[lbo-talk] SEIU in Vegas

James Straub rustbeltjacobin at gmail.com
Wed Jan 14 19:05:17 PST 2009



>>

Ah, that is confusing. The Intl's actions in trying to spit the long- term care workers off of UHW is, although potentially of legitimate value as industrial strategy, is really only being done to weaken Roselli's base of support in UHW. If the Intl makes good on its efforts to take over the local and reorganize it, there would probably be a couple more reshuffles. Which is all awful. however, as a matter of policy, seiu is an industrial union, in that all attempts are made whenever possible to untie all workers who work for one company together--- across lines of status, region, etc. Which is good.


>>
>
> Without taking sides or speaking to the merits of one POV over the
> other,
> isn't this exactly backwards of the argument in California? Isn't
> it the
> SIEU that wants to split off the lower wage home care workers from
> the high
> wage nurses and Roselli et. al. want them to stay together for greater
> bargaining power for the low wage workers? Or have I misunderstood
> something somewhere along the line?
>
>>

What I assert is anti-union, is promoting the boss argument that what union organizers do is 'harass' or 'intimidate' workers. But I don't happen to think any criticism of seiu or stern is anti-union--- in fact, I am increasingly critical of both these days. I think my positions on labor matters by now make me 'anti-stern'. However, I am stunned by how uninformed most left critics of stern are--- and how easily they are manipulated by seiu's organizational rivals (like the cna) or advance the anti-union message of employers (like when doug claims seiu 1199 Ohio is a company union, and when is proven to be 100% wrong, instead of retracting, whines about how I call him a 'weenie').


>
>
> Why is it that criticism of SEIU always characterized as anti-union
> and not
> anti-SEIU or anti-Stern (if it is even fair to call it that)?
> Again, I'm
> not taking one side or the other, but why is it 'anti-union' to
> prefer one
> union (or style of union) over another?
>



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