The decision to disaffiliate was not a happy one, said Service Employees International Union President Andrew Stern, following the kickoff of the AFL-CIO convention here. Differences over strategies to rebuild the labor movement made it necessary, he said.

Union members, who once made up roughly one of every three private sector workers, account for just 8 percent of the private sector today, he said, highlighting his view of the need for change.

Workers "have less health care, less time to spend with their families, less secure pensions in their retirement, but more debt and more insecurity about the future," Stern said.

"... Our world has changed. Our economy has changed. Employers have changed." But the AFL-CIO is not willing to make fundamental change as well, he said.

SEIU was the biggest union in the AFL-CIO with 1.8 million members. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters has 1.4 million members. The departures will mean a roughly $20 million annual hit to the AFL-CIO's budget.

"We will spend our money differently," said Teamsters President James P. Hoffa. "We will mobilize our work force differently. What was being done at the AFL-CIO is not working. We're going to do something new. It's going to work."

The unions plan to focus on building the dissident Change to Win Coalition, which they founded last month with the United Food and Commercial Workers union, the Laborers' International Union and UNITE-HERE -- a union of grocery, retail, hotel, restaurant and textile workers. The coalition has since attracted the carpenters and farm workers unions.

UNITE-HERE and the food and commercial workers union are also weighing whether to pull out of the AFL-CIO and joined SEIU and the Teamsters in boycotting this week's convention.

The four account for roughly $30 million of the AFL-CIO's $125 million annual budget and nearly 40 percent of affiliate unions' 13 million members.

Excluding the laborers, the dissidents' union members account for 147,200 of the roughly 460,000 workers in AFL-CIO unions affiliated with the Chicago Federation of Labor and roughly 38 percent, or $1.2 million, of the local federation's budget. That's according to Dennis Gannon, CFL president.

SEIU accounts for about 7 percent of the Illinois AFL-CIO's roughly $2 million annual budget, and the Teamsters account for roughly 3 percent, said Illinois AFL-CIO President Margaret Blackshere.

The dissident unions plan to continue working with central labor councils and state AFL-CIOs, including providing funding, union officials said. But that might not be possible.

The national AFL-CIO's constitution prohibits affiliates from working with disaffiliated unions. But Burger and Blackshere noted the rules haven't always been enforced.

"I don't know what's going to happen," Blackshere said. "I don't know whether we'll have a loss of revenue. It's sad and disappointing. I wish they would just keep trying to resolve their differences."

Gannon said that despite the national split, he's optimistic Chicago labor will be united.

The coalition has been pushing for major changes at the AFL-CIO, including increased funding for organizing, financial incentives to encourage more union mergers and new rules to prevent one union from undercutting the contract standards won by other unions.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, who was first elected 10 years ago after having served as president of SEIU, blasted the departures.

"It is a tragedy for working people," he told delegates at the convention. "Because at a time when our corporate and conservative adversaries have created the most powerful anti-worker political machine in the history of our country, a divided movement hurts the hopes of working families for a better life."

He said he plans to work to bring the groups back together.

The departure comes at a time when the AFL-CIO, in the face of pressure from the dissidents has announced major reforms that will be voted on this week, including increased funding for organizing and proposals to give the federation the power to develop and enforce contract standards.

Hoffa and Stern said the reforms fall short and signalled no interest in reunification.

"We wish the AFL-CIO well, and hope they are successful," Stern said. "We may disagree but we have no intention to be disagreeable. But working people in American can't afford to wait any longer."

Democrats rally for AFL-CIO at convention

BY SCOTT FORNEK POLITICAL REPORTER

One after another, the Democratic stars took to the podium Monday to pay homage to the AFL-CIO and thank the labor giant for the political muscle it regularly flexes on the party's behalf.

"I didn't watch this presidential campaign on television," said former vice presidential nominee John Edwards. "I was there. And I know what happened.

"Without the men and women of organized labor, there was no presidential campaign."

The former North Carolina senator made no mention of the split that is now dividing the labor organization. And neither did most of the other national Democrats who addressed the AFL-CIO's annual convention at Navy Pier -- including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, NAACP Chairman Julian Bond and U.S. Sen. Barack Obama.

Union leaders weren't so reticent. Most conceded the decision of the Teamsters and the Service Employees International Union was a damaging blow, but all sought to downplay the political fallout.

"Listen, it is clearly better for us to stay together," Harold Schaitberger, president of the International Association of Firefighters, told reporters.

"I don't believe it's going to diminish labor's political power because I would suggest that regardless of the ultimate outcome ... I'm committed and convinced that we will still remain in lockstep on our political and legislative agendas.

Tom Buffenbarger, president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, said the departing unions weren't much help.

"I really don't think it hurts labor's political clout, because the unions that have left have a mixed bag on who they supported and how much they support and what kind of effort they bring to the process," he said. "The unions that still make up the AFL-CIO today have a long history, well documented and demonstrated that they are the core unions for labor's political clout."

In the 2004 elections, the AFL-CIO spent $40 million mobilizing its forces, mailed out 30 million political fliers, put 5,000 staffers and more than 225,000 volunteers in the field, according to union officials. And nobody was predicting that power would suddenly go to the Republicans.

"Based on the really right-wing Evangelical conservative record that the Republicans now have and will hold, I can't see any union being really difficult to deal with in terms of unifying behind a particular candidate," said Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, with 1.3 million members, now the AFL-CIO's largest member union.

McEntee said the split might be felt more in races for governor or other contests further down the ballot.

The politicians were approaching the problem more cautiously.

U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) was one of the few to talk openly about the division, telling the crowd it is "trying times for labor."

"We all know that families have their differences," Kennedy said. "We all know that disagreements can sometimes be painful. But always remember the ancient proverb: 'Me against my brother, but my brother and me against the world.'

"Together, we will take on that world, because what divides us pales in comparison with what unites us."

Kennedy went out of his way to heap praise on the AFL-CIO and its president, John Sweeney, who is under fire from the unions that broke away, calling him "my kind of president."

The Massachusetts Democrat also pledged to continue to fight for labor, predicting "we will emerge from these times bigger and stronger than before."

Edwards told the crowd that labor will remain "the heart and soul" of the Democratic Party.

"We're going to let the Republicans stand ... with their friends on Wall Street, big insurance companies, big drug companies, big HMOs, Haliburton," Edwards said. "I'll tell you who we're going to fight for.

"We're going to fight for the men, women that you represent every single day."