What is the AFL-CIO Organizing Institute For?
The NUP program and its advocates pointed towards the experience of the AFL-CIO Organizing Institute for the type of labor organizing that was going to rebuild working people’s political power. Yet many aspiring militant organizers have been demoralized. Prominent at the training sessions at the Organizing Institute were so-called progressive experts among SEIU, HERE, and UNITE who thought they had a plan to organize. They made up role-playing dialogues to help their trainees learn to speak to non-union workers about the potential wonders of healthcare and pensions for their families. They explained an art of maneuvering to bring the union in to negotiate for them through dues check-off card elections. They affirmed that the union would come in and be their representation after workers had organized themselves. Blatant in its absence was any reference to radical labor organizing traditions. There was no pretense to the importance of explaining the need for opposition to state and capit
