SEIU

  • Day 1 - Stern's address: Honestly?

    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.

  • Day 1 - Is SWU Bad for the Public Sector?

    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.

  • Day 1 - Luck of the Lunch Line

    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.

  • Day 1 - Round-Up of the First Morning

    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.

  • Day 1 - Rival Amendments and Call Centers

    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.

  • Over Before It's Begun?

    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:

  • Puerto Rican Teachers Challenge the Purple Lockdown

    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.

  • Attacks on Reformers Have Long History in Labor Movement

    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

  • SEIU’s Internal Divisions Spill into Delegate Races

    Author(s):
    Mark Brenner

    Excerpt:
    Mounting conflicts within the SEIU have spilled into the delegate election process for the union’s convention, scheduled for June 1-4 in Puerto Rico. SEIU opposition activists, particularly from several large locals on the West Coast, are crying foul. . . .

    Available Online:
    Yes

  • Members Decry Loyalty Oaths, Cozy Deals: Reform Movement Forms in SEIU

    Author(s):
    Paul Krehbiel

    Excerpt:
    On the heels of a public fight over the Service Employees (SEIU) International’s move toward labor-management partnership deals and hyper-centralization, members are joining a newly founded national reform group. . . .

    Available Online:
    Yes