What Does Van Roekel Have in Mind?
Andy Rotherham is right. Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times buried the lede in his story about the presidents of the AFL-CIO and Change to Win labor federations calling for reunification. It isn’t until paragraph 20 of a 21-paragraph story that we get:
“One somewhat surprising attendee was Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, which, with 3.2 million members, is the nation’s largest labor union, but has traditionally remained outside any larger labor federations.”
While he was vice president, Van Roekel was NEA’s liaison with Big Labor and was deeply involved in hammering out the Labor Solidarity Partnership Agreement with the AFL-CIO in 2006. Van Roekel supported national merger with the American Federation of Teachers in 1998, voting for the Principles of Unity as secretary-treasurer and member of the union’s executive committee.
There is no evidence that this signals any new initiative on the merger front, but it’s clear that Van Roekel wants NEA to be more involved in the wider labor movement. It’s my judgment that Van Roekel lacks the support from key state affiliates to pursue wholesale NEA membership in the AFL-CIO, but perhaps he seeks a limited collaborative role in a “new” labor federation.
If Van Roekel has anything larger in mind, he better get cracking to prepare the state affiliates for it. One of the reasons for the failure of the merger in 1998 was that many NEA delegates felt the plan was presented to them as a fait accompli. It caused some of them who might have been predisposed to support unification to get up on their hind legs.
I don’t know how many remain of that 1998 anti-merger coalition, but if you’re still out there, I’d love to hear your thoughts about this.
