[lbo-talk] LBO's Union Experts, I Call Upon Ye!

Gar Lipow the.typo.boy at gmail.com
Wed Apr 16 22:07:48 PDT 2008


On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 1:17 PM, Jim Straub <rustbeltjacobin at gmail.com> wrote:
> I challenge anyone in our list to point to an alternate, workable
> strategy to rebuild the labor movement up from 7% of the private
> sector in the US's current political climate and alignment of forces.

It seems like throughout the discussion you've managed to avoid a critical issue - whether SEIU is building scab locals and bargaining units. That is the essence of the CNA charge - that SEIU is trading away critical safety demands in return for recognition in spite of the fact that the majority of the nurses on whose behalf the deal is made are against that. It seems to be happening in Puerto Rico as Doug has posted in full http://tinyurl.com/3d67es . And I've heard similar complaints in SEIU organized nursing homes. Pressure campaigns as opposed to strikes - fine with me regardless of CNA complaints. Card check campaigns - I'm all for them. But the critical requirement is that they can't go behind the backs or against the will of the workers they are supposed to be obtaining rights for. That is a minimal democratic requirement - that a union not be a company union. Now maybe the accusation is false. But a lot of facts have been posted supporting it, and in all your rebuttals of peripheral points, I have not noticed any on these key charges. If they are false they should be easily rebutted and even refuted.

Just to save you some trouble - the implication of actual corruption by Rivera in Puerto Rico is not proved, though indicated. But there is no doubt that he is "poaching" as you put it a large existing union with a brand new union by calling an election in which they won't be allowed to run, and being (at the least) cheered on by the employer. Seems to be a clear case where SEIU is acting as a scab union. But maybe you have some facts to show that this is the wrong way to interpret the evidence. That has serious implications for the credibility of CNA charges about the same thing happening with nurses.

A really disturbing pattern seems to be developing where it will act as a scab union in some cases to gain overall strength; to put the most charitable reading on it, SEIU seems to take the attitude that it knows what is best for the working class, and can therefore can sell large groups for workers down the river as a necessary sacrifice for the good of labor as a whole. For "labor" read SEIU.

I guess I kinda parachuted in here. But that looks to me like the critical issue, and one the discussion has wandered away from in various pissing contents. (Yeah, I know, nothing of the pissing contest in my use of the word "scab". But whether that word is justified or not seems a core question. )



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