Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 06/11/2008 - 1:16pm.
-- "So that means close to 70 percent of all SEIU members are in California, New York, and Illinois"
this is a big issue, hence all the talk at the convention about spending money on organizing campaigns in other states. you could argue UHW has been shaky on this issue, opposing that the 20% organizing unspent monies, or PAC short falls, be pulled to these less union states.
also something rarely discussed in direct enough terms at the convention by SEIU leadership or UHW leadership was, "what is the voice of non union workers in a first contract?" sal seems to think that non-members shouldn't get the same vote on contracts as existing union members, though this is largely unspoken publicly. you could argue this is an elitist position, as i would, or that its a good union democracy issue that only members should get to vote. has labornotes run articles on this issue before?
-- "If you look at their own figures, 75 percent of their growth in the last decade was in public services and long-term care, almost all of which is public sector or publicly funded (i.e. homecare and childcare) work. The numbers they use internally are:
1. 314,395 in public services (1997-2005)
2. 86,530 in property services (1996-2005)
3. 133,719 in health systems (1996-2005)
4. 357,103 in long term care (1997-2005)"
fair point. however, has any union organized as many PRIVATE SECTOR workers as SEIU has over the last 10 years? take out the home care public authority workers and public employees. if you added up all the security guards, janitors, private non profit/for profit hospital workers, and private nursing home workers, has any union organized more? heck, putting aside controversial neutrality agreements, has any union organized more workers than SEIU over the last 10 years through the NLRB or recognition strikes?
-- "So that means close to 70 percent of all SEIU members are in California, New York, and Illinois"
this is a big issue, hence all the talk at the convention about spending money on organizing campaigns in other states. you could argue UHW has been shaky on this issue, opposing that the 20% organizing unspent monies, or PAC short falls, be pulled to these less union states.
also something rarely discussed in direct enough terms at the convention by SEIU leadership or UHW leadership was, "what is the voice of non union workers in a first contract?" sal seems to think that non-members shouldn't get the same vote on contracts as existing union members, though this is largely unspoken publicly. you could argue this is an elitist position, as i would, or that its a good union democracy issue that only members should get to vote. has labornotes run articles on this issue before?
-- "If you look at their own figures, 75 percent of their growth in the last decade was in public services and long-term care, almost all of which is public sector or publicly funded (i.e. homecare and childcare) work. The numbers they use internally are:
1. 314,395 in public services (1997-2005)
2. 86,530 in property services (1996-2005)
3. 133,719 in health systems (1996-2005)
4. 357,103 in long term care (1997-2005)"
fair point. however, has any union organized as many PRIVATE SECTOR workers as SEIU has over the last 10 years? take out the home care public authority workers and public employees. if you added up all the security guards, janitors, private non profit/for profit hospital workers, and private nursing home workers, has any union organized more? heck, putting aside controversial neutrality agreements, has any union organized more workers than SEIU over the last 10 years through the NLRB or recognition strikes?
i would guess not.