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Will California Scandals Derail SEIU's Dream of Total World Domination?
The Service Employees International Union plans to spend $50 million during the coming months lobbying for a bill that would make it harder for employers to fight against unionization drives.
But critics of the union's national leader, Andy Stern, say ongoing scandals in California may stymie the union's drive to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow employees to form unions in a workplace when a preponderance of them fill out a pro-union form, rather having to contest a secret ballot election.
Such a bill has long been the Holy Grail of the labor movement because, activists say, union election campaigns often give employers an opportunity to harass, fire, and otherwise intimidate workers into rejecting union membership.
"We think Stern is going to endanger the entire progressive agenda," said John Borsos, vice president of United Healthcare Workers West, an SEIU division that represents 150,000 nurses, orderlies, and other healthcare workers. "Now is the time for the labor movement to be united around a democratic, energized labor movement. But it's got to be done in a way that's principled, that doesn't sacrifice the rights of workers, or of consumers."
Stern's leadership has been challenged by a series of scandals, the latest involving his meeting with Rod Blagojevich at around the time the Illinois governor was angling to trade in his ability to appoint the state's next U.S. Senator for a lucrative, union-funded job. Last year the L.A. Times revealed that Stern's hand-picked representative in charge of a Southern California healthcare-workers' affiliate apparently improperly diverted union dues. And in the Bay Area, Stern is attempting to unseat popular labor leader Sal Rosselli as punishment for standing up for patients' rights.
Today the SEIU executive board meets to consider a Stern edict to dismantle Oakland-based UHW-West by merging part of it into a new California affiliate. The national union's executive board was to finish voting on the move by Friday afternoon, with no word as of Thursday on when the decision would be announced.
Borsos says Stern is rushing this move despite overwhelming opposition from local members. As the board considers whether to dismantle UHW-West, Stern has also taken steps to force UHW-West President Rosselli from his leadership post, alleging misuse of union dues. Rosselli calls the charges bogus, and says this latest move is merely an attempt to silence criticisms of Stern's employer-friendly organizing style. A hearing officer is scheduled to release a decision before Thursday, Jan. 15 on whether Rosselli will be removed from his post.
This dispute between Stern and the union's Oakland-based health care affiliate became public in April, 2007, when SF Weekly first reported that Rosselli had questioned Stern's strategy of recruiting nursing home workers in a way that aligned the union against groups that advocated for better patient care.
Under the strategy, Stern appointees five years ago negotiated a deal with a group of nursing home chains whereby the SEIU would use its political clout to sideline patients' rights groups, which had pushed for legal guarantees of high-quality patient care in state-subsidized nursing homes.
Under the agreement the SEIU also lobbied for passage of legislation that would have made it more difficult for disabled patients to sue nursing home owners in cases where they were neglected, injured or raped.
In exchange, the nursing home owners agreed to allow the SEIU to recruit workers in certian facilities, as long as they signed contracts discouraging the union's members from reporting patient abuse to journalists, regulators, or law enforcement.
The Palm Beach Post, summarizing 2004 SF Weekly reporting on the alliance agreement, put a face on Stern's strategy of collaborating, rather than confronting, employers.
"So, if your mother is not being turned everyday, and the bed sores are literally killing her, and the workers know this is happening but can't do anything about it because on some shifts there are only two caregivers for 47 patients, the workers, through their union, have pledged to say nothing. To no one," is how the Post editorial put it.
Since SF Weekly reported on these agreements, and Rosselli's criticism of them, Stern has taken various steps to dilute, or eliminate Rosselli's authority, efforts that will be coming to a head during the next few days.
Stern, for his part, said during a conference call Wednesday that his disagreements with Rosselli are merely part of the ordinary give and take typical of a democratically run union. During the call, attended by SF Weekly, Stern scoffed at the suggestion that scandals in California might provide fodder for Republican critics during the upcoming battle over the Employee Free Choice Act.
"Within any healthy democratic union there are differences of opinion," Stern said. "I assume [Republicans] will use anything and everything they can. But people have indicated they want change in this country, and that is what will prevail."
Rosselli, however, believes that the real winner in the California fight will be nursing home chains, which had hoped to revive the alliance agreement that saw SEIU using its clout with Democratic state legislators to advance industry goals of curbing patient lawsuits, and avoiding regulations that would require high quality care.
"That's exactly why they're trying to take UHW-West out of the long-term care business," Rosselli said in an interview Wednesday. "It's to take away our resistance to the back room deals with the alliance employers, to take us out of the picture so we don't resist it."
