KCLabor.org
Week In Review
by Bill Onasch
Webmaster of KCLabor
April 15, 2008
Rebuilding Labor’s Power
This week’s column is devoted entirely to the conference in suburban Detroit organized by Labor Notes this past weekend. I won’t have space to do it justice, and will write more later about various aspects, but I want to share my enthusiasm as soon as possible. By now most of you have heard of a scandalous physical attack on the gathering mobilized by the leadership of SEIU. I’ll deal with that at the end.
Stern Crosses the Line
The first sign of trouble I saw, as I was finishing my salad, was the frantic signal from the waiter captain to the waitpersons to stop serving and go to the kitchen. The prudence of this surprising action soon became apparent. A woman rushed up to the vacant podium and started denouncing CNA “union busters.” She was promptly removed but then we could hear great commotion outside the doors to the Grand Ballroom.
At least two bus loads–some say more–of SEIU staffers were determined to invade the banquet and take it over. Some wore masks. Many wielded anti-CNA picket signs. Dianne Feeley, a retired UAW officer from an Axle local now on strike, who I have known for more years than either of us would care to admit, was injured in the scuffling as the good guys and gals kept the barbarians out of the hall. Eventually, after hotel security called the cops, the thugs retreated shouting “we’ll be back.”
Perhaps not coincidently, the windows of Ellis Boal’s car were also smashed about the same time. Boal, a labor attorney currently advising the Freightliner Five, has earned the wrath of many union bureaucrats as well as bosses. It’s hard to believe his car damage was a random act of vandalism.
Andy Stern was not present. But nothing on this scale in SEIU gets done without his approval, if not suggestion. Violent intimidation is, of course, not unknown in the American labor movement. Usually this has been the result of mob infiltration in the unions, sometimes even using murder as a way of settling disputes, as we have seen in the past in the Teamsters, ILA, and Mine Workers.
SEIU is not mobbed up. Stern is a one-time campus radical who discovered that being a union bureaucrat could be a rewarding career. Setting the pace in degeneration of the bureaucracy he has already borrowed some time honored practices of gangster unions such as sweetheart contracts and raiding legitimate unions on strike. Now he has taken a tentative step in using the union staff to physically attack challengers within his union and rival unions--and not very concerned about any collateral damage.
The entire labor movement should denounce this reintroduction of gangster methods and take whatever steps are needed to stop it cold now.
Please read the entire article at:
http://www.kclabor.org/wir4152008.htm?emc=&m=3899652&v=9597124&l=1