> SEIU seems to have some serious priority
> problems with this kind of action. I have serious problems trying to
> legitimate this nonsense.
It bears repeating that this was in response to CNA's recent union busting and raiding efforts. Had CNA not engaged in a last minute "vote no" union-busting campaign to wreck a three year struggle to organize Catholic Health Partner hospitals (as well as start raids on SEIU units in NV and CA hospitals), then I'm sure Rose Ann Demoro would have been left alone to tell the assembled Labor Notes crowd how "professional" RNs need their own organization, how highly-educated RNs shouldn't be in the same union as dirty janitors, and how conservative craft unionism is the way forward. Also, I'm sure she would have added how appointing -- as opposed to electing -- the head of a union represents the height of union democracy.
In the real world, when a union engages in such totally fucked-up, insanely counterproductive behavior like the CNA has, it commands a response. I too hope for a time when cooler heads will prevail; there are simply too many unorganized workers for unions to raid each other and to make last minute interventions in organizing drives. Unfortunately, I don't see this happening until the CNA leadership is held accountable for their actions. This is what SEIU is doing right now.
> Maybe we should save the militant action for
> operations against capital, but then SEIU's leadership seems to have
> decided that's passe.
Don't believe the hype. SEIU (as well as a whole host of AFL unions, but not the CNA) has a "labor-management" partnership agreement with Kaiser Permanente. I believe Jim Straub has written about this before on this list -- check the archives. Didn't, however, stop us from striking them recently. See
http://www.seiufactchecker.org/intercon/InterCon_Strike/default.aspx
as well as
http://www.seiufactchecker.org/
in general.