[lbo-talk] SEIU in Vegas

James Straub rustbeltjacobin at gmail.com
Wed Jan 14 19:18:01 PST 2009



> a - any health care worker has a legitimate right to question
> whether being in that particular union is the best option for
> representation. SR

I wonder if you're even conscious of how identically this mimics the way management encourages raids like the cna's, because they know it makes it more likely the workers will lost union representation entirely, and even if any union at all survives, it will undoubtedly be greatly weakened.

No, Steven, a factional fight in a union does NOT make it ethical or productive or helpful to workers for a craft union from a different state to show up and raid them and attempt to divide the high-wage workers from the low-wage. Among the many facts you're unconcerned with is the frankly tremendous contract the workers at St Rose had won over the last two cycles. By far the best in Nevada and the interior west, they are nearly the equal of the best of CA contracts--- which are the best in the country. In fact, the CNA's primary appeal to those workers who support them, is that they offer to get them "out of the aides union" and into a "professional association", where they can bargain at cross-purposes to the poor blacks and latinos in the service and maintenance unit of the hospital. Even with that vile manner of gaining support, they probably wouldn't have been able to get close to filing their decert petition if not for the heated emotions surrounding macalevey's fall. Their actions have been wrong on every level and are indefensible.

I am far from a purple kool-aid seiu apologist. And I am here to tell you: the cna is harming workers all over the country. What they are doing is simply wrong. Their raids have already resulted in thousands of workers NOT having a union who would have one otherwise. To say nothing of the broader damage being done to organized labor in health systems due to the cross-union wars weakening everyone's bargaining position.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list