AFL-CIO's Sweeney kicks off worldwide labor mobilization

WASHINGTON (AP) The AFL-CIO is organizing rallies around the country and overseas this week to try to energize a labor movement that has been losing membership for years.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said Monday that American workers have lost their right to organize – pointing to lost manufacturing jobs, and companies' increased hostility to unions.

“The ability to form unions is the key to this nation's middle class,” Sweeney said. “Yet, the right to come together in a union is a fundamental freedom that has been eroded beyond recognition.”

More than onethird of American workers, about 35 percent, were union members in the mid-1950s, and that number is now 13 percent. Only 8 percent of those in private industry now are union members.

The AFL-CIO, an umbrella group that includes more than 50 unions, and dozens of allied organizations are putting together a mobilizing campaign with more than 100 rallies around this country and a dozen overseas.

Rallies are set all over the country, with some of the larger events in Philadelphia on Tuesday, New York City on Wednesday and Boston and Washington D.C. on Thursday. One of the largest international events is set for Hong Kong on Saturday – International Human Rights Day.

Almost a dozen Nobel Peace Prize laureates, including former President Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and Lech Walesa of Poland, will announce their belief on Tuesday that freedom to form unions is a basic human right.

Sweeney said he expects the week will draw attention to the importance of unions and help educate the public about the difficulty some workers' face getting a fair deal at work and trying to organize unions.

“The labor movement is in a deep crisis in terms of organizing,” said Gary Chaison, a professor of labor relations at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. “It's a vicious cycle. As membership declines, there is less revenue and less to spend on organizing new workers.”

Veterans of the labor movement say it has been under siege for almost a quarter-century, since President Reagan fired federal air traffic controllers in 1981 during a prolonged strike. The steady loss of manufacturing jobs overseas, corporate hostility to unions and government policies that make organizing new unions a slow process have contributed to labor's woes.