Labor: Less United We Stand

Since Walter Reuther’s United Automobile Workers walked out in 1968, no union has left the AFL-CIO. But now the largest U.S. railroad union, the 90,000- member United Transportation Union, has decided to uncouple itself from the national labor federation. One of the main reasons for the split is that an AFL-CIO official, Robert Georgine, became vice chairman of the Alliance for Coal and Competitive Transportation, a lobbying group that supports legislation to permit coal-slurry pipelines. Railroad workers oppose the pipelines because they would take coal-hauling business away from trains.