Labor Notes - SEIU

Puerto Rico’s Teachers Beat SEIU Raid

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:30:18 -0500

Author(s):
Steve Early

Excerpt:

By a margin of 18,123 to 14,675 Puerto Rican teachers voted against joining the SEIU-backed SPM (Sindicato Puertorriqueno de Maestros), which is closely aligned with another SEIU affiliate, the Association de Maestros de Puerto Rico, an organization of school principals and administrators....

Available Online:
Yes

Under Shadow of Corruption Scandals, SEIU Launches Hearings Against Dissidents

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 08:14:39 -0500

Author(s):
Mark Brenner

Excerpt:

It’s crunch time for the November election, but top officials in SEIU are struggling to focus as corruption scandals and internal divisions over a threatened trusteeship spread across the union....

Available Online:
Yes

SEIU Reformers Challenge Union’s Direction at Puerto Rico Convention

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:27:13 -0500

Author(s):
Mark Brenner

Excerpt:

Carrying a message of union democracy, reformers left their mark on the 2008 SEIU convention, which took place May 30 to June 4 in Puerto Rico. Opposition to SEIU top leaders’ plans to dramatically restructure the union coalesced around the newly formed caucus SEIU Members for Reform Today (SMART) and the large bloc of delegates from UHW. . . .

Available Online:
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Day 2 - Anna Burger, Politics and Accountability

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 23:43:00 -0500

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).

Day 1 - Teachers meet with SEIU members

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 23:35:26 -0500

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.

Day 1 - Time to Vote! (Long Post)

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 21:41:22 -0500

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.

Day 1 - Organizing Report: Politics & Fuzzy Math

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 04:38:06 -0500

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.

Day 1 - Stern's address: Honestly?

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:49:25 -0500

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.

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Day 1 - Is SWU Bad for the Public Sector?

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 23:43:45 -0500

Once I got my food I had a really interesting conversation at the lunch table with several rank-and-file SEIU members. I was sitting next to a woman from 1199 New York who remarked that this convention, her fourth one, lacked energy. The man sitting next to her commented on all the security.

Another delegate started talking about Bruce Raynor, president of UNITE HERE, who spoke right before lunch. He said he had some differences with Raynor’s assessment of the Service Workers United (SWU) alliance that SEIU has with UNITE HERE. According to him, “SWU has been terrible for us. It undermines our wages.” He explained that he is a public sector worker, and that there is contracting out in his building. The workers at Sodexo doing this contracted work make a lot less than he does, even with the union. And because the union has been focused on organizing the Sodexo workers they have been softer about fighting the privatization of public jobs in the same buildings.

Day 1 - Luck of the Lunch Line

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 23:02:28 -0500

Lunch on Day 1 of the SEIU convention was another déjà vu moment. As fates would have it, I got in line behind Gabe Kramer, a senior staffer at 1199 West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky. Gabe was part of the crew that tried to barrel their way into the banquet at the Labor Notes conference in April. You can see him in the video—he is the guy in the parking lot with the beard, wearing a bomber jacket and leading chants with the megaphone.

I asked him how the transition is going in his local now that Dave Regan, the resident attack dog of the SEIU International, is slated to permanently move up to the Big House. Regan, along with the Stern-appointed Local 721 president Annelle Grajeda, is currently slated to move into a newly created executive vice president slot. Regan has been carrying water for the International in their high-profile dispute with United Healthcare Workers-West (check out a sample in a debate with Sal Rosselli on Democracy Now).

Day 1 - Round-Up of the First Morning

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 23:59:09 -0500

After I made it into the guest area on the convention floor I found my way to the press section and settled in. (We’re in the back corner closest to the door if you want to come by and say hello.) I got a little panicky when the convention opened with a video so cheesy it made Tuesdays with Morrie look like Apocalypse Now.

The storyline was pretty simple. A downtrodden worker writes a note, puts it in a purple bottle and throws it into the ocean. It washes up on the beaches of Puerto Rico and a cute little girl, who evidently can run a pretty long way without getting out of breath, finds it and runs over to the San Juan Convention Center.

Day 1 - Rival Amendments and Call Centers

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:38:15 -0500

This morning started early, with a breakfast hosted by the big California dissident local, United Healthcare Workers-West (UHW). Sal Rosselli and three rank-and-file members—Mell Garcia, a UHW member at a Kaiser hospital, Rosie Byers, a 31-year homecare worker and UHW member, as well as Michael Fenison, a respiratory therapist in Englewood who joined UHW four years ago when his hospital was organized—talked to reporters about how things were unfolding at the convention.

Sal confirmed UHW’s depressing news that all of their resolutions and proposals were squashed in committee yesterday, so it looks like the only debate that will take place on the convention floor will happen inside the framework of the International’s “Justice for All” program.

Over Before It's Begun?

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 23:12:23 -0500

Today the die may have been cast for United Healthcare Workers-West (UHW), the 140,000-member local that has been leading a high-profile dispute with its parent body, the Service Employees International Union, over questions of centralization and member control in the union. UHW put forward a series of amendments to the SEIU constitution in late March, including:

Guaranteed participation by rank-and-file members in bargaining (both electing bargaining team members and approving initial contract proposals)
Direct election of national officers, one member-one vote.
Right of affected bargaining units to approve mergers and jurisdictional transfers.

Back in February I was talking with a friend who works for Local 1199 about the conflict between UHW and the International. He told me that the minute the SEIU convention started all the leverage that UHW had was going to disappear, since nothing was going to happen at the convention that SEIU's President Andy Stern and his supporters didn’t want to happen (clearly the Puerto Rican teachers weren’t part of his calculus back then). His point was that every important decision would be made before delegates got off the plane in San Juan, and this weekend may have proven him right.

Puerto Rican Teachers Challenge the Purple Lockdown

Sat, 31 May 2008 23:53:20 -0500

The Puerto Rican convention center hosting the Service Employees International Union’s big confab is kind of an eerie cross between Superman’s Fortress of Solitude and a prison in some isolated part of rural California.

The entire complex was fenced in or gated off, with police and security guards posted at every entrance. Once you’re inside it’s a little more suave than supermax. There is parking for probably 2,000 cars, but this morning the whole place was empty except for about a dozen buses bringing delegates in from their hotels.

Attacks on Reformers Have Long History in Labor Movement

Fri, 30 May 2008 23:18:12 -0500

Author(s):
Steve Early

Excerpt:

As history has repeatedly shown, the rulers of “one-party states” rarely concede power gracefully or quietly. When organized opposition emerges, such regimes often resort to a strategy of disinformation and intimidation to maintain their grip on power, whether the battleground is a nation or—closer to home—a national union. . . .

Available Online:
Yes