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Dissent in the Ranks
By David Moberg
In These Times
Wednesday 09 April 2008
SEIU is the nation's fastest-growing union
- but at what cost?
No American union today exercises more influence than the Service Employees
International Union (SEIU), a leader in both organizing and political action.
And no union leader gets more - or more favorable - press coverage than its
president, Andy Stern.
As a result, a political fight now developing within SEIU has broad implications
for the labor movement and progressive politics. And the decisions the union
makes at its June convention in Puerto Rico are likely to intensify debate over
how the labor movement can grow on a grand scale - both in numbers and power.
The in-fighting pits United Healthcare Workers-West (UHW) - a 150,000-member
California healthcare local union - and its president, Sal Rosselli, against
the international union's leadership. Simmering for several years, the disagreements
boiled over in February when Rosselli resigned from the international union
executive committee. Then, in late March, Stern took the first step toward implementing
a trusteeship that would allow him to oust UHW leaders and take control of the
local.
A complex web of grievances caused the dispute. But Rosselli charges that Stern
has pursued growth in numbers by centralizing power and resources, and by granting
concessions to corporations. SEIU's growth, he claims, has come at the expense
of workers' power. Rosselli believes the union needs to rely more on comprehensive
pressure campaigns involving workers to neutralize employer opposition to unionization.
"I want a movement of workers governed by workers for workers," who
are fully empowered, Rosselli says, "to be in control of their relationship
with their employer, to be in control of the political direction of their union."
But SEIU international leaders say Rosselli is unwilling to support national
union strategies because he is narrowly focused on the interests of his local.
They maintain that the union needs more national coordination of resources and
activity to better confront national and, increasingly, global employers.
"Fundamentally," says SEIU spokesman Andy McDonald, "the issue
is that there's a disagreement about the fact that there are democratic decision-making
procedures in SEIU that [Rosselli] has withdrawn from, and he disagrees with
strategies he supported previously [when they benefited him] and that other
local leaders support.
The fight has deep roots. In 1988, Rosselli, a former nursing home worker,
won an insurgent campaign to lead what was then Local 250 in the Bay Area. He
rebuilt the union by emphasizing democratic decision-making and worker militancy.
In 1996, Rosselli supported Stern's candidacy for SEIU president and his plan
to strengthen local and national organizing. Rosselli implemented a highly successful
organizing drive that used strikes and negotiations with employers to secure
the right for workers to organize with little interference. He also cooperated
with other locals and the international to win neutrality from hospitals, especially
the big Catholic Health Care West chain. The local also organized nursing homes,
and was the country's first union to organize homecare workers, which is now
the main area of SEIU growth nationally.
In 2005, Local 250 merged with southern California healthcare workers (Local
399) to form UHW. From 2001 to 2006, UHW added 65,000 members - more than any
other SEIU local - although recent gains have slowed as UHW builds several
long-term hospital organizing campaigns. UHW also supplied organizers and funds
to help hospital workers organize around the country.
Organizing nursing homes proved more difficult. In 2003, Local 250 and another
local of long-term care workers signed
But in 2007, when the agreement came up for renewal, UHW criticized many of
its components. The deal had pushed for "template" contracts that
barred strikes and limited collective bargaining rights. The pact also gave
Alliance operators control over which facilities could be organized, limited
economic gains to a fixed share of what the union won politically, prohibited
employee criticisms of nursing home operations (except when they were legally
obliged) and required the union to back the industry's plan for tort reform
- thus going against the union's community and patients' rights allies.
SEIU International and Tyrone Freeman - who heads what is now United Long
Term Care Workers, Local 6434 - wanted to extend the agreement, for as long
as even 20 years. But opposition from Rosselli and UHW ultimately nixed its
renewal. SEIU leaders blamed Rosselli for providing information for a San Francisco
Weekly article about the Alliance contract, though both he and the reporter
deny his involvement.
SEIU went on to establish similar agreements in Washington and New Jersey,
and reportedly adopted much of the Alliance model in new neutrality agreements
with multi-service companies, such as Sodexho.
The split over the Alliance model symbolized and deepened the division that
had already been building.
Rosselli supported consolidation on the condition that each local voted individually
(as in UHW's merger), rather than in a pooled vote proposed by Stern, which
privileged big locals merging with smaller ones. Rosselli also supported the
idea of one statewide healthcare local covering hospital, nursing home and home
care workers, as SEIU is organized in several states. The international, on
the other hand, favored putting all nursing home and home care workers in Tyrone
Freeman's local.
Although the union's hearing officers ultimately kept Rosselli's jurisdiction
largely intact, tensions continued to escalate. Rosselli says that he was increasingly
excluded from meetings that affected his local's members, and maintains that
international union representatives interfered with negotiations with major
employers.
"The red thread that runs through this is that a growing [SEIU] approach
is to ask the employer, 'We want to represent your employees. What is it that
you want?' " says UHW policy director Paul Kumar.
Rosselli says the union will be stronger if it involves members in a fight
to raise standards at work while winning organizing rights for non-union workers.
But for the international union, he says, "growth trumps standards. The
most important thing is growth."
Indeed, SEIU has grown, and its claim to leadership in the labor movement rests
on that success. The union claims it had about 1 million members in 1996 when
Stern was elected, and 1.9 million today.
But nearly 200,000 of the 900,000 new members came through a 1998 merger with
the old 1199 hospital union based in New York. Another 200,000 counted as new
recruits are not actually members, but pay legally required agency fees. And
35,000 are retirees. As a result, the union reported to the Labor Department
that it had 1.66 million members - including non-voting retirees - at the
end of 2007, a year when it added 116,490 members.