24 Comments so far
Show All"Will California Scandals Derail SEIU's Dream of Total World Domination?"
So someone has at last recognized that Stern and his types are not part of the Progressive agenda....that they are in fact enemies of that agenda. Enemies of the American worker in fact.
Happy days could indeed be here again if Progressive leaders are in fact beginning to think again after a 30 year vacation. Truth triumphs over ideology!
I agree, Thomas More, but is anybody (i.e. the MSM) paying attention to this, except for the SF Weekly and Democracy Now (democracynow.org -- Jan. 8 and 9)?
rosie2731
Thanks Rosie. It sure doesn't look like it. And it doesn't look like many CD'ers care about the important things in America either. It boggles the mind.
Thomas,
Thanks for the challenge, although many of us are trying to get a handle on this news.
The SEIU, which organized nurses in one hospital in Dubuque in a bitter labor struggle which lasted five years, is highly regarded here. And Andy Stern is a dynamic leader and inspiring public speaker; I've heard him speak at a rally.
There's not much meat in this story; it reads more like a blog diary.
wc652
"Andy Stern is a dynamic leader and inspiring public speaker"
I too have heard him and don't disagree, the problem is Stern and SEIU Allow, even encourage illegal aliens as members. That is a betrayal of the Ameruican worker and in collusion with business to keep wages down. Unless they have changed their policy.
If a union or the leader of a union advocates illegal alien members, says it makes no difference to American workers and their wages they are lying. And their only concern is collecting dues.
This is a fight that is in the making and if a union or union leaders are not on the side of the American worker, help big business to the detriment of Americans I believe they will destroy themselves.
The AFL-CIO is already losing membership because of their stance last year in supporting the employment and allowing the membership of illegal aliens.
Thomas,
A good point or two there.
As these are my sisters and brothers, I prefer undocumented migrants
to "illegal aliens."
Comprehensive Immigration Reform will go a long way to correcting the injustice you cite. This from a member of Teamsters Local 120.
"As these are my sisters and brothers, I prefer undocumented migrants
to "illegal aliens."
I understand that and had decided to use illegal aliens because "undocumented immigrant" was being used to soften their presence by the corporate shills. However I've been considering switching back to "undocumented immigrant" simply because there is no need to be harsh.
"Comprehensive Immigration Reform will go a long way to correcting the injustice you cite."
I see no need for Comprehensive Immigration Reform as we already did that in 86. The only reason to have Comprehensive Immigration Reform again is a cover to provide amnesty again. Frankly I don't see that happening. It was pretty much settled last year. Simply apply the lawsom 86 and the problem is solved pretty much.
Do you disagree?
According to Unger's "Legacy of Ashes" the history of the CIA...
it has been a long running joke that the AFL-CIO is the AFL-CIA...
Ever since the corporatists had their pinkerton police and thugs murder and imprison and deport the Wobblies (IWW, Industrial Workers of the World) back in the 1920's... and then merged the AFL & CIO... the labor "Leaders" have been coopted and have been wining and dining with the bosses...
it is rare to see a wildcat strike or solidarity between unions (other than the Longshoremen & warehouse workers union) and forget about a Jeneral Stryke...
Last time that was tried was in Seattle in 1919... the workers shut down the city, created food distribution & daycare & healthcare networks, and began to create a society that kept the product and profit of their labor in the local community...
it lasted a few weeks, then the corporatists sent in armed thugs to crack skulls and arrest organizers and disrupt the newly forming collectivist movement...
I think this is why there is such poor leadership and corruption amongst the Hoffa's of the labor movement... they work for the corporatists or the mafia...
Yeah, well these CD site administrators like to engineer consent for their own agenda.
What's interesting is that Juan Gonzalez on DN! today criticized CD editors for failing to give this story appropriate play, and for ignoring his previous columns on the intra-union struggles.
"Total World Domination" is a politically charged term against a union that is securing long lost basic rights to a living wage for every worker. If you want to talk about total world domination, try discussing the oligarchy that owns and controls everything.
it was a joke dude
For what its worth the Washington Post reported on this today too.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/08/AR2009010803816.html?referrer=emailarticle
Thanks very much for the link.
In my mind, most everything seems to get corrupted when it comes to money. A look back over the past will show what became of the farm organizations which sprang up during the days of the farm depression; take a new look now. If you have Farm Bureau insurance you are a member of one of the worst violators of the small farmers trust.
