CLUW CONVENTION DELEGATES PUT DIVERSITY
CAMPAIGN, POLITICS ATOP THEIR AGENDA

Delegates to the Coalition of Labor Union Women’s convention have put political activism and a huge push for diversity in the labor movement atop their organization’s agenda.

Meeting in Las Vegas Oct. 10-13, the almost 800 delegates also linked the two.

“To win political campaigns and organizing campaigns, we need to reach out to the diverse American workforce,” Philadelphia CLUW President Kathy Black said in her resolution, adopted by acclamation. “But the leadership and staff of the American labor movement still do not reflect the rich diversity of our membership and our workforce.”

CLUW pledged itself to work with the AFL-CIO’s other constituency groups to aggressively push implementation of the federation’s convention decision, adopted in 2005, that the leadership and staff of the union movement should look like its members.

That resolution, which is supposed to be implemented by the federation’s next convention in 2009, sets goals saying that leaders and staff should reflect proportionate numbers of women and minorities in the units they represent.

“We have to take this back down to the local level,” and really push it there, one CLUW convention delegate from Chicago said.

CLUW’s diversity resolution says it will coordinate with the federation’s other constituency groups “to maximize our impact on voter registration, voter education and get-out-the-vote campaigns” in next year’s election.

“In November 2006, women were instrumental in helping change the face of the House and the Senate. In 2008, it’s predicted that women will be responsible for electing the next president of the United States,” declared CLUW President Marsha Zakowski of the Steel Workers.

The resolution then goes on to pledge that CLUW and the others will “support aggressive implementation” of diversity at all levels of the union movement. It will also work with the constituency groups “to promote diversity and full participation in leadership and conventions of Change to Win.” There will be a Nov. 28 fundraiser for diversity programs, CLUW added.

CLUW took no stand on presidential politics, but one hopeful, former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), addressed the delegates by video. He promised, if elected, to “punish those who violate current labor laws.” And he added: “When I am President, no one will be able to walk through a picket line.”