January 2009 was a watershed moment in our nation's history. As we gathered to celebrate the inauguration of Barack Obama, members of my union felt a powerful sense of accomplishment. Together we had worked long hours and covered many miles to elect a president who would represent working people instead of big corporations.
But those days were also bittersweet for me and thousands of health care workers in California. As President Obama took the oath of office, SEIU's President Andy Stern had begun a process to remove me and other health care workers from our elected positions, suspend our local union's constitution, and put his own officials in charge.
My name is LaNeta Fitzhugh and I work as a Registered Nurse (RN), at Kaiser Sunset Los Angeles Medical Center. Kaiser Sunset is one of the largest hospitals in the nation. We serve hundreds of patients every day on seven floors, and RNs are involved in every aspect of the care of our patients. The voice of RNs at Kaiser Sunset is central to the proper function of our hospital.
This January, RNs at Kaiser Sunset voted 20 to 1 to leave SEIU and to express our voice with the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW).
When people ask why my co-workers and I voted to join our union, our answer is simple.
Sometimes in the midst of a broader organizing effort there's a moment that clarifies exactly what you're fighting for. NUHW activist and union member Eloise Reese-Burns has just such a moment to share with us tonight.
Eloise Reese-Burns has worked as a certified nursing assistant at Cottonwood Healthcare in Woodland California for 39 years. This month, along with 350 of her co-workers, she become one of the first official members of NUHW, a member-led union of healthcare workers formed just this year.
Building NUHW will not be easy. But Eloise Reese-Burns explains why it is necessary...
When Alec MacGillis of the Washington Post noted last Wednesday that this is "an awkward moment for the SEIU," he alerted readers to a reality those following the labor movement have recognized for some time.
Andy Stern, President of SEIU, viewed as "a possible savior of labor" per MacGillis, has led SEIU into a pattern of activity that calls into question whether SEIU's leaders really believe in the principles they claim to stand for.
The simplest way to understand the gap between SEIU's words and its actions is to understand that, for Andy Stern, the consolidation of power has consistently trumped principle. While supporting Stern and SEIU once seemed like 'one stop shopping' for progressives looking to support workers, that support increasingly comes at the price of turning a blind eye to a troubling pattern of hypocrisy.
In the five weeks since SEIU International trusteed California's SEIU-UHW West something enormous has transpired in our state: California's healthcare workers have spoken.
What those workers have said is crystal clear: We choose NUHW.
I hear the chants in my head. When I need them, they come to me.
This line is especially true right now for the former members of United Healthcare Workers-West. We are the union. A week and a half ago, many of my sisters and brothers and I slept in our union hall, before the hostile takeover by our International, SEIU. As we held our hall, my sisters and I worked to maintain our union. We fended off anyone SEIU sent to weasel their way in without warrants. We planned how we'd move forward during an imminent occupation: how we'd communicate with each other; how we would reach deep into our membership to take our union back.
It occurred to me that night hunched over the bare desks in the communication department office, the union solidarity posters hanging behind me, that though we had been member leaders up to that point, stewards and activists for union democracy, something had changed. This was a sort of matriculation, graduation day.
{Amy Thigpen and members of UHW are sleeping in their union halls across California tonight due the threat of imminent seizure of those buildings by SEIU International, which instituted a takeover of UHW West today.}
Last night I slept on the kind of carpet you don't really want to examine too closely. It's splotched with decades of coffee stains and salsa and too many conversations still seem to hang in the stale air, but there I was, curled up on my air mattresses in the union hall in downtown Oakland, the home of United Healthcare Workers West, my union. On my right my sister the Medical Assistant slept peacefully, on my left my sister the Call Center Representative, across my sister the Ultrasound Technician, and my sister the Optical Technician. All of them healthcare workers, member leaders and officers in our union. I realized that I loved this stale, stained room, with carpets held together by duct tape, I love the room because it holds the waking dreams of my sister and brothers in UHW-W. The place may be held together by duct tape but we as a union are held together by something stronger.
In my years as an activist member with SEIU United Healthcare Workers - West I have been a part of many struggles for working people. But in the last months we have been in a different kind of fight. We have stood up to the arrogance of Andy Stern, Anna Burger and other SEIU International officers who, in an attempt to flex their muscles and stifle dissent, have chastened many rank-and-file members and our local, United Healthcare Workers - West with the threat of trusteeship. But I will say now, organized union members will never be intimidated by anyone, International Union officers included. We will stand up to anyone.
