It just goes to show you that political parties can matter some, but they are not the end all be all. Even within one party there are factions. I learned this from watching local politics in my hometown of Greenburgh, NY where there was one party that dominated everything. It got so bad that the one party basically split in two.

So now we have the “Democratic” DC Councilmember in Jim Graham doing something very undemocratic.

A bill criminalizing gatherings of more than two people in D.C. is drawing outrage and opposition from community and labor activists, as well as civil rights advocates. "This is a clear and blatant violation of the Constitutionally-guaranteed right of the American people to assemble," said Washington D.C. Metro Council AFL-CIO President Jos Williams. "That it’s been introduced in the nation’s capitol is a travesty of justice and common sense," Williams added.

I think Jim Graham and whoever probably guided him to introduce this legislation has been watching too much of the Bloomberg NYC government in action.

Update: It appears the bill has been withdrawn. I don’t know why this was even a bill in the first place.

Back in 2005, there was a very strong difference of opinion on what unions should be doing in the present that led to the split of the AFL-CIO. One group led by SEIU and the Teamsters wanted to focus more on union organizing and growing membership. The other side led by John Sweeney at the AFL-CIO were said to want to continue pursuing the political side. While that is a very simplistic summary I’ve just given I think it recalls the basic cause of the fissure. However, there are journalists like Phil Dine who feel that the split wasn’t necessecary, as if the AFL-CIO really couldn’t do both.

Now it appears that Change to Win and the AFL-CIO want to mend things:

To bring about reunification, several labor leaders have called for revamping and modernizing the A.F.L.-C.I.O., traditionally the nation’s main federation, currently with 56 member unions. But several labor leaders have called for replacing the A.F.L.-C.I.O. with a new, more dynamic group.

There was general agreement that any future federation should focus on political and legislative matters, while also serving to encourage individual unions to do more to organize workers.

The leaders of several breakaway unions have called for changing the name of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. because they had vowed never to return to the same federation.

Do they really have to change the name? Well, maybe it might be a good thing to signal a new direction possibly. It is also interesting to see that the NEA is getting involved with this reunificaiton attempt.

I just saw this in my inbox and thought it was worth getting out there. After all this is the president of the AFL-CIO adressing a major political convention.

John J. Sweeney
President, AFL-CIO
Remarks to the Democratic National Convention
Denver, Colorado
August 26, 2008

All over America, children like Marcus Lewis are riding their bikes, starting sixth grade and dreaming of breaking Olympic records-or just finding a good job and raising a family. But unless we turn our country around, they’re not going to make it, not even into the middle class.

Marcus’s mom, Annette, is a single mother who worked hard to get her children where they are today. She works full time and is struggling to send her 18-year-old daughter to college. But after the rent and the bills, there’s hardly enough left over for food.

Dan Luevano is an electrician who worked for a construction company for 10 years, six of them without a raise. When he told his boss he’d be voting for a union so he could bargain for a better life, he was fired.

Steve Skvara is a retired steelworker who learned about unfair trade the hard way-when the giant company where he’d worked went bankrupt, cut his pension by a third, and eliminated his family’s health care.

These are good people, strong people. They work hard and believe in their country, their faith and the future. They can’t afford four more years like the last eight. They need change, and that’s why they all support Barack Obama for President of the United States.

They deserve a better America-an America where every worker can count on a good job, where every family has health care, where every senior enjoys a decent retirement.

They deserve an America that works for everyone, where all workers have a free choice to join unions, to collectively bargain, to lift up their communities and our economy and build a better life for their children.

Whatever happened to the promise of a better America? What happened was that the Bush administration-with the support of Senator McCain-broke that promise, undermined our values and turned our economy into a threshing machine for big business.

Brothers and sisters, this is our chance to create much-needed change for young people like Marcus and rebuild this country we love. We can create the better America that Annette, Steve and Dan-and all of us-deserve. A country whose heart is as big as the hearts of its people. A country that lifts up our families here at home and lights up the world with our vision and values.

On behalf of America’s unions, with 28 million voters in union households, we will win for Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and we will create a better America. Thank you and God bless America.

Technorati : John Sweeny, afl-cio

Steven Greenhouse–who by the way has written an excellent book–writes in the NY Times that the two labor federations are working together for the upcoming election in 2008. Actually I don’t think this is the first time they’ve done this. I think they might have done this for the 2006 mid-term elections as well.

Mr. Cohen said there had been initial discussions about what might be done to bring back some of the breakaway unions, but he said the overwhelming focus for the next 15 weeks would be on the political campaign. After Election Day, he and several other union presidents said, talks might pick up on patching up differences between some Change to Win unions and the A.F.L.-C.I.O.

The question is after the election is over, could we realistically see CTW folding back into the AFL-CIO?

Technorati : afl-cio, change to win, steven greenhouse