Big Labor Crackup A Big Deal Or A Wash?

The jury on this question appears to be hung.

Arguing for the first option is Robert Novak:

The bolt in Chicago Monday from the AFL-CIO by the Teamsters and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) reflects a long-building reaction to John Sweeney's plans a decade ago when he muscled his way into the labor federation presidency. He wanted to restore union power through politics. His project was a total failure, and the AFL-CIO is in ruins 50 years after its creation.

The scenario of the breakup was accurately laid out to me by Teamsters sources nearly a year ago. Sweeney would be offered a deal he could not accept. To keep the two big unions in the federation, Sweeney would have had to agree to a six-month tenure as president and a sharp reduction in the share of union dues to the AFL-CIO. The $10 million a year each saved by the Teamsters and the SEIU means money that has gone into Democratic coffers will be used for organizing.

That's why Democratic strategists wring their hands, fearful that the financial drought caused by the events in Chicago will undermine the party in the 2006 midterm elections. But James P. Hoffa of the Teamsters and Andrew Stern of the SEIU have rejected organized labor's political illusion. They may not know how to cure what ails the nation's unions, but they cannot buy Sweeney's notion that salvation lies in electing Democratic politicians.

Mark Steyn said something similar today on Hugh Hewitt's radio program, to the effect that Big Labor was the Dems' last connection to the "average American voter," and without that party pillar all that's left is the kooks, of various stripes, that populate the far left fringe.

And besides, it's not as if Sweeney's "salvation" ever produced concrete results in a decade of trying. With union membership on a thirty-year wane, he was in essence seeking an ever-larger cut of an ever-shrinking pie.

However, writes Ivan G. Osorio in the American Spectator, the Hoffa/Stern "notion" of rebuilding rank & file union membership will be no panacea for the Right, and will be arguably better for the Democrats in the long term - to the extent that it actually changes the old Sweeney tactics at all:

The AFL-CIO's loss of two large unions this week hit Democrats and the labor federation hard. But this move by the Teamsters and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) may not hurt Democrats as much as they fear. And large employers are unlikely to get a reprieve from union attacks....

[D]oes anyone seriously expect any of the dissident unions to stop politicking for Democrats? And the union split is unlikely to get employers any reprieve from aggressive union tactics, which, in some cases, might get worse. Hoffa and Stern's claim that Sweeney has neglected organizing sounds innocuous enough: Unions' main mission should be to represent their members and seek to attract new ones, not canvass for politicians. But the Teamsters' and SEIU's tactics are not intended so much to attract workers but to beat employers into submission.

I don't know how much this new dynamic duo can turn back the clock on reunionizing the American workforce. Perhaps they can finally arrest the slide that is knocking on the door of sinking into the single-digits percentage-wise, but the glory days of a third or more of all American paycheck-earners seeing union dues as an after-tax deduction on their pay stubs lie right along side the dinosaurs on the extinction list.

Which means that however much emphasis Hoffa and Stein give to politicking versus organizing, they'll still be operating from a position of weakness for the foreseeable future.

My only dilemma is whether to use deck-chair shuffling or Celine Dion as my Titanic metaphor....