Many academics and sociologists are pro-union, as am I, although I think there is still lots of room for improvement within the labor union movement, especially in regard to refocusing its efforts on protecting workers’ rights instead of blindly supporting the status quo and giving workers excuses for being incompetent at their jobs.

Therefore, I found it interesting that, as reported by the New York Times, there is currently a power struggle developing within the AFL-CIO. The status quo is being challenged by the largest single union in the country, the Service Employees International Union:

The president of the largest union in the A.F.L.-C.I.O. yesterday called on other labor leaders to help him oust John J. Sweeney, the federation’s president, and warned that his union would quit the federation if Mr. Sweeney was re-elected. Asserting that sweeping change was needed to revive the labor movement, the union leader, Andrew L. Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, said Mr. Sweeney was not the person to bring about bold change. . . .

Yesterday, Mr. Stern joined the leaders of four other major unions - the Teamsters, the laborers, the food and commercial workers, and the hotel, restaurant and apparel workers union, Unite Here - in endorsing a platform that calls for overhauling the A.F.L.-C.I.O. The platform proposes nearly tripling the amount that the 13-million-member federation spends on unionization efforts. . .

When Mr. Sweeney was elected head of the federation, promising bold changes to resuscitate labor, Mr. Stern vigorously backed him, but now he views Mr. Sweeney as a spent force who has failed to revive labor. Union wages and benefits are under attack, while the percentage of union workers in the private sector has fallen to 8 percent, the lowest level in a century. Yesterday’s developments show that the challenge to Mr. Sweeney has reached new heights.

I’m the first to admit that I don’t know the entire story here but at first glance, it does sound like this is a battle between the past and the future. Whatever the outcome, it does seem that something needs to be done to revive the labor union movement.