THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
September 28, 2005
by Kris Maher

'Change to Win' Targets Wal-Mart, Security Guards And School-Bus Drivers

Leaders of a federation of unions that broke away from the AFL-CIO vowed to organize workers at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. as well as groups of workers that remain largely unrepresented by unions, such as school-bus drivers and security guards.

Meeting for their founding convention in St. Louis, the 5.4 million-member Change to Win federation also laid out the organizational framework for the group, ratifying a constitution and electing leaders. Anna Burger, who had served as chairwoman of the coalition of breakaway unions that formed in June, became chairwoman of the new federation. But federation leaders also made big promises about organizing new members and helping to revive the ailing labor movement.

"We think this is a crusade to re-create the middle class in this country," said Tom Woodruff, executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union. Mr. Woodruff will serve as head of the federation's strategic organizing center. He declined to provide a timetable for future campaigns, but said the group would concentrate on workers whose jobs can't be offshored or automated at some of the biggest employers in the country, including Wal-Mart, uniform maker Cintas Corp. and DHL, an express-delivery unit of Germany's Deutsche Post AG.

Officials of the seven unions that make up the federation said they would pour more resources into multiunion organizing campaigns, vowing to spend $750 million a year on these initiatives. Union officials weren't able to immediately provide a breakdown of how much each union would contribute or how the number compared with previous spending.
The federation also pledged to organize more minority and immigrant workers in sectors of the economy that are growing the fastest, including retail, hospitality and health care.

The group also announced plans to organize entire job categories in which the majority of workers remain unorganized, such as school-bus drivers. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters sketched a plan to join the SEIU to organize drivers at companies that include Laidlaw International Inc. and Durham School Services in Austin, Texas, with a first campaign being kicked off at First Student, a division of United Kingdom-based FirstGroup PLC, which has operations in the U.S. Efforts will include applying pressure on management as well as seeking support in local communities. According to the unions there are more than 150,000 unorganized private-sector school-bus drivers in the U.S. "It's a wide open area for organizing," says Bret Caldwell, a Teamsters spokesman.