Alliance For Labor Action - Program and Dissolution

Program and Dissolution

The Alliance's initial program was ambitious. The two member unions provided the ALA with an annual budget of $4.5 million, the same amount they would have paid to the AFL-CIO in per capita dues. A major organizing drive targeting African American workers was launched in Atlanta, Georgia, in the fall of 1969 involving 50 staff organizers (half of them black), 200 volunteer member-organizers, a $4 million budget, and an extensive public relations campaign. But the campaign failed: After 28 months, only 4,590 workers had been organized, and 94 of 196 elections won.

The ALA's agenda also included action on a number of progressive issues. It engaged in a widespread community unionism effort. But its attempt to organize blue-collar workers, the poor, and local citizens into community unions was hampered by a lack of experience in community organizing. The ALA program turned into a grant-making operation working through the UAW's existing structure, awarding more than $2.5 million in funds in two and a half years. Although it had little organizational involvement in the anti-Vietnam War peace movement, the ALA called for an immediate end to the war, endorsed anti-war rallies, and its leaders marched in anti-war marches. The trade union center also supported universal health care, and gave an important early boost to modern efforts to pass federal legislation on the issue.

Reuther's death in a plane crash on May 9, 1970, near Black Lake, Michigan, dealt a serious blow to the Alliance. The group halted operations in July 1971 after the Auto Workers (almost bankrupt from a lengthy strike at General Motors) was unable to continue to fund its operations, and the ALA formally disanded in January 1972. The Ford Foundation assumed control over the community grant programs upon the ALA's disestablishment.

The UAW re-affiliated with the AFL-CIO on July 1, 1981. The Teamsters re-affiliated with the AFL-CIO on October 24, 1987.