On Jun 28, 2008, at 5:13 PM, Mark Rickling wrote:
> On the call center issue, we got the idea from Australia -- and I
> don't understand this well at all -- when unions in that country were
> forced to related to their members after the loss of agency shop (dues
> checkoff?) under labor law reform a few years ago. In SEIU it's seen
> (by some -- not all of course) as a way to provide increased services
> to members given the amount of resources -- 50% -- we devote to new
> organizing. No other union comes close, btw. Implicitly or explicitly
> many of the "SEIU dissidents" would have the union spend more money on
> servicing members instead of organizing the unorganized.
Well actually that mix is an interesting question. So you set up corporate-style call centers to maximize growth. But aren't the face- to-face relations of the old model better for building solidarity than talking to someone in a cubicle with three weeks of training?
Doug