I'm not sure where the impression that SEIU partisans are culty about their views came from. But if you wanted to get real specific, the parallel with UFW's crazy cultish stuff is most present in HERE. I'm not sure how much people on this list have heard about it before, but many people in labor actually really think HERE's cadre are literally a real cult. I -love- HERE, but man, you do hear about some craaaazy stuff going on in that union sometimes.
SEIU people on the other hand have never been known to be especially fervently deluded or seem brainwashed. A critical description of the common SEIU partisan's personality is more like a very, very grim/ cynical realpolitik. There are few if any people who are deeply inspired by Stern's shitty milquetoast 'post-class', 'post-politics' arguments in his book and public statements. SEIU organizers are in my experience more likely to be inspired by the tougher organizing directors who actually execute the work of the union, who tend to be charismatic, radical, hate rich people and capitalism etc.... and think that a figurehead like Stern and his strategies are the price you have to pay for success in this world in this day and age. I guess you could say I myself see things that way.
The analogy sometimes made inside SEIU is that we're like the USSR. Too quick to seek accommodation wit the the capitalists, too quick to forcibly suppress internal dissent; but regardless, the only relevant force for socialism out there because our large treasury and power enable us to survive and grow despite everything, and because our existence provides the material support for the Vietnams and Cubas out there (1199 Ohio, 1199P, 1199 New England, 880, 1199 NW, the janitors organizing, workers who are organizing and fighting their boss in general). Of course, the question would be: at what point does our USSR forfeit its socialist legitimacy by invading Hungary and/or Czeckoslovakia? And of course, that right there is how I see the UHW occupation. Prague in 68. No point remaining a party member after that unless you can't do without the organizer paycheck.
(to lengthen the analogy: a friend wrote me something recently worrying about whether the UHW mess would turn out to be like Hungary, in which case we'd be fine, or Afghanistan, in which case it would be the beginning of the end. They also extended the metaphor: Sal Roselli arguing against centralization and employer agreements (which are how his local was actually built, hehe) is like China fighting the USSR's 'social imperialism' during the Sino-Soviet split. And Rose Ann DeMoro and the CNA are Pol Pot.)