I saw this stifling of members' voices at the SEIU Convention in Puerto Rico from the moment we entered the convention center, when our delegation was harassed and followed. I saw this as the Convention voted to move me and other workers out of my union and into corrupt Local 6434, ignoring our right to decide where we belong. The hundreds in Puerto Rico voted to move us 65,000 from California. But we were not intimidated then.
UHW member Ella Raiford, protesting the Convention's vote to force members out of UHW.
In response, we came out in force. At our mass demonstration in Manhattan Beach, where we organized 6000 members to protest another sham hearing, I personally went up to Anna Burger and confronted her, telling her that we will not be swayed and demanded that Stern and Burger meet with our membership. We aren't furniture, we can't be moved around on their whims. We weren't surprised when she said no to a meeting. We stood strong in front of them, never scared.
My UHW brothers and sisters protesting the International's plans to divide us in July.
We continued on to Madison, Wisconsin, where a group of us were determined to meet with SEIU International. We continued in our demands for a meeting with Andy Stern, and to our surprise he agreed to meet us for a brief talk. But he said very little to us, claiming that he couldn't say anything without his lawyers. Instead of our elected officers working for us, Andy and Anna wanted the lawyers to do their job, so they could wash their hands when we pressed them with questions. When faced with dozens of informed, angry union members, maybe our International union officers were intimidated by us!
We confronted Andy Stern; me right after our meeting with him.
And most recently, I and fifty other UHW members occupied the SEIU International office in Alameda to demand answers from out-of-touch union officials who support taking away our voice. We shouldn't be afraid to confront them -- they work for us!
Us confronting International officials at the SEIU Office in Oakland.
This is a movement of union members who have one goal: to keep our democratically run union, UHW, where we make decisions. I and others in our union have confronted our bosses and won, through the power of organized union members. We are not afraid to take on any fight, even against SEIU International officials.
JuanAntonio Molina
Proud UHW Member
In-Home Healthcare Provider
San Francisco, CA
Things are hopping here in San Mateo. There are around 3,000 UHW members here now, and they estimate about 6,000 will have come through by the end of the day tomorrow. The hearing hall is apparently packed to the rafters - only SEIU members are allowed in. Buses are arriving every few minutes to disgorge more members. First thing that happens is they go to a teach-in, then get signs and participate in rallies.
UHW has also set up a phonebank which is hopping right now - not an empty seat to be found. Currently they're calling other union members to explain the situation here. They plan to call union members in swing states for Obama later today but SEIU hasn't yet delivered the call lists.
You have to see this to really understand how the members are thinking and reacting. I saw this at the UHW Leadership Convention in San José but it's been confirmed here in San Mateo: the UHW membership has NO interest whatsoever in being trusteed. They don't trust the International's leaders, owing to several years of conflict over contract negotiations, including allegations that SEIU International monitors have been trying to go around elected bargaining teams.
I know that many progressives are understandably trying to stay neutral or stay out of this. SEIU International and Andy Stern have been valuable patrons of progressive bloggers and have given valuable support to progressive candidates like Donna Edwards. I get why many progressives want to stay out of it.
But this just doesn't feel right. At the core of progressive values is democracy. Whether it's Americans or union members we progressives understand that democracy is the only way the people's needs will be met, because people have the power to do it themselves. When democracy is undermined needs go unmet. In other SEIU locals run by appointed leaders, like Tyrone Freeman, significant financial scandals have resulted. These discourage members from becoming active and seeking the change we all know we need. Progressive bloggers need to be as wary of this as are the nation's leading labor scholars, who full well understand the long-term costs of undermining democracy.
This is a very diverse crowd where we white men are not just a minority, but stick out like sore thumbs. UHW is doing revolutionary work in mobilizing the very Californians who will be the base and the activists and the leaders of progressive change. If the International destroys their union it's going to take a LONG time to get back to this moment of incipient, transformative change.
Why Is Andy Stern Helping John McCain?
