[lbo-talk] SEIU sells out again!

Mark Rickling mrickling at gmail.com
Thu Apr 17 20:07:56 PDT 2008


On Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 12:09 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:


> So why'd the union and/or its employer pals cancel the election?
> Isn't that us or no one too?

Because we knew we'd lose. It was a strategic decision. Losing an election doesn't make it any easier to organize in the future. In a straight-up NLRB election (i.e. no election agreement), if a union knows it will lose, it will pull the petition. Standard operating procedure.

Also, is CNA running an organizing campaign in OH -- keeping their 50 organizers on the ground to build committee to build majorities in the 8 hospitals they fucked over with the goal of running NLRB elections in the foreseeable future? Of course not. They don't give a fuck. They think fighting SEIU is the way forward, not organizing workers on their own. They're dangerous idiots.

The larger question is should SEIU spend millions of its members dues money and years organizing to make a boss back off only to have another union intervene at the last second and get on the ballot? Obviously some on this list would say yes. But I think it's pretty clear why things don't work this way in the real world. Maybe I'm wrong and someone can come up with a plausible scenario in which an institution (sorry to break the news, but in the real world institutional imperatives matter) would continue to expend its resources to organize workers, only to get raided or unionbusted at the last second. I'm all ears.

An even larger question is how does the labor movement as a whole figure out the jurisdictional issue in a post-EFCA world. Surely this is putting the cart before the horse, but the house of labor certainly needs to put its collective affairs in order and shouldn't piss this potentially golden opportunity away.

I yearn for a peace agreement that lets CNA and SEIU organize the unorganized without all this counterproductive bullshit. Only a sectarian fool cheers on the CNA in its effort to prevent SEIU from ever organizing another hospital worker again.



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