Nathan Newman wrote:
>Since this started with accusations of corruption against SEIU, what mob
>violence has been involved in their organizing the hundreds of thousands of
>janitors and nurses in the last decade or so?
-Fitch credits Stern for having cleaned up SEIU, though faults him for -not having mentioned that that was what he was doing. But under -Sweeney, corruption was pervasive in the union - most notoriously, -Gus Bevona's 32BJ local. I don't have the book with me here, so I -can't cite this more exactly, but under Bevona and his predecessors -the local was a stinkpot of corruption. Which wasn't very good for -the janitors and doormen.
And yet Gus Bevona was also one of the quiet heroes of the Jobs with Justice campaign out in LA in the early 90s, since he used his muscle in New York City to threaten contractors to settle in LA or face union actions here in NYC.
Not that it's not wonderful that Bevona was taken out and the building opened up for all manner of better progressive actions (my organization is leasing space in the 32BJ building BTW), but history is more interesting than clear villians and heroes in many cases.
And why should Stern have trumpeted any existing corruption? What would that have served? Should he have posed as the anti-corruption reformer morally above the overall corrupt labor movement?
Nathan Newman