> That wasn't the question. There's clearly a growing dissident
> movement within SEIU. The nurses in that video had some real
> complaints about their union, including being insulted by union
> officers and being told to shut up at meetings. Not unrelatedly, I
> heard that Sal Roselli didn't go to the Labor Notes conference
> because he was sleeping in his office in hope of staving off
> trusteeship, which is likely because of his criticisms of Stern's
> leadership. In other words, a lot of the material for recent
> criticisms of SEIU has come from within the union, not from
> pantywaist academics.
Forgot who made this point before -- probably Jim -- but SEIU is a large union, 1.9 million members, with a very diverse membership. At 70,000 members, the CNA is qualitatively smaller, and they're all one occupation -- RNs. You wouldn't expect the same sort of organized opposition in both unions. The "dissident" SEIU local UHW is twice the size of the CNA at 150,000.
> Coming after the Labor Notes incident, it's not clear what is SEIU's
> style. Even you - to my surprise, I have to say - semi-justified
> that assault (the disruption, not the physical violence).
Well, what can I say -- I wasn't there and only have second-hand reports from both sides to go by. At least from a PR perspective, the decision to enter the convention center seems only to have antagonized many people whose opinion I respect -- you, Max, don't know Ken Paff, but certainly I have a deep respect for those who organized and built TDU. And obviously it's shifted focus from the target -- Rose Ann Demoro and her unionbusting and raiding ways -- to the action itself, which isn't a good thing.