Hard, harsh, or severe in manner or character: a stern disciplinarian.
Yesterday I wrote about alleged Service Employee International Union (SEIU) chicanery involving a state of California home health care program.
Today I'm going to delve into SEIU cannibalization within organized labor, courtesy of the Las Vegas Sun. Andy Stern is the president of SEIU. Four years ago he pulled SEIU out of the AFL-CIO and formed his own group, Change to Win. Now he wants to grow to win. At the expense of other unions.
Stern's efforts to realign labor affiliations — to the benefit of the SEIU — is "a naked power grab," says John Wilhelm, who once headed the Culinary Union in Las Vegas and now is co-president of Unite Here, whose numbers have been significantly sapped by the SEIU.
Wilhelm accuses Stern and the SEIU of attempting a "hostile takeover of another union's jurisdiction in a way that is unprecedented in the modern labor movement."
Unite Here, a consortium of food service and textile unions, is part of Change to Win, but that hasn't stopped Stern and SEIU from stealing members from that union.
More...
It's almost like you invade another country, occupy parts of it and then extend the olive branch and expect the people you are trying to bring to the negotiating table to be pleased about the circumstances,” says Steve Early, a labor commentator and former union official whose book on the American labor movement, "Embedded With Organized Labor," is due out next month. "More and more, the ends justify any means in their minds."
Critics of the SEIU, including Early, suggest that the SEIU's vaunted growth has come at the expense of worker contracts and strong locals. SEIU's "growth at any cost" strategy, they say, includes making concessions on benefits and working conditions in exchange for organizing rights.
The Sun article misses one key point. SEIU's chief goal is not better working conditions and higher pay for its members, but more dues-paying members to fill its treasury. Money of course is power, and SEIU uses that power to curry favor from Democratic politicians.
A bigger union also means more foot soldiers to staff campaign offices and "get out the vote" efforts. Grateful office holders then reward SEIU with preferential treatment, leading to more growth within SEIU which leads to...
Related post:
Those darn government unions...
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