After ratifying a new constitution, electing leaders, and laying out a challenging agenda at its first convention, the delegates of the newlyformed and renamed Change to Win Federation vowed Sept. 27 to boost its ranks by aggressively pursuing workers at some of the nation’s most anti-union companies with the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart, heading the list.

“We have a vision of growth and strength. Our new federation is a mighty sum of its parts. Six million workers strong,” said President James P. Hoffa, standing with the leaders of the Carpenters and Joiners of America, the Laborers’ International Union, the Services Employees International Union (SEIU), UNITE HERE, the United Farm Workers and the United Food and Commercial Workers at the two-day convention in St. Louis, Missouri. The new labor federation has “set a new path for the American worker. The most militant, progressive and activist unions join together to create something new.”

Hoffa added: “We are janitors and casino workers; UPS drivers and farm workers; nurses and construction workers; truck drivers and grocery workers; locomotive engineers and meat cutters. We are the backbone of the American workforce.”

Under the constitution, adopted Sept. 27, each of the national and international unions in the Federation will pay a monthly per capita tax of 25 cents per member per month, which is less than half the 65-cent dues the unions paid to the AFL-CIO, and would produce an estimated $16 million per year for the new organization. The Federation agreed to devote 75 percent of dues to fighting a vigorous multi-union campaign to organize workers at targeted companies, including the Home Depot, Federal Express and Wal-Mart.

The delegates, including Local 237 President Carl Haynes, also elected Anna Burger, SEIU’s Secretary-Treasurer, to lead the organization as chairperson, making her the first woman to lead an American labor federation. They also voted UNITE HERE Executive Vice President Edgar Romney as the federation’s secretary-treasurer. Burger, who began her union career in 1972 after starting a wildcat strike of Philadelphia social workers, noted in an interview with reporters that “the AFL has been getting smaller my entire life.” The self-described liberal, antiwar feminist is considered to be a tough-minded organizer and political strategist.

In a Washington Post article, Steve Rosenthal, a veteran organizer, recalled what he calls “the perfect Anna Burger story:” In 1986, Burger, an officer in the Pennsylvania SEIU, was on maternity leave with a 3-week old daughter when Governor Richard L. Thornburgh banned state workers from registering voters on state property. Burger immediately took her daughter, Erin, to Harrisburg and joined in registering voters in the lobby of the state capitol, challenging state police to arrest the mother of an infant. Thornburgh, who later became the U.S. Attorney General in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, backed off from the arrest policy.

Addressing the delegates, Burger declared that “unions are the antidote to all that ails us in America…. American workers play by the rules, but the rules no longer work. Wages are down, hours are up and the gap between rich and poor is staggering and growing. Today we are all here to rekindle the American dream, to once again have workers valued and rewarded.”

Union membership today stands at 13 percent of U.S. workers, whereas 50 years ago 35 percent of workers were union members. The new Federation broke away from the larger AFL-CIO in July this year, taking with it 40 percent of the AFL-CIO’s membership, because, as Burger explained in an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “We believe it would have been irresponsible to stay in the other federation and pursue a losing strategy, so we saw it as having no choice.”

The federation contends that with more U.S. workers unionized, labor would have more power at the bargaining table, which means unions will be able to exert more pressure for better wages and benefits for all workers. As a result, unions will have a bigger effect on elections and greater influence on labor-friendly legislation and government policies.

“We are reaching out to new worker communities: African-American waste workers in the South; Latino port drivers on both coasts; and Hispanic construction workers across the nation,” Hoffa said. In addition, the new Federation said it is reaching out to hundreds of thousands of workers whose lives have been destroyed in the Gulf Coast. “We have a strategy to train workers to rebuild their communities,” Hoffa said. “The Teamsters training drivers; SEIU training health-care workers; the Carpenters training construction workers; the Laborer’s training hazmat workers; and, UNITE HERE training casino and hotel workers.

“We must learn from this tragedy and help these workers start over. We must help our fellow Americans build new communities and new lives. We must give a hand up — not a hand out or a slap down.”

The federation also blasted the Bush administration for issuing nobid contracts to his friends and for repealing the Davis-Bacon Act, which establishes prevailing wage rates for workers in the construction industry. “That means Halliburton won’t have to pay construction workers $13 bucks an hour; $27,000 a year is too much for Cheney’s cronies. Today, the battle for America begins,” Hoffa declared.