( Cross posted at Openleft.com )
With all the attention that SEIU has received over rampant corruption in its largest California local, 6434 formerly headed by the disgraced Tyrone Freeman, and Michigan's largest healthcare Union also formerly headed by, yet again another disgraced leader (Rickman Jackson), and now most recently the resignation of one of Mr. Sterns newly elected top International Vice-Presidents, Anelle Grajeda, for diverting members dues to her former boy friend, one must ask the question: "who does Andy Stern really support for President?" At first glance at the current situation with SEIU Andy Stern's pick as our next President may seem unrelated to the corruption within SEIU. That is, until you examine closely how Mr. Stern has acted upon the alleged corruption within SEIU.
Instead of aggressively pursuing all available remedies to rid the corruption within the aforementioned SEIU locals and getting back to the business of electing a pro-worker candidate he has instead chosen to expend the vast majority of SEIU's resources in a personal vendetta against arguably one of SEIU's most successful union locals, SEIU-UHW West.
Why? Because SEIU-UHW West dared to hold Stern and his "Team" accountable for the inherent promise that SEIU be of the members, by the members, and for the members.
SEIU-UHW West has engaged Stern for close to 3 years in an internal debate over union governance that has challenged the destructive direction Stern has moved SEIU towards. SEIU-UHW West attempted to sound the alarm during the recent SEIU convention in Puerto Rico by bringing to the floor measures that would have ensured and preserved member governance, oversight, and participation at the highest levels of SEIU.
Unfortunately, Stern and his "Team" choreographed a textbook campaign that vilified SEIU-UHW West's platform as centric only to the needs of SEIU-UHW West and devoid of any conscience for the plight of unorganized workers. He stated that SEIU-UHW West was only interested "in polishing their apples". Nothing was further from the truth. In fact the platform put forward by SEIU-UHW West expanded the powers of its members and was a threat to Stern's lust for control, power, and centralization of decision making within SEIU.
Second only to 1199 NY in its COPE contributions (member voluntary political fund) to the International, the leader in California COPE dollars by double the states locals average, and the fastest growing local in SEIU, SEIU-UHW West, instead of being utilized by Stern to ensure that we elect a President sensitive to the needs of the working class, is instead under a vicious and completely baseless attack from Stern and his appointed henchmen and surrogates that includes a threatened trusteeship on false charges of financial mismanagement.
It is important to note that this is Stern's second bite at this apple. The international recently had their proverbial heads handed to them in the highest court in California on this very issue. The court ruled that the International had no basis for their claims and dismissed all relevant claims made by SEIU with prejudice. Put simply, the court told Stern and his "Team" not to ever bring this frivolous matter before the court again. So now Stern wants to drag SEIU-UHW West thru the mud in an attempt to discredit them as well as distract attention away from the more serious previously mentioned malfeasance (and long known by Stern) of his handpicked appointees, Tyrone Freeman, Rickman Jackson, Annelle Grajeda.
With so much at stake in this years election one must wonder why a personal vendetta against SEIU-UHW West is the highest priority for Mr. Stern. At the SEIU convention in Puerto Rico this year, delegates endured wave after wave of self righteous indignation opposing SEIU-UHW West's desire to debate internal jurisdictional issues. At stake was the very essence of what it meant to be a healthcare worker; the ability to advocate on behalf of patients, better staffing, improvements in working conditions, and the right to choose in a fair and democratic process what union local to be represented by.
Stern surrogates and appointees made statements calling SEIU-UHW's arguments selfish and self-serving. One even stated, "People are dying right now as we waste time debating these issues. We have work to do! Let's get to work!" Staffers from the SEIU continued to echo this same tired line at nausea throughout the debate process.
Certainly the work of electing a progressive pro-working class president falls into the category of "work to do". And if it does why, with the incredible political fight before us, would Andy Stern sideline his second biggest political weapon against four more years of Bush's failed policies in order to carry out a personal vendetta against SEIU-UHW West? Stern has time and again issued the battle cry against corporate greed, affirmed his commitment to lift workers out of poverty, and boldly stated that SEIU will lead the battle to get universal healthcare and pass perhaps one of the most ambitious pieces of legislation ensuring workers rights to organize (EFCA).
