Anna Burger to Head Breakaway Labor Group

Today, white men are no longer a majority, except among union presidents. Labor itself has become a bastion of the Democratic left, opposed to the Iraq war, in support of women's and gay rights, and a key backer of diversity programs and affirmative action.

"It's quite a transformation," Burger said in an interview last week. She is part of a new generation of leaders who cut their teeth in the civil rights and antiwar movements and have replaced the George Meany-Lane Kirkland old guard.

The formation of the Change to Win Coalition, and the selection of Burger to be its first chair, place in stark relief at least two basic challenges facing organized labor.

The first is whether labor can reverse its 50-year slide as a social and political force by attempting to become the voice for the nation's lowest-paid workers, many living on the margins of society.

SEIU has been highly successful organizing such tough-to-mobilize groups as home health care and child care workers, building service workers and private security workers, all heavily female and minority. The jury remains out, however, on whether such unions as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the United Food and Commercial Workers can take advantage of the SEIU's innovative organizing techniques.

The second challenge facing the coalition lies in the ability of unions still dominated at the top bywhite men to mobilize minorities and women. The presidents of the seven unions in the Change to Win Coalition are men, and only one, United Farm Workers President Arturo S. Rodriguez, is a minority.

Initially, the fracturing of the AFL-CIO in July and the creation of the coalition appeared likely to set off competition for members between unions in the two federations, but in recent weeks, there has been growing evidence of both cooperation and of more intense organizing on both sides.

Union leaders in California said the AFL-CIO's county and state federations are defying pressure from Sweeney to restrict the role of disaffiliated unions. Instead, facing a referendum calling for restrictions on the political use of union dues, all labor groups are working together in the state.

A fight between SEIU and AFL-CIO's AFSCME over organizing home health care and child care workers has been settled with an agreement to create a new joint union to organize these workers earlier this month in California and Pennsylvania.