SEIU Member Activists for Reform Today

SEIU’s Mega-Local Meltdown: Size Matters, But Members Matter More

2010-03-21T16:27:00.000-07:00

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/5629/seius_mega-local_meltdown_size_matters_but_members_matter_more/

Nearly one year after Massachusetts local makeover, California follows suit

By Steve Early

When rank-and-file members run for office in the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), it’s not easy to win—or even run. And that’s not by accident.

In Los Angeles Local 6434, for example, officials installed by President Andy Stern adopted an election rule found illegal by the U.S. Department of Labor, but approved by Stern. The by-laws required would-be candidates to collect nearly 5,000 names on nominating petitions. In a “local” of 160,000—most of whom are home-based workers who never see other members—this was foolproof incumbent protection. It was also a formula for uncontested elections ad infinitum and lack of leadership accountability to the rank-and-file. (Not coincidently, 6434 soon became the scene of a major 2008 corruption scandal involving the local’s top officer, Tyrone Freeman, who misappropriated nearly $1 million from its treasury.)

Even in SEIU “mega-locals” where there’s no stealing, lack of accountability to the membership is still a big problem. When previously separate locals are merged to create new ones covering a whole state or region of the country—a widespread practice in Stern’s union—the official rationale is that such consolidation “builds power for workers.”

But a number of recently-restructured SEIU locals, run without benefit of elected leaders—who were removed in favor of appointed officers and staff—have proven to be extremely dysfunctional and unpopular with dues-payers. On both coasts, SEIU-represented workers, particularly in the public sector, are saying that “power” was taken away from them, in their own union, and they want it back—so they can deal more effectively with their employers.

Mass mega local's makeover

The trend of reclaiming big public employee locals from discredited and increasingly incompetent Stern appointees began last Spring in Massachusetts. The 10,000-member Local 888 was the product of SEIU restructuring that shuffled workers around like pieces of furniture for several years; through a combination of trusteeships and then mergers, some members were deprived of the right to vote for local officers for as long as five years.

By early 2009, Local 888 was in bad shape financially and literally coming apart at the seams. Angry members in some of its 207 separate state, county, and municipal bargaining units were petitioning the labor relations commission to decertify the union. In 2005, the local’s largest unit, composed of 2,000 workers at U-Mass, was so disgruntled that, after a long struggle, it was allowed to leave and join the Massachusetts Teachers Association/NEA).

888’s steward system was in disarray. High staff turn-over continually disrupted contract negotiations and enforcement. When members had a workplace problem, they were told to contact 888’s “call center” which was not good at returning calls. Due to local fiscal crises throughout the state, government workers were at risk of losing jobs, pay, or benefits. But that didn’t stop Susana Segat, a loyal ally of Andy Stern on SEIU’s national executive board (who was originally appointed by him to run 888), from awarding herself a whopping presidential salary increase.

After a difficult campaign, the second of its kind against Segat, the Change888 slate succeeded in ousting her last April, by a two-to-one margin, with 22 percent of the membership voting. (For a full account, see "Members of a Massachusetts SEIU Local Dislodge an Incumbent," by Bruce Boccardy.) Unlike Segat, who was never a working member of 888—a not uncommon but often unhelpful leadership credential in SEIU—her challenger, Bruce Boccardy, had spent many years in SEIU bargaining units as a Boston city employee and active steward. Since taking over the local with a like-minded group of reformers, he has expanded steward training and recruitment.

The local now tries to keep everyone better informed with regular newsletters, flyers, and an e-bulletin called The Spark, which is reaching 3,000 members at their home email addresses. Worker participation in bargaining, organizing, and political action has been actively encouraged and would-be defectors have been urged to give SEIU another chance.

Unlike his aloof and imperious predecessor, Boccardy makes frequent workplace visits. He has cut his own salary, empowered the executive board, and invited members and their families to visit the union office. He is also trying hard to repair 888’s damaged relations with a wide range of community-based organizations, including Jobs With Justice, the workers’ rights coalition that 888 abandoned under Segat. (Last Saturday, the local even hosted a well-attended JWJ training session attended by 100 members of SEIU, IBEW, CWA, AFSCME, AFT, AFGE, and other unions.)

