KIRKLAND'S MESSY EXIT

  • Share
  • Read Later
Legendary AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland, whom rivals had pressured for weeks to resign, said he would leave the 13.3-million-member labor federation Aug. 1 -- with a recommendation that his protege, executive secretary Thomas Donahue, succeed him. But powerful dissidents in the flagging organization are not backing his choice. "Handovers like that are dinosaurs," saysTIME Detroit bureau chief William McWhirter. "Nobody in the labor movement is in the mood to sleep through this. They want a generational shift." The battle parallels the recent upheaval in the Teamsters union, in which one-time radicals rolled over an outgoing leader's hand-picked candidate. Kirkland's possible successor may be John Sweeney, president of the Service Employees International Union.