Perhaps you perceive my comments as arrogantly dismissing the experiences of those who are mostly critical of SEIU, and I perceive myself as trying to explain my stance of being mostly supportive of SEIU by saying I have worked in many locals and campaigns and not seen the sort of things Andy referenced.
All I can say is that I have participated in SEIU's work in Ohio, Nevada, Illinois, Virginia, California and Pennsylvania, in a number of locals and divisions and industries, and I have seen very little firsthand that would correlate with Andy's depiction of SEIU staffers as either "naive kids" or "Stern gang phonies", his claim that SEIU internally identifies itself to its staff as being "pro-business" instead of pro-worker, that it "doesn't do representation", that we internally say workers with grievances are "lazy and deserve to be fired", etc etc.
Andy very proudly owned the 'disgruntled' adjective WRT seiu--- he hated the union, and as he said in Doug's post, when he didn't know the facts involved, he would assume SEIU's detractors were right and SEIU's supporters were wrong or lying. I liked Andy and I'm very sad and shocked he's gone so suddenly, but I do not think this contributes to useful discussion, and I bear as much responsibility as anyone else for the tone of the debate going to the place its gone.
Other things he says do ring true--- sort of. For instance, he points out a situation where the boss had to approve seiu lit. And yet, the truth here is a little more complicated. Most of us would agree that getting organizing rights agreements from employers is good because due to the weakness of existing labor law, it's the only way to win in the private sector anymore. But if your argument to the public for why you need the boss to sign an organizing rights agreement is that without one, the boss can print any old lies--- for instance, he can print out a bunch of factually incorrect claims by Doug on lbo that SEIU was attempting to become a company union in Ohio at the CHP hospital chain-- then the public is likely to think that the new rules should go both ways. That is, if SEIU gets to proofread boss lit for factually incorrect claims, that then the boss gets to do the same for union lit. Etc.
As always, the devil is in the details. Organizing rights agreements are relatively new, and the rulebook on them still needs to be written by the labor movement. Unfortunately what we have seen happen is SEIU and UNITE sometimes negotiate and settle outrageously bad organizing rights agreements, and/or other unions like the CNA or CWA attack all their enemies' organizing rights agreements as bad (despite using similar ones themselves). Thanks to the labor movement not working together cooperatively to achieve a rough agreement on the principles that should be reflected in organizing rights agreements, unions that have a vested interest in attacking and undermining each other instead use distorted information about such agreements as props to hurt each other with. The end result is a bunch of people running around repeating the rhetoric and poisoning the public debate on what we DO need to be talking about: the need to reform labor law so the boss cannot stop workers from unionizing through unethical and illegal means.
And then, there are other things Andy and other critics of SEIU say that totally ring true as completely accurate. Big union: lots of good, lots of bad, lots of grey in-between. I do think it's accurate to say that the bad has steadily increased in the past couple years. At the same time, I usually find myself in disagreement with the substance, tone, and implications of much of the criticism SEIU gets from the left. Much, not all.
Just trying to make myself clear, for whatever it's worth, (not much). I can't say I still feel like I have a dog in any of these fights. Organized labor is looking like the worst sectarian wars from different crazy commie groups in the 70s, except for the fact that these conflicts actually hurt workers. I'm trying to get out. Back to dishwashing for me. I am tempermentally ill-suited for the factional fights that look like they will dominate labor for the foreseeable future. I wish them all the best and I wish them all good riddance too.
Anyone in the DC metro area want to go get drunk and not talk about labor?