Severely EFL
Leaders of four of the country's largest labor unions [service employees union, the food and commercial workers union, the Teamsters and Unite Here, which represents apparel, hotel and restaurant employees] announced on Sunday that they would boycott this week's A.F.L.-C.I.O. convention, and officials from two of those unions, the service employees and the Teamsters, said the action was a prelude to their full withdrawal from the federation on Monday.
The schism is the biggest rift in labor since the 1930's, when the Congress of Industrial Organizations, which was trying to unionize mass production workers in automobiles, steel and other industries, split off from the American Federation of Labor, which largely represented elite craft workers. This week's labor convention here was supposed to be a celebratory occasion marking the 50th anniversary of the merger.
Instead, the gathering has been marked by a split, the culmination of a rancorous debate within the union movement that also threatens to hurt labor's efforts in lobbying and in political campaigns, a development that concerns Democrats. This is the key issue as far as the NYT's journalist is concerned. Lots more detail and blah blah at the link. 
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