For the record: I do feel that the radical left in the US consists mostly of three groups: subculturals/artsys, sectarians, and academic/ intellectuals. All three groups have their strengths and I've done my share of time in each. I confess, I don't think it helps our politics become mainstream contestants for hearts and power, that we spring from such increasingly marginal sources. There are many ways to present or contemplate this opinion, but I've often chosen the most bombastic, ad hominem or exaggerated ways on lbo. It's the first discussion listserve I've been on, and it's taken a year or so to adjust myself to the tone and flow of conversation and argument on internet so I sound more like I do in normal life. Anyway my point is I hope I can learn to do a better job of critiquing the eggheads, artsy fartsys, anarcho-fairytaleists and ideo-bots without just calling them weenies. See, that last sentence was an attempt at a friendly teasing tone towards my fellow booknerdy ex-punk ideologues, who knows if it comes across that way.
Okay, uhm, SEIU. I've spent a few years being involved in the labor movement in a variety of capacities. I think rebuilding organized labor is one of the chief ways we can broaden both the institutional power, mass base and mainstream legitimacy of the left; besides that it will do many other good things too. The union movement in the US has is a real complex kaleidescope of different good and bad parts, successful and not, left and center, purist and compromised, effective and not, and so forth. The further unions get pushed back by the employers, the more fractious they've become about having conflicts with each other that are born of this heterogeneity. These conflicts have become vastly more destructive to labor as a whole in the past several years, and, realizing the severity of the effects disunity was having on our movement, I've been trying to be a bit calmer, inclusive and nuanced when presenting whatever opinions I have about union issues.
Having said that, I do have some strong opinions about SEIU. Most of my personal experience is in external, or new, organizing. Experiencing the intractable challenges of new organizing has shaped my perspective on the left, strategy and politics in general; but one of the biggest convictions its given me is the huge importance of engagement with whatever program can successfully accomplish some of this new organizing work, since the challenges make it almost impossible yet its still centrally important. A few unions have some success, but only SEIU and UNITE HERE have had large, sustained success on a naitonwide scale in the private sector. I have a pretty positive view of those unions' organizing work; sometimes it seems to me that most of the radical left has a hatred of them that strikes me as unrealistic, utopian, uninformed, dogmatic, or whatever. Having said that, there's plenty about SEIU and UNITE HERE (in addition to every other union) that could be done better, improved on, or that I disagree with personally. And I do think that there is -some- substance to some of the critiques leftists make. In particular, the actions of the union I've worked for the most, SEIU, have become more troubling to me in the past year. Specific things, like an organizing rights agreement in the pacific northwest that committed SEIU to promote a foul tort reform initiative, and our outrageously unethical intervention in the Puerto Rican teachers union conflict. Or more broadly, the path the feud between Stern and Roselli has taken, and the degree to which Stern has attempted to promote his eccentric personal 'post-political' ideas as those of SEIU.
But again, my opinions on seiu come from a fairly large amount of firsthand knowledge and participation, so I have different views on other specific things. Most of the organizing rights agreements are awesome, in my view, altho the playbook and the ground rules aren't really being thought through by anyone in an intentional manner and that needs doing. And we are 100% in the right in the (current phase of the) conflict with the california nurses union, and my personal experience working on the Ohio CHP organizing rights campaign has made me extremely impatient with some of the crazier, slanderous and/or flatly wrong assertions made by leftists and some on this list about that issue. I used to think that change to win would be a good thing, but since then I've changed my mind and think it was a blunder. I used to think Stern's positives outweighed his negatives, now I think the opposite. I strongly disagree with the inflammatory accusations doug often makes without evidence or rationale, but I can also empathize with many of his frustrations, and of course don't expect he'll show the same logical rigor towards unions (which he's an outside and casual observer of) that he does with economics (which is his specialty and on which he exhibits much more nuanced and sensible tenor).
Oh, and the reason my participation in lbo is so uneven is just due to work. Some months I'm not engaged in union work or have a desk job role that allows my to fritter time away on lbo, but other times I actually have to be in the field talking to people and so I can't read the list at all. The irony isn't lost on me that whoever it was complained the pro-seiu people don't write very much, didn't even consider that uh, maybe they're out putting their money where their mouth is and talking to workers and building the union. We do, uh, kind of a lot of that, see. Not everyone sits at a desk on the internet all day long.