections, including the right to run as a candidate for a national, policy-making position.

It is an incredible fact worth endless repeating that, for the past 124 years, since the founding of the American Federation of Labor, no officer or member of any affiliated state federation or central labor council  has ever been elected to the AFL-CIO’s highest body, its Executive Council. In all those 124 years, less than a handful of opposition candidates have dared to run for Executive Council seats, only to face a crushing defeat from entrenched incumbents.

The complete dominance of international union presidents on the Council is based on Article IV of the AFL-CIO Constitution, that gives international unions as many convention votes as the number of its total membership, while affiliated state and local bodies are limited to one vote each.

If you add all the votes of the state feds and CLCs together, the most they can total is 700 convention votes, while a big union like the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is entitled to one million convention votes.  The one-vote delegates are little more than wall flowers at conventions. In effect, millions of AFL-CIO dues payers are deprived of proper representation at conventions.

Executive Council members have a triple obligation to revise the undemocratic convention rules: (1) the rules are morally indefensible in a democratic organization; (2) Executive Council members benefit by the unfair rules, that guarantee their re-election, and (3) they are depriving the AFL-CIO from developing new leadership.

We cannot afford to freeze the AFL-CIO leadership to middle-aged and elderly, mostly white males, who have not much to show for their many years in office. We need to open up the election process to ensure every candidate fair treatment in an honest election.

 ‘One Delegate, One Vote’ Is a Logical Solution

The fairest response to the current imbalance in convention voting strength is to adopt a democratic solution,  “One Delegate, One vote.”  As we’ve pointed out, it is the voting system used in Congress, the Canadian Labor Congress and every properly-run  organization. It ensures that international union officers won’t monopolize the decisions of the Executive Council. And union members will feel more confident that they can participate in honest elections.

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We know there are many Council members who  privately disapprove of undemocratic policies and practices.  But none of them  over the years has ever spoken publicly against a convention voting  system that is not only corrupt, but also guaranties their own  re-election. And by their silence, they have frozen the future leadership of the AFL-CIO and harmed its chances to grow and become stronger.

For these reasons, we think each Executive Council member  should publicly assure union members that they  are in favor of honest elections under a “One Delegate, One Vote” system.-Harry Kelber