Years ago, the RNs at one hospital owned by Catholic Health Partners in Lorain, Ohio, unionized into 1199 WV/OH. They barely won, tho, and their fellow workers in the other units (LPNs, techs, service and maintenance) lost, because management ran a typically brutal and effective union-busting program. This program included having nuns and priests tell catholic RNs that voting for the union was a sin. Boss fights like this are why almost no unions have been able to organize and win on a broad scale in the private sector for the last couple decades, and thus why organized labor has dipped to 7% of the private sector workforce, the working class has lot enormous amounts of economic and political power, and in my opinion has a lot to do with the hard rightward tilt mainstream politics have taken in that time. Those RNs won, and fought hard and got good contracts, but they were never able to make breakthrough gains, because they were just a lone unionized unit in a big hospital, in a big health systems chain which is the third-biggest employer in ohio.
At the big corporate picture even their militant and engaged activism made little difference (these RNs make up some of the leadership of the local itself--- one of them has been elected to the state leg. as a union worker candidate in addition to being a union acitivist and leader; if you trawl the arguments about this issue on blogs like on huffington post, you can read their arguments and comments directly--- but don't tell doug this, because he cannot believe anyone who isn't staff would have these opinions, and don't tell LN, because they believe workers are led around like dumb sheep by brilliant and evil labor misleaders). So the union made a hard decision with its membership (most of which doesn't work for CHP) . The union decided to commit massive resources over multiple years, towards beating the shit out of CHP, until it could get some kind of code of conduct from them that ensured the rest of the hospitals which were trying to organize wouldn't be stomped on, and thus the Lorain RNs could be joined by organized co-workers company-wide at the bargaining table. Its been the main focus of their quite impressive organizing program for the past couple yeas, which previously had the best record for fighting and winning contested elections against boss fights in the entire midwest of any union of any kind.
After years of this fight, the CHP workers won a code of conduct from the employer for company-wide elections, which wasn't great, but was probably the best that could be won here in the bitter flyover states where things are a little tougher than in CA or NY for workers and progressive politics. On the eve of the election, a craft union of RNs, which has a decades-long feud with our members in California because they are the poor workers in those hospitals that the RNs cross the picket lines of when they're on strike, and which also has some very laudable left-wing politics and rhetoric and some truly good accomplishments to be proud of (even if they are limited--- the CNA is .03% the size of seiu, and only represnts the wealthiest and most skilled and priveleged employees of hospitals in the most progressive and wealthy state in the country), stepped in and began running factually inaccurate and slanderous mailers and meetings at the very last minute which were designed very similarly to those a boss would run in a union busting campaign, completely screwing what both sides (the workers and their bosses) wanted out of this code of conduct election. So the thing was called off, and now the workers are protesting the craft union's president, for fucking them.
By the way, you know how you found a video clip of RNs in vegas who don;t like seiu? There's a very similar looking clip of CHP RNs who are furious and baffled that the CNA fucked them out of their union election. I don't suppose in your travels around the leftosphere you ever came across it. Seiu probably never prioritized emailing it to you, bc you ain't relevant to the lives of workers in Ohio, or really even manhattan. Seiu talks to workers, not the left. That's how it organizes, in a given month, security guards in west philadelphia, janitors in san antonio, home health aides in rural virginia, LPNs in suburban mineapolis, dietary workers in elko nevada, nursing home workers in oregon, librarians in ohio, and CNAs in eastern california. If I -was- still working for seiu, I wouldn't have time to lie to you and make up imaginary stories doug, I'd be out talking to those workers for twelve hours every day like rachel is today while you and I wage the proletarian struggle from our keyboards. But since I work for a restaurant, as a low-wage service worker, and not seiu (where I;d be helping -other- low wage workers form unions and win wages and power), I have the time to write about Ohio and talk to you about what happens there.
So, again, I do not draw a paycheck from any union, and I do have close firsthand knowledge of the events in the Ohio election dispute. Is there anything else you would like to know about it? Are you as interested in hearing about organizing fights workers and organizers are in in any of the other places the union is fighting in right now, as you are in this feud with a craft union? You did point out that you prefer the small craft union over seiu because you don't like barack obama, and as impressive as that bit of lefto logic is, I'd still be willing to tell you anything else I know about the actual fights in the class struggle the union is in with bosses if you're interested.
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> No, I don't think Rachel is a liar. But people who belong to an
> organization aren't always inclined to see its faults. Like I told
> Mark, most of the critiques of CNA have come not from neutral parties
> but from interested ones. You see why that might make someone
> skeptical?