So it defies logic that at the most critical time in the election process, where so many peoples lives depend on the outcome, Mr. Stern would allow himself to be consumed with forcing a trusteeship upon a union local that has a long and proven history of, not only adhering to the values he claims to hold dearly but, excelling at those same values. And why would Mr. Stern schedule the Trusteeship hearing, not only during the most critical time of the general election but on the exact same dates (September 26-27) that the Obama campaign is attempting to mobilize California supporters to participate in a canvassing effort in neighboring "swing state" Nevada, where Obama trails McCain by 1 percentage point? It begs the question, who ultimately wins if Mr. Stern allows himself to take action against a union local who has the power to help end eight years of failed economic and foreign policies? And whose' hopes ultimately die if we fail?
Andy Stern prides himself in being a leader in the progressive majority movement. However his current actions fly in the face of his alleged progressive values. He is jeopardizing real reform in our labor movement to fulfill a personal grudge. These are hardly the qualities of a true progressive and reformer and certainly not the qualities that will bring hope and "Justice For All".
The Los Angeles-based union, which represents low-wage caregivers, also spent nearly $300,000 last year on a Four Seasons Resorts golf tournament, a Beverly Hills cigar club, restaurants such as Morton's steakhouse and a consulting contract with the William Morris Agency, the Hollywood talent shop, records show.
In addition, the union paid six figures to a video firm whose principals include a former union employee. And a now-defunct minor league basketball team coached by the president's brother-in-law received $16,000 for what the union described as public relations, according to the union's U.S. Labor Department filings and interviews.
It's not clear if there are any legal violations here, and Freeman and his family members deny that there was anything inappropriate in the contracts and spending:
"Every expenditure has been in the context of fighting poverty," [Freeman] said.... Freeman, 38, said the union's members have benefited from the money spent on the video production and day-care companies that his wife and mother-in-law operate at their homes, because of what he termed the high quality of the services.
The article goes on to detail the expenditures and flaws with them, some of which went to nonprofits in trouble with the IRS and "entities" associated with former LA Rams star Eric Dickerson that have been suspended from doing business in California.
Labor unions constantly have to battle the usually false perception that they misuse funds, and face a well-funded right-wing campaign that seeks to undermine unions for even the slightest error. Most unions, including those I've been a part of, are very scrupulous about how they use money to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, so I am very surprised to hear that this was going on.
And I'm not alone in that. The article quotes Nelson Liechtenstein, one of the nation's leading labor historians, as follows:
It's very important for unions not to do this kind of thing," he said. "Union leadership is a public trust -- all the more so when the people being represented are among the lowest-paid in America."...
Lichtenstein said the [$418,000 golf] tournament spending was troubling under any circumstances.
"I don't care if they're making money or not," he said. "It's disconnected from the world of the people they're representing. No one's playing golf who's a home healthcare worker.
So this is going to be a difficult test of the union movement in LA and nationallly. But it's a test. Freeman needs to step down and offer a full-throated apology. The union needs to ask for an independent audit of the local. And the public needs to hear immediately from union leadership -- Stern, county labor chief Maria Elena Durazo, other top SEIU leaders such as janitors' union chief Mike Garcia -- about how such conduct must not be permitted in the movement. So far, the silence is deafening. Stern, in the story, refuses to address the conduct in question. That won't cut it.
Why does the action need to be so clear-cut? Because the labor movement is on the rise in Los Angeles. To attend a city council meeting or a mayoral press conference is to watch the labor movement governing the city. As the journalist Harold Meyerson has written, the rise of the LA unions as a labor force has been aided by the widespread perception that our unions are not old-style, corrupt empires. This is supposed to be new labor. The public needs to see transparency and accountability in the response to this.
As for Freeman, I hope he can make amends for this conduct and have a future in the labor movement. But it can't be as president of this local.
Matthews has it exactly right. The SEIU leadership needs to show that they won't tolerate this kind of action within their ranks. Union democracy is important, and so is union accountability, union honesty, and union ethics. The misdeeds of one local unfortunately tend to get used to attack the labor movement as a whole - and Andy Stern and Tyrone Freeman in particular owe that movement answers and action.
UPDATED - see this video coverage of our march into the SEIU International officials' secret meeting.
Today, myself and 5,000 other UHW members from all over the state are in Manhattan Beach to protest. But we're not protesting another corrupt boss. We're protesting a process rigged by SEIU International officials designed to take away the voices of 65,000 long-term care workers in California.