Balancing the needs of the worker with the community and the employer is what organizing used to be about. Now it is strictly a page from the same book as the corporations. Find out how deep peoples pockets are , or how much they will take before they stop buying, then go to the wall with it. This kind of attitude is turning organizing efforts into a new chapter of "Animal Farm"; creating another group of pigs that are more equal than others.
Whatever became of brotherhood and sisterhood, taken care of each other, respect for common decency and a concern for your fellow man? Looks like it has turned into corporate like take over - buy outs, smear campaigns, law suits and lies. And yet, someone thinks the working man wants to pay dues to subsidize this crap.
It was a long road to get to the point unions could even organize. People died trying to get an eight hour day, and now this is the end result? How shameful can some people get who should know better. The bad press Unions create for themselves make it hard for legitimate and caring organizing efforts to get any traction at all, and it wasn't because of the scab press or the owners who created it, the unions are doing it to themselves and there is no excuse for it.
So. Stern wants to punish Sal Rosselli for what??? "Standing up for patient's rights"??? I wonder how this effects the opinion of members of the California Nurses' Association? As an RN, I'm appalled.
This Democracy Now interview with Sal Rosselli is enlightening, if disturbing: http://tinyurl.com/9y9knz
In case you don't feel like clicking the link, I'll note that he made a compelling case (as I understood it) that Stern's approach represents a total departure from the traditional concept and spirit of a union being a bottom-up organization existing to empower the worker.
Rather, Stern's view of the union is that it's an organization administered by professionals partnering with government and business to provide services to its members. The workers become essentially CUSTOMERS of the union, with no power or authority to make policy.
This interview helped me put my finger on the sense that people like Stern are "players" who thrive on getting a seat at the table, and want to keep that seat by claiming to practice an evolved, enlightened philosophy of a cooperative rather than adversarial relationship with management.
Another pragmatic technocrat heard from.
· Yr Obd't Servant
You make excellent points. And it doesn't matter who these "customers" are as long as he makes his money.
"Another pragmatic technocrat heard from."
No sir, thats anti-American scum stealing the food from workers mouths. He will speak these days about the Nurse's, etc, but his power was built and rests on illegal alien workers and H- workers brought in legally to work in hotels and resterants. Didn't know we needed more maids and waiters did you?
I was impressed last year that it was SEIU that organized protests against the Wall Street practice of Leveraged Buyouts, in which financially healthy companies get overwhelmed with totally nonproductive debt, all so a handful of corporate insiders can get ultra rich. The cost is 1)lost tax revenue which the rest of us have to make up, 2)loss of jobs as these companies look for ways to meet their massive, new debt service, and 3)one more company that can't survive an economic downturn. SEIU organized multiple protests all over the country and the world. In Washington, DC it was organized in front of John McCain's local campaign office, because the leverage buyout kings had thrown millions of dollars at his campaign. All of this was several months before the bottom dropped out of the economy. I have no idea if Andy Stern had anything to do with this protest, but it felt good to stand in protest with a union that was so insightful.
"loss of jobs as these companies look for ways to meet their massive, new debt service"
This is hilarious. This guy has put more Americans out of work than Bush.
STERN??
Another pharisee, part of our nobility cabal making sure THEY keep control of the Working Movement for the benefit of their Wall Street Buddies......
The day of accountability IS coming!
Peter Montana
AMEN!
The SEIU is more a union for health care corporations than one for health care workers. Has anyone here lived or worked in a nursing home lately? If Mr. Stern really represented health care givers, he would be speaking out of the same side of the mouth as Mr. Rosselli. Anyone who doesn't take quality of patient care as his #1 issue, doesn't belong at the head of a health care workers' union. I speak as an RN.
Andy Stern speaks with a forked tongue.
I am always entertained by the liberal penchant for pissing on a burning house to show that they are willing to do something useful. The real issue regarding illegal immigration is the wanton destruction of the national economies of the places of origin of these people who, though technically "illegal" (legality has been so corrupted that the term has been diluted beyond recognition), are actually refugees seeking escape from militarily imposed misery. The system of global imperialism determines all these things. As long as we tolerate economic oppression by imperial elite around the world (euphemistically called "globalism") common people will suffer and be divided against each other in order to do the dirty work for the bosses while believing that they are acting in their own self interest.
We would be well served to welcome these people as refugees and join with them to fight to expel the predatory elite from their home countries so that they can feel safe in returning. Of course, we will need to expel our own predatory elite before we can hope to make any progress on the issues of human and civil rights.
herb