> 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.
> If they are false they should
> be easily rebutted and even refuted.
Hi Gar,
What specific CNA allegations are you referring to, and what do you think this rebuttal would look like? Here are the CNA's charges in OH, from one of their unionbusting flyers:
http://www.seiu.org/docUploads/CNA%20flyer%20%2D%20Ohio%2Epdf
Working off the second page, under "facts you should know":
-- Sweetheart union. I think I've demonstrated beyond a doubt that the CNA is rather promiscuous in its use of this term. I think I've also demonstrated that the election agreement is one SEIU had to convince CHP into accepting. Let me know here if I'm wrong.
-- RNs and LPNs -- This is incomprehensible, no? The crazy nutters over at the CNA propaganda dept. are still trying to fight a battle that happened years ago, when SEIU lobbied to have the nurse staffing ration law in CA cover both RNs and LPNs. SEIU represents around 40,000 LPNs (actually called LVNs) in CA. From the perspective of a conservative craft union trying to defend its own narrow interests in CA against another union in the same workplaces, the point of the critique, but certainly not the content, makes sense. (FYI in the nurse ratio battle SEIU was not in cahoots with management trying to save them money, but rather trying to protect its members' jobs -- note to Mike Yates: here's a real world example -- not some arid hypothetical -- demonstrating that in practice craft unionism is rarely as harmonious as you would have us believe). In OH, of course, SEIU would have represented the whole unit wall-to-wall given a successful vote, which renders the CNA's point doubly laughable.
-- SEIU actually has the best RN contracts in the nation. Outside of CA -- where nurse staffing ratios are mandate by law -- SEIU has won RN patient ratios in their contracts. CNA hasn't. SEIU has lobbied long and hard in other states to get ratios passed, with little success. Outside of CA, the power isn't there yet.
-- Nurse ratios are the holy grail, and management will fight tooth and nail in bargaining to prevent the union from winning this. They'll take a strike time and again before agreeing to this. But as I mentioned before, outside of CA SEIU has managed to win RN ratios in some of its contracts. The CNA hasn't. They're not in the CHP Lorain RN contract we already have -- we don't have enough power system-wide to get this implemented. Maybe had the CNA not unionbusted the election, we would have had enough power (but don't think so for a first contract).
-- So a mailing from the union and management, explaining to workers that they are to have a union election free from any interference whatsoever from either side, doesn't mention patient safety. So what? A better question would be: does the already extant RN contract in Lorain address patient safety? Short of ratios, what can a collective bargaining agreement do to improve staffing? What we push for are joint management and worker committees tasked to address patient safety. The very strongest of these are called on to set ratios in the hospital (this is very hard to win, too). Don't have the CHP RN contract in front of me this second, but undoubtedly there's a joint patient safety committee in there. As it's a first contract, I doubt that the patient safety committee language is very strong -- I can check when I get to the office. But beyond what gets written into the contract, more important is building a strong network of workers to advance the rights of both themselves and their patients. A union, if you will. Don't know how persuade someone already convinced that everywhere and anywhere SEIU is a sellout company union that instead this is actually what SEIU does.
At the end of the day, however, we all know that Andy Stern wants to enslave women, so I guess this is all rather academic . . .