“Our goal,” Boccardy explained in a recent open letter, is to “transform [888] into a model for other SEIU locals….We believe that none of our goals and objectives will be realized without a highly active membership.”

California's victorious change slate

As reported in the last several days by Labor Notes and Randy Shaw’s Beyond Chron, “Change888” has now been joined by “Change1021,” a completely separate but similarly inspired movement of northern California public workers to reclaim their local as well. Local 1021 posed an even bigger challenge for reformers, who swept 26 out of 28 elected positions there last Friday.

As its number implies, 1021 is the product of an even grander Stern consolidation of ten locals into one, three years ago. The combined membership—five times larger than 888’s—extends all the way from the Bay Area to the Oregon border.

As San Francisco EMT Larry Bradshaw, 1021’s newly-elected third vice-president explains, the International’s original merger scenario was to tighten headquarters control over the local’s affairs—for the benefit of the membership, of course.

“Stern justified his centralizing agenda on the claim that ‘bigger equals stronger,'" says Bradshaw. A protégé and loyal lieutenant—in this case, Damita Davis-Howard—was picked to run the merged local. Per usual, he says,

"...the appointee faces no election for three years and uses the power of the presidency, and patronage, to build a base and transition seamlessly into becoming an elected leader. [But] Stern’s formula was dysfunctional from the beginning, with many staff vacancies and no one overseeing contract issues for thousands of city and county workers."

Then came the recession. “In the face of budget deficits and aggressive employers, Local 1021 proved disorganized as leaders conceded to almost any demands by employers for concessions,” Bradshaw says. Many members began to conclude that “bigger seems to mean more bureaucratic,’ not more effective or responsive.

In late January, a 1,500-worker 1021 unit in Marin County did what smaller 888 groups started to do in Massachusetts under Segat—they petitioned to replace SEIU with an independent union.

Change1021 hopes to discourage this exodus and revitalize the local, drawing on the skills and experience of its leaders and supporters. Their opposition ticket included classified school employees, municipal workers, nurses, transit workers, and staffers at nonprofits, like the Tenderloin Housing Clinic in San Francisco, where new president Roxanne Sanchez, a former BART union activist, works. She won by a 2 to 1 margin. Meanwhile, her running-mate for local “CEO,” Sin Yee Poon, a rank-and-file leader from San Francisco’s Human Services Agency, defeated Davis-Howard by 700 votes out of 5,300 cast a 4-way race.

'Extraordinary disaffection'

The platform of Change1021 echoes that of Change888. It calls for greater “democracy and accountability,” “financial transparency,” “rebuilding from the bottom up,” “better communication and access to information,” resistance to contract concessions, and restoring membership pride in the union.

The 1021 reformers also made a point of declaring that they “will not spend a penny” of “precious local resources” to “raid or attack other unions.” They criticized SEIU for “spending tens of millions of our dues dollars” on such fights—a reference to Stern’s costly and controversial wars with UNITE HERE and the new National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), which is gaining ground on SEIU in California health care.

As Poon told Labor Notes readers: “We will have to deal with a huge task of rebuilding a union in a new direction.” “Even in better times this was difficult,” Sanchez agrees. “But, with our local union in such disorder and our International union so estranged from its members, it will be a formidable challenge.”

One observer wishing them well and applauding their achievement is a Bay Area NUHW founder. He was part of the talented and dedicated leadership cadre ousted by Stern a year ago during SEIU’s disastrous take-over over of United Healthcare Workers (UHW), which remains in trusteeship, with thousands of its members poised to join NUHW in upcoming decertification votes.

This longtime union activist, who wished to remain anonymous, was struck by the “extraordinary disaffection and demobilization of the workers” represented by 1021, as reflected in very low voter turn-out.

