The AFL-CIO crackup.

With only 8% of private sector workers in unions, and their leaders hopelessly wedded to the Party of Blasphemy, Buggery, and 'Bortion, the dinosaur once known as Big Labor goes quietly into oblivion.

Five labor unions are drawing up a framework for a new coalition to represent their 5 million members because they are increasingly dissatisfied with the AFL-CIO's strategy to bolster the labor movement.

The unions plan to outline a strategy tomorrow to start a new group and raise $1 billion over the next five years to fund organizing efforts and to breathe life into a floundering labor movement. The new group would include the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, Unite Here, Laborers' International Union of North America, and Teamsters union.

Their departure would represent a major fracture within a labor movement that is reeling from infighting and declining membership.

The unions, which represent about 40 percent of the AFL-CIO's 13 million members, have been trying during the past year to convince the leadership of the labor federation to spend more money to increase the number of union workers and to spend less on political activity.