LOS ANGELES, June 16 (UPI) -- Leaders of five big unions representing about a third of U.S. union members created an alliance to challenge the AFL-CIO's policies, and perhaps break away.
Four of the alliance's five leaders have openly talked of leaving the 57-union AFL-CIO, which they accuse of being stodgy and defeatist, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.
Known as the Change to Win Coalition, the alliance's members are United Here, a garment and hotel workers union, the Service Employees International Union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers and the Laborers' International Union of North America.
The Change to Win Coalition, which represents 5 million workers or some 35 percent of the AFL-CIO, will ask delegates at next month's Chicago convention to approve their principles and revise the AFL-CIO constitution in ways that would force all affiliated unions to meet organizing standards.
Big AFL-CIO members opposing the Change to Win Coalition include the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the United Auto Workers.
