DEMOCRACY, DENSITY, AND TRANSFORMATION: WE NEED THEM ALL

The debate that led to the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) ran off the tracks. The original argument offered by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to increase labor's bargaining power by increasing union density (the percentage of organized workers in a particular industry or sector of the economy) largely disappeared from the discussion prior to the July 2005 AFL-CIO convention, replaced by a less than visionary debate over how much to cut dues to the national AFL-CIO. The SEIU's use of an antiquated concept of union density has gone substantially unchallenged. Union democracy has been both fetishized and demonized. Arguments have been posed in an ahistorical and apolitical manner, separated from an analysis of today's political realities and ideological climate.