What's this all about? It's about whether SEIU, our union, will stand on the principles of democracy and be governed by its members, or whether Washington D.C. union officials will force us into another union, against our wishes and against our vote. We are here to say clearly: we are not to be moved around like pieces of furniture. We won't be forced out of our union against our will.
In the past, we have been critical of SEIU leaders in D.C. meeting behind closed doors to cut deals that hurt healthcare workers. But now we've seen it in action.
The New York Times and Wall St. Journal both cover the incredible events at Saturday's Labor Notes conference in Michigan, where Andy Stern of SEIU International sent busload of male staffers to chase and harass RNs from the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, in retaliation for CNA/NNOC defeating them in a controversial "company union" vote last month in Ohio. Fortunately the targeted RNs were able to escape out a back door, but other conference-goers were not so lucky, with one woman sent to the hospital, and others punched, kicked, slapped, and shoved
As I read Andy Stern's rather verbose diatribe entitled "Just Us" or "Justice for All" I couldn't help think of how eerily reminiscent Stern's thought process was to the assertion put forward by President George Bush to the world leaders at large that "You're either with us or you're against us".
Mr. Stern would like us to believe that there are only two distinct questions before us with respect to the direction the SEIU and the Labor Movement can move. The first is to "pursue" what he has characterized as the "Just Us" unionism that seeks only to protect and strengthen current organized workers at the expense of those workers who also would benefit from union membership. Or, as he purports to champion, do we pursue the "Justice for All" approach that "focuses on building a broader movement that improves the living standards and working conditions for all those who have no union...?"
This argument is as flawed and devoid of a broader thought process as President Bush's argument for unilaterally attacking a sovereign nation was. Like President Bush, Mr. Stern streamlines the issues before us into an overly simplistic choice of good versus evil.
He states that, "This is not an intellectual exercise." On that I can and do agree. I believe very little intellectual exercise on the part of Mr. Stern was performed before presenting his arguments; otherwise a more detailed and varied list of options might have been presented.
The truth is we do not, as Mr. Stern suggests, have two separate choices before us. In reality, Mr. Stern is excising current members from a fair and democratic process in self-determination while championing a position that allows for an employer friendly way of organizing workers. He as much as says so in the following excerpts from his position paper:
"true worker democracy cannot exist until the 90 percent of workers in America who have no voice gain a union."
This statement clearly establishes Mr. Stern's view that we do not currently have a legitimate form of democracy within SEIU and therefore his actions attempting to crush the current reform movement are somehow justified.
What Mr. Stern is attempting to accomplish would be the equivalent of taking away every citizens right to vote until everyone over the age of 18 has registered to vote. The 90 percent worker threshold he defines as the benchmark for a "true worker democracy" gives him and other like-minded leaders an indefinite time period in which to further degrade member governance and oversight. Stern goes on to argue that:
"Was America a true democracy when women or African Americans had no vote
and more than half the population was excluded from the process?"
While it is irrefutable that the history of our democracy was morally repugnant in that it excluded African Americans and women, our country did not evolve to a more fair democracy (true or otherwise) by encroaching on the rights of those who already possessed the freedom to vote. Quite the contrary, our democracy evolved and continues to evolve today by becoming more inclusive in nature. Democracy by its very nature must expand and evolve to survive. Furthermore, African Americans and Women didn't wake up one morning with the right to vote. There was a long and bloody struggle that lead America to reform its position on voting rights.
And the struggle for social equality continues today. We have a female and African American running for the highest office in the land and yet nobody would fool them selves into believing that if either one is elected to the Presidency that we could declare that we have leveled the socio-economic playing field for women and African Americans or any other group of Americans. But what we can claim is that by including more and more people into the process we come that much closer to a "true democracy".
Unfortunately under the leadership of Mr. Stern SEIU is moving further and further away from this model of inclusiveness and more towards an Oligarchy in which he directs. Many will say we are already there as more and more union locals are consolidated into larger ones and power is wrested from members by the appointed few.
In reality, Stern's arguments are, at best, a thinly veiled disguise to tie the SEIU-UHW West member driven reform movement and its platform for change within the SEIU to a long ago abandoned union practice of protecting current union members at the expense of non-union workers, when in fact the members who seek reform are doing the exact opposite.
