SEIU Is the Nation’s Fastest Growing Union — But at What Cost?

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3604/dissent_in_the_ranks/

By David Moberg

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.

FULL story at link.