“In what, by trade union standards, was a hotly contested election, taking place in the middle of a fiscal crisis with wages, benefits, and thousands of jobs on the line, only 5,407 ballots were returned (5,360 valid) out of more than 42,000 eligible to vote and a claimed membership of 54,000?” With this kind of hollowed-out unionism, how long will it be, he asked, “before bosses and politicians figure out that ‘the SEIU juggernaut’ is a paper tiger”—in California and too many other places as well.

California Reformers Beat Appointees in SEIU Megalocal’s First-Ever Election

2010-03-20T16:06:00.000-07:00

California SEIU 1021 Reformers Beat Appointees in SEIU Megalocal’s First-Ever Election
http://www.labornotes.org/2010/02/california-reformers-beat-appointees-seiu-megalocals-fir st-ever-election

Larry Bradshaw| February 28, 2010

Reform forces from across Service Employees Local 1021 uniting under the banner of “Change 1021” swept out appointed leaders in the local’s first-ever elections. In results announced early Saturday, the reform slate took 26 of 28 positions, including the top seven spots.

Local 1021 is one of SEIU’s new megalocals, created from 10 locals. It represents 50,000 primarily public sector workers in California, from the San Francisco Bay to the Oregon border and down into the Central Valley. The local also includes newly unionized nonprofit workers whose agencies are funded by the public sector.

The winners released a statement pledging to work with other candidates and their supporters. "Working together we can fight layoffs, resist concessions and preserve important public and non-profit services for our communities," they said.

Megalocals like 1021 are the brainchild of SEIU President Andy Stern, who has centralized authority and resources in the union. The creation of new locals allows Stern to impose a virtual trusteeship, appointing all the officers and executive board. Typically, Stern appoints a protégé or loyal lieutenant to run a newly created local. At SEIU Local 1021, that was Damita Davis-Howard, a president of one of the 10 merged locals—who nominated Stern when he first ran for International president in 1996.

The appointee faces no election for three years and uses the power of the presidency, and patronage, to build a base and transition seamlessly into an elected leader. Stern has strengthened his control by using this model across the country.

Stern’s formula was dysfunctional in Local 1021 from the beginning, with many staff vacancies and no one overseeing contract issues for thousands of city and county workers. As cutbacks got worse, money was spent on trinkets and poorly attended ice cream socials.

But Local 1021 really ran aground on the recession. Stern had justified his centralizing agenda on the claim that “bigger = stronger.” The recession and its devastating impact on public sector budgets put Local 1021’s appointed leaders to the test, and members now feel that bigger seems to mean more bureaucratic. In the face of budget deficits and aggressive employers, Local 1021 proved disorganized as leaders conceded to almost any demands by employers for concessions.

Members are reeling from successive waves of layoffs, furlough days, and cuts in pay and benefits. Two San Francisco public hospitals laid off nursing assistants and clerks and rehired them at lower pay—and the union didn’t challenge this 20 percent pay cut for mostly women of color until rank-and-file members and community organizations put up a fight.

A local internal council of public workers was abandoned, so rank-and-file workers have met informally to share information about concession demands. Plans they came up with were either vetoed by staff or not resourced.

Years into the recession, the local lacks a plan. It lurches from crisis to crisis, constantly months behind.

These failings led to the emergence of a broad reform slate, including classified school employees, municipal workers, nurses, transit workers, and nonprofit employees. Reformers united around an agenda of “Change 1021 to Member-Run,” with Roxanne Sanchez, who works at the Tenderloin Housing Clinic in San Francisco, running for president. She won by a 2 to 1 result.

Reform forces began to coalesce during a long fight between 2006 and 2008 over the new local’s bylaws. Reformers fought for a strong and representative executive board while appointed officers maneuvered for a strong-president form of governance.

The most contentious issue was the role of staff, in a union with a history of being staff-run. Rank-and-file leaders proposed that staff could not run for president and other high offices. This would have eliminated Davis-Howard as a candidate, set a “bad example” for other SEIU locals, and upset Stern’s master plan.

Rank-and-file members eventually won even the majority of Stern’s hand-picked executive board to adopt the position. Davis