One needs only to compare the SEIU's "Justice for All" proposals, which lack any substantive details, to the SEIU-UHW West's member driven "Platform For Change" which outlines in detail its vision for member rights and democracy, but also has a clear and ambitious vision for bringing more workers into the ranks of the organized.
Conversely the SEIU's "Justice for All", in reality, is an oxymoron. Its narrow focus of emphasizing organizing the unorganized at the expense of current members and member democracy is two dimensional, lacks vision, creativity, and underestimates the will and commitment of SEIU's current members.
It presupposes that there can only be one focused approach to growing our union strength; and that put simply is that we can't do both organizing and strengthening current member contracts.
That is a position of weakness and the end result, no matter how many members are brought into SEIU, will create a national employer union that addresses very little of the workers concerns and pacifies employer fears over any employee voice in the workplace.
The greatest proponents of having a union in the workplace are the current members who have set the high standards they enjoy and, unfortunately, have become the focus of criticism by the SEIU under the leadership of Mr. Stern for wanting to enjoy the fruits of their labor and their successes. Mr. Stern has stated that current members of SEIU-UHW West are only concerned with "polishing their apple". This defies logic as SEIU-UHW West members have actively participated, often on their free time, in organizing efforts at the national level that have helped to secure union representation for workers in Florida, Texas, Nevada and other states including active campaigns in Colorado. Additionally, millions of dollars from dues goes directly to SEIU for national organizing campaigns.
On top of that, even with SEIU's relentless attacks against UHW West, UHW West continues to organize workers in California with close to 2,000 healthcare workers in 4 different elections from Southern California to Northern California voting overwhelmingly to join UHW West in the last 2 ½ weeks alone.
UHW West may in fact be polishing apples. They may even be sinking their teeth deep into them and savoring the sweet juice of success, but they are also telling other workers about those apples and helping them to sow their own seeds that they too may enjoy the fruits of their labor and that is truly "Justice for All". The vision that Mr. Stern has, that continues to shrink the power and decision making into the hands of a very few, is not "Justice for All". Under close scrutiny it is really "Justice for All of us here in D.C."
Michael Rivera, R.C.P.
Perinatal-Pediatric Specialist
Executive Board Vice-President SEIU-UHW West
A letter was sent by Tyrone Freeman the President of SEIU-ULTCWU to Sal Rosselli the President of SEIU-UHW-West.
In the letter Tyrone tells Sal that he just learned that Sal has been having secret back-door meetings and deals with a group of nursing home employers over economic issues covering bargaining unit workers where the two SEIU unions have joint representation to a master collective bargaining agreement. He goes on to say it is a violation of the responsibility and fiduciary duties of a union leader and in violation of the fundamental principles of trade union democracy.
The secret deal was signed by Sal's union on 1/21/08 with the employers of Covenant Care, Kindred, Country Villa, Sun and Salva. None of SEIU-ULTCWU members or even their staff were apart of the agreement or conversations, which means member contracts were being negotiated without the members or their knowledge. The reason for this posting is the hypocrisy of Sal, who has tried to call out SEIU International's President Andy Stern for doing exactly what Sal is now caught doing himself, making deals with employers without member involvement. In addition, Tyrone states Sal has been doing this without Sal's own members, the rank and file workers, but a group of hand picked workers bound to the secrecy of a pledge.
The secret agreement uncovered states that both sides (Sal's union and the employers) will be "off-the-record", except where terms of this agreement are sought to be enforced, absent the written consent of all parties. It goes on that all parties shall not disclose their conversations to the media, the NLRB, or other government agencies, a mediator, arbitrator or court of law. However, if you are under oath with a THREAT of judicial contempt, then tell the parties, before testifying.
Tomorrow in Los Angeles Sal is arranging a protest of Andy for what Sal has just been caught doing. The interesting question who now turns out, who turns out knows about this back door deal and will they still support Sal? Finally, will Sal's own members believe these uncovered documents or follow him blindly into the abyss.
I've been pretty quiet about the raging battle in SEIU since the WTF is up with SEIU series a few months (here, here, and here) ago. In the interim, SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West (UHW) and its president, Sal Rosselli, has resigned from the executive board committee of SEIU. And they launched a website with lots of information on why that happened: seiuvoice.org.
