Last year the service employees, the Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers, and Unite Here, which represents apparel, hotel and restaurant workers, quit the A.F.L.-C.I.O., saying it was focusing too much on politics and not enough on organizing nonunion workers.
Last month, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents West Coast dock workers, quit the A.F.L.-C.I.O., complaining that the federation was not paying enough attention to it and had not stopped another union from raiding it.
Fewer workers quit the companies on Fortune's list.
A look at recent employment data indicates that boomers have persevered in these hard times, and are less likely to grow discouraged and quit the job hunt than younger workers are.
The fact that unemployment has fallen far faster than GDP can explain may be down to demand - a lot of discouraged workers have quit the labour force - and thus require zero rates for longer; or it may be because potential growth is lower, which means the output gap is closing quickly, and the Fed must start tightening relatively soon.
Workers will quit the firm at a rate, exiting to either unemployment or out of the labor force.
At quitting time, the workers removed their protective headphones, put their tools back in their holsters and cleaned up their work stations.
The longer the economy stays depressed, the more likely those workers are to quit the labour force altogether.
But there is another, more intriguing option, offered to GM workers only: A buyout of $140,000 for those with ten or more years of service or $70,000 for those with less than ten years who agree to quit, provided the worker gives up GM's gold-plated retiree health care plan.
Self-employed people are excluded because for these workers the intention to quit the job is most likely subject to other reasons than those given by employees.
He left it in 2001 and quit the Workers Partyy in disgust at its refusal to help him fight bankruptcy.