Almost 500,000 of them are home care, home childcare and similar quasi-public
workers previously treated as independent contractors. While winning representation
for them is a big step - and an attractive way to boost membership - it involves
a different type of organizing than recruiting members at a workplace under
a private, typically hostile employer.
Like many unions, SEIU tries to persuade employers to be neutral when it organizes,
and it often mounts ambitious cam
Out of their growing frustration at realizing large-scale organizing success,
SEIU's leaders have sought new approaches, says Jerome Brown, who recently retired
as president of the SEIU 1199-New England local and as an international executive
board member. Brown says the international increasingly tries to win neutrality
agreements by becoming the company's partner.
"When you look at how the international uses these things, you have to
unfortunately say, 'No, this is not the right way to build a union,'" he
says. "The international has centralized power to get the boss to defang
himself, but the international is also defanging the members. They're selling
workers' ability to self-determination."
Now the union's leaders are proposing centralized organizing plans for each
major union division. The new 20-year plan will replace local union strategies
and shift more dues money to the international. The organizing strategy, which
will be presented at the June convention, calls for expanding proven models
and developing new models, including expanding the union's innovative work challenging
private equity companies. It also proposes recruiting more member-organizers
and temporary organizers from social justice movements, expanding global organizing,
and committing to more political work, including passage of the Employee Free
Choice Act, which would institutionalize "card check" (allowing unions
to be certified when a majority of workers sign union cards).
In a memo to the international, the UHW executive board worried that this centralization
will come "at the expense of proven local organizing efforts." It
also questioned whether the international's track record justifies further concentrating
resources and strategy.
Both sides claim the democratic high ground. The international argues that
local union leaders will be involved in formulating the national strategy, which
they will then implement. Rosselli argues that the members must have a voice
and vote in organizing and collective bargaining strategies, not simply out
of principle but because such participation strengthens the union. He questions
how open the debate will be among national leaders, when Stern appointed two-thirds
of the executive board (some of who, including Rosselli, were then elected by
members).
"[The international leaders] don't know what they're doing because they
have a lack of trust and appreciation of workers," Rosselli says. "They
really believe that they're smarter than workers, better than workers. The battle
going on is between those who believe the collective power ... can be better
used by a few people in Washington, D.C., as opposed to those who believe in
bottom-up democracy."
The international union claims that Rosselli has withdrawn from the union's
democratic process, but Rosselli says he resigned after he was increasingly
excluded from key positions and meetings. In his resignation letter, Rosselli
criticized Stern for eliminating the Catholic Healthcare West Unity Council
and appointing a union consultant to replace Rosselli as the negotiating lead
on the eve of crucial hospital talks. He also accused the international union
of negotiating behind his back with the California Nursing Home Alliance and
barring UHW members and staff from direct negotiations with the employers, even
though they represent three-fourths of Alliance union employees.
Last November, Stern also reorganized SEIU's California state council to oust
Rosselli. As council president, Rosselli had opposed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's
health insurance plan, which Stern supported. Then in January, the international
announced new hearings on reorganization of California's healthcare rsing home
workers voted and nearly unanimously chose to stay with UHW.
New controversy erupted in mid-March, when the California Nurses Association
(CNA) leafleted against SEIU days before an election slated for nine Catholic
Healthcare Partners hospitals in Ohio. Over a three-year period, SEIU had worked
for a neutrality agreement that reportedly barred both workers and management
from talking about the union at the hospitals.
"I think CNA's actions are despicable," says Rosselli. He describes
his "rollercoaster" ride of alternating conflict and cooperation with
CNA. "We've seen this happen with our Catholic Healthcare West and our
Tenet [Health Corp.] campaigns. It's unprincipled, a huge mistake."
But the international claims that Rosselli met with CNA president Rose Ann
DeMoro days before the Ohio vote. UHW administrative vice president John Borsos
says there was no meeting, aside from both leaders being at the same AFL-CIO
reception in southern California.
Stern cited the CNA clash among other "allegations" of impropriety
in a March 24 letter designed to set the stage for a possible trusteeship of
UHW. Borsos describes the charges as "bogus," a "political"
move with no legal foundation.
Rosselli says he has no plans to challenge Stern for president at the convention,
but UHW will offer resolutions to strengthen union democracy and coordination
between locals and the international. Despite signs of dissatisfaction, a fledgling
opposition movement is still weak. Few local leaders have criticized the international
union, which has organized an extensive campaign against Rosselli, according
to an ex-SEIU official who requested anonymity. The UHW may do well simply to
hold on to what it has now in the face of the international's full-bore attack.
The issues in the debate are hardly limited to SEIU. Many unions struggle to
strike a proper balance between local initiative and national strategy. Pervasive
tensions exist between how union democracy is practiced and the labor movement's
claims that workers should have a stronger voice. The best unions struggle with
how to increase both their numbers and their power.
And even if Congress passes the Employee Free Choice Act, unions will still
need to fight for employer neutrality. While unions may have to make trade-offs
for such agreements, highly restrictive deals with employers are no substitute
for organizing and educating workers.
A renewed labor movement needs imaginative leaders, smart strategies, coordinated
efforts and progressive values. But the future of SEIU and the labor movement
ultimately requires keeping faith with its members.
"We shouldn't start the debate with how do we centralize power,"
says Jerome Brown. "The central issue ought to be how do we build a 21st
century union with members having the democratic right to run it, to strike
or not to strike. Members have a right to make decisions. They may be right
or wrong, crazy or brilliant. But that isn't the test. It's their decision,
their job and their union."
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David Moberg, a senior editor of In These Times, has been on the staff
of the magazine since it began publishing. Before joining In These Times, he
completed his work for a Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Chicago
and worked for Newsweek. Recently he has received fellowships from the John
D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Nation Institute for research
on the new global economy.
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