I resigned because a series of events that happened the last several weeks, culminating two-and-a-half years of struggle with inside SEIU, fundamental difference in ideology and direction. And the easiest way I can describe it is bottom-up versus top-down, empowering workers to be in control of their lives, in control of their relationship with their employer versus centralizing control and power among a few in Washington, D.C. to control the resources and decision-making authority relationship with these employers. DemocracyNow!
In the past, Rosselli has hinted around the edges at this dispute. It was apparent at the UHW Leadership Conference that I attended a few months back that UHW preferred a model that was based on empowering workers from the very ground level on up. There was discussion of democracy and enabling everybody to have a say in their union. I can't say to what extent these ideals are actualized, but I will say that there was a profound feeling of agreement for those words in the conference center.
It's been no secret that Andy Stern desires a more powerful union, and a larger say in national and international politics for his union and his coalition. The question that has remained with Stern is whether that was about Stern or whether that was about the worker in general. Well, Matt Smith of the SF Weekly comes out swinging at Stern today:
In the storyline of the current U.S. labor movement — as depicted in piles of Stern magazine profiles — Rosselli is the kind of old-fashioned leader that history might forget. But it's Stern's cheap-trick "modernization" that should be left in the dust.
Change to Win had a general consulting contract with Chris Lehane. That contract was terminated upon discovery of his role supporting the studios in the writers guild strike. As you know, Change to Win and its affiliates stand solidly behind the writers in their struggle for fairness, so we did not think twice about this decision.
The studios hired Fabiani & Lehane, at a crisis fee of around $100,000 a month, to battle the WGA members driven PR machine. They did so early in the week, which was another telling sign that they had no intention of making a deal. You don't need "crisis PR" when you are doing the right thing. You hire "crisis PR" when you are going to walk out of talks and blame the other side for ruining Christmas. So, Lehane and Fabiani, longtime Democratic PR guys, have decided to switch sides and do some union busting. I guess they have come a long way since 2002.
No idea yet if they have lost more than they gained by signing this contract with AMPTP.
SEIU Local 99 in Los Angeles -- education workers who include teacher's aids, cafeteria workers and crossing guards -- have fired former Clinton spokesman Chris Lehane from a consulting contract in support of the WGA .
"By the end of the week, I believe Chris Lehane will have no union clients because of his work for the AMPTP," says SEIU President Andy Stern, who confirms that all Change to Win Unions are severing ties with Lehane. "His days are numbered in the labor movement."
Chris Lehane by opting to go to work for the studios made a choice between that contract and those from labor. SEIU has been working to support the writers, so it comes as no surprise that they are the first to fire him. The question now is how quickly the other unions follow suit. As noted here back in October, the California Labor Federation hired Lehane to work on health care reform, outside of the IOHC coalition. I do not know what other unions he is under contract with, though we should hopefully find out soon.
While Stern is not my favorite right now, given his meddling in health care and a power struggle at the SEIU State Council that Brian has documented, this is a very strong and useful statement by him.
From the diary of "EthicsinCongress", Charlie Brown (the good guy) will be be "debating" John "15%" Doolittle (the, well, corrupt guy) tonight at 7:30. It will be streamed live over a complex series of tubes that we know as the Internets on News10.net. The format seems more like something straight out of Oprah rather than a "debate", but what can you do? What's the deal with these bizarre debate formats. Why can't we all just do good ol' fashioned Lincoln-Douglas debates. Oh right, that entails knowing a lot of facts and the hard work of preparation. Wouldn't want that, now would we?
Spending on Prop 87, the oil tax/alternative energy initative, has set a new record. Accourding to the San-Diego Union-Trib spending is currently at $105 million. And there's still 4 weeks left. Whoa! But I suppose this isn't surprising given Stephen Bing's resources and the oil company's resources. Couldn't they just have given all this money to alternative energy research and be done. $100 million makes a lot of solar panels. Nonetheless, we fight on. 87 is a good idea and worthy of passage. You can bet Chevron won't back down.
Things are hopping here in San Mateo. There are around 3,000 UHW members here now, and they estimate about 6,000 will have come through by the end of the day tomorrow. The hearing hall is apparently packed to the rafters - only SEIU members are allowed in. Buses are arriving every few minutes to disgorge more members. First thing that happens is they go to a teach-in, then get signs and participate in rallies.
. He's something of the rock star among labor leaders, and is very charismatic. I've posted the California event dates on the flip, or you can