[lbo-talk] NYT on SEIU's MKH (Paul Kumar)

[Paul Kumar]

Hello, I'm Paul Kumar - please allow me to introduce myself as a new poster
and relatively new member of the list (as well as a long lost friend of
regular poster Michael Pollak and semi-regular poster Patrick Bond, along
with numerous appreciative fellow lurkers).  Among other things, I was the
long time Director of Government Affairs at the pre-trusteeship United
Healthcare Workers - West (UHW), and remain an active participant in its
successor organization, the National Union of Healthcare Wokers (NUHW), so
please accept my apology that my first post here is on a matter of such
immediate self-interest.  Mark, doesn't a minimum standard of intellectual
honesty require you to recognize that the the Caritas campaign (of which the
St. Elizabeth's Hospital victory you link to was a part) was revived from
the dead and led to success by Dana Simon, a former Administrative Vice
President of the pre-trusteeship UHW, who as soon as the Caritas campaign
was over quit SEIU over its unethical attacks on UHW's members and former
leaders, as well as its attacks on UNITE HERE (of which Dana is now an
employee, working to fend off SEIU/Workers United's continuing raiding
efforts)?  Doesn't the same standard of honesty require you to recognize
that after many years and many millions of dollars of political expenditures
and courtship efforts to create an employer-friendly alliance with Partners
and other leading Massachusetts health systems (of which the failed
comprehensive campaign against Beth Israel Deaconess whose website you link
to is the Janus face), the 1199/Dennis Rivera/buy up the bosses strategy has
shown the same lack of success there that it has met in Upstate New York and
Maryland, and that the only really substantial expansion of 1199's numbers
in the states they have colonized has come by exporting the California
homecare authority model to the East Coast?  Indeed, SEIU's recent
healthcare organizing efforts more broadly are marked by the same
fundamental strategy and same relatively weak results, and Steve
Greenhouse's sycophancy notwithstanding, Mary Kay Henry's role in SEIU's
past comprehensive campaign successes with hospital chains like Catholic
Healthcare West and Tenet bares very little resemblance to the new
administration's inflated claims.

Date: Sun, 9 May 2010 17:42:01 -0400
From: Mark Rickling <mrickling at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] NYT on SEIU's MKH
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Message-ID:

       <n2t72af8331005091442ycc15f3e3k9fcd1825daae9fdc at mail.gmail.com>
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On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 5:22 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:


> In contrast with SEIU's, which have been working like a charm, eh?

http://www.boston.com/business/healthcare/articles/2009/04/10/hospital_workers_choose_to_unionize/

http://www.eyeonbi.org/

-- 
Paul R. Kumar
(510) 918-7285
PaulRKumar at gmail.com