Nathan:
>And it
> pisses me off to
> no end when someone like Fitch just feeds the union
> corruption meme without context.
-That may answer the mob control/corruption charge, but it does not address -his more serious charge of structural problems, especially local -fragmentation - which is not limited to unions, schools and municipalities -suffer from the same problem, no? If I understand Fitch correctly, he -argues that the system of local fragmentation is a serious obstacle to union -organization, yet individual locals have little incentive to reform that -system, because that may involve giving up some of the benefits (even if -meager) which they have from occupying their local "niches."
Well, the local fragmentation issue is a real one, but a completely different issue.
And the irony in this SEIU bashing is that SEIU has been consolidating locals more extensively than any union to overcome that exact problem. This is why it now has giant locals covering whole states or even multiple states, precisely to assist organizing.
Some folks have complained about the trusteeships and other methods used by the international to achieve this consolidation, but it's been very critical to SEIU's organizing successes. And some of the criticisms in specific cases are probably justified.
It's these real questions of balancing local democracy and effective centralization that should be engaging progressives, not bashing a few moribund corrupt local unions scattered around the country that are basically irrelevant.
Nathan Newman