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...view of U.S. unions comes from the newest member of their high command, William ("Wimpy") Winpisinger. Last week he became president of the 910,000-member International Association of Machinists, a union that rarely makes headlines but ranks as fifth largest in the nation and third biggest in the AFL-CIO. As I.A.M. chief, Winpisinger, 52, automatically becomes a member of the labor federation's 35-man executive council. There he will be in a position to fight against what he regards as Big Labor's drawbacks: stagnating union membership, growing conservatism, weakening political clout -and George Meany...
...lawnmowers as well as his own Oldsmobile and Chevy. But he is one labor leader who states proudly: "I don't mind being called a lefty. We're being centered to death." And in particular, he openly advises Meany, who is 82, to step down as AFL-CIO president when the federation convenes in Los Angeles in December. Says Winpisinger: "I have immense respect for George Meany, but there comes a time when every man passes the apex of his career, and it's all downhill after that. When the polls rate labor just behind Richard Nixon...
Meany may not take the advice; even if he does retire in December, his successor as AFL-CIO president would surely be Lane Kirkland, 55, the federation's secretary-treasurer and also a strong conservative. But either Meany or Kirkland may find the executive council something other than the rubber stamp that it has become; Winpisinger is expected to be a catalyst for change. At least four members are likely to vote with him to reform AFL-CIO policies: Murray Finley, president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers; Sol Chaikin, president of the Ladies Garment Workers; Glenn Watts, chief...
...Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the N.F.I.B. and the elite Business Roundtable), new tactics and a new awareness by executives that they need to make their voice heard on Capitol Hill. Though some experts trace the speedup in business lobbying efforts to 1973, when AFL-CIO President George Meany's call for election of a "vetoproof Congress prodded corporate leaders into action, all agree that the biggest spur was the election of Jimmy Carter. Says the N.F.I.B.'s Motley: "With Ford in there we could count on vetoes...
...agency, business lobbyists also roused the folks back home to put heat on Congress. They formed Southern businessmen's groups to exhort Dixie House members, and some corporations sent letters to stockholders urging them to write to Congressmen in opposition to the consumer agency. Says Andrew Biemiller, chief AFL-CIO lobbyist: "One thing they can do is flood that goddamned Hill with letters." Motley adds that the N.F.I.B. can turn out "local auto dealers, local accountants and dry cleaners, hardware dealers, dairymen-Kiwanians, Lions, church people. When we tell a Congressman, 'we've got 600 members...