despite all the fascinating ins and outs of this particular situation, has everyone missed the overarching point that unions haven't a prayer against multi-national corps? where do people think unions will be 50 years from now?
R
At 11:58 AM 11/10/2004, you wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Michael Dawson" <MDawson at pdx.edu>
>
>
>-Well, electing officers from conventions is intolerable on principle, if
>you
>-ask me. It isn't secret-ballot, and it isn't one person-one vote. It's
>-also as corrupt and demobilizing as can be. If you displease the
>-incumbents, you get uninvited to the next convention, and the whole thing
>-removes union politics from ordinary members and makes it a leadership
>-specialty.
>
>This isn't an accurate description of how this works even in some of the
>worst unions. If you are a local of an international union, your delegates
>get invited to the convention. All sorts of games have been played to
>manipulate voting at the conventions at times, but there is also
>opportunity to engage in real union debate and politics that might be lost
>in dispersed balloting, especially where incumbents dominate the internal
>communication system of the union.
>
>-As to the way direct voting might work, God knows there are ridiculous
>-constraints imposed on unions. But why permit unfair laws to make the
>case
>-for non-democracy? Two wrongs don't make a right.
>
>I actually don't have a big problem with a lot of the union democracy
>provisions of federal law. There are a few nasty aspects-- such as the
>appointment of high-paid trustees -- but the provisions requiring direct
>elections for local leaders are good and reasonable. My point is that you
>have local unions like SEIU 1199 where the leadership of the 200,000 person
>local is directly elected. And you have international unions of roughly
>the same size as 1199 with convention systems for electing their
>leadership. 1199 maybe more democratic in some ways than comparable sized
>international unions, but non-incumbents are often just as disempowered at
>1199 as anywhere else, despite 1199 head Dennis Rivera being subject to
>direct elections.
>
>Nathan Newman
>