In labor news — tension is escalating inside the AFL-CIO over the labor federation’s future. Four major unions inside the AFL-CIO have demanded that their members’ names be removed from the AFL-CIO’s master list. These unions — Service Employees International Union, Teamsters, Laborers and Unite Here — represent about 1/3 of the AFL-CIO’s 13 million members. For months a debate has been raging inside the AFL-CIO over the union’s direction. Dissident labor leaders including SEIU’s Andrew Stern have been urging AFL-CIO President John Sweeney to focus more on building a grassroots labor movement. For his part, Sweeney proposed last week on nearly doubling how much the union spends on organizing. One close ally to Sweeney described the plan as “the most major change inside the federation of labor since it was created 50 years ago.” But Sweeney’s critics said the proposal would do little. John Wilhelm of UNITE said the proposal is “verbally embracing the call for change without changing anything.”