Mark Brenner's blog

Today was Anna Burger's day in the spotlight. Her stump speech was about the 2008 elections, and why politics was so important to SEIU's future. Burger, who heads up Change to Win, is apparently the czar of SEIU's political operations, and it was nice to hear her say, "There is no question that organizing and politics go hand and hand," acknowledging the link between SEIU's growth and their work in the political arena.

But inside SEIU's world, what is cause and what is effect? Right before she uttered those words Burger said, "Make no mistake--our political strength is a direct result of the one million new members who have joined our union since 1996."

Seems to me the reverse is more true, that SEIU's rapid growth is the result of their political operations (savvy, more than strong, I would argue).

Tonight the Puerto Rican teachers held a "charla" or chat with SEIU members interested in learning more about their struggle, and the conflict between SEIU and their union the FMPR. I couldn't be there but Labor Notes Policy Committee member Steve Early was on the scene. From Steve's reports, the FMPR event sounded about as far from the highly scripted, stage-managed SEIU convention as you could get.

In contrast to the flashing lights, punchy music and telepromters of Andy Stern's SEIU, the FMPR president Rafael Feliciano Hernandez was busy setting up the folding chairs for Monday night's meeting.

After the division reports, International Executive Vice President Tom Woodruff closed the show, emphasizing a couple of the key pieces of the “Justice for All” program. These include:

• Ensuring all locals follow through on constitutional commitment to spend 20 percent of their budgets on organizing.
• Recommendations from the International Executive Board (IEB) that when bargaining with designated national employers and industry sectors, designated by the divisions, that we speak with one voice and unite our strength.

The first one is important because this year at convention the IEB is proposing that any local failing to meet the 20 percent target be required to transfer any organizing money “left on the table” up to the International. The money will be used to finance division organizing programs. This is not peanuts, either. Internally the International estimates it spent $530 million on organizing through the local 20 percent funds between 1997 and 2006. But they estimate another $97 million was “left on the table” and went unspent over the same period.

After Andy’s speech the union turned to its bread and butter, the question of organizing the unorganized (who SEIU has determined, through focus groups I guess, we should call not-yet-union workers). Executive Vice President Tom Woodruff ran the show, and spoke about some of the strategies and key campaigns the union has on its agenda.

It was the first time I’d ever heard Woodruff speak, and it was an interesting contrast to Stern. Andy’s talk came off like a performance. You half expected to see him trot out people wearing “I heart justice” t-shirts at some perfectly choreographed moment. If you closed your eyes when Andy was talking about SEIU’s new call center program (a centerpiece of “Justice for All”) you could easily have confused him with some Silicon Valley CEO talking about a new product roll out. More than once I wondered if Andy secretly models his public persona on Apple’s celebrated CEO Steve Jobs.

The afternoon started off with Andy Stern’s big speech. You can watch the whole thing on the web and I encourage you check it out and draw your own conclusions about Stern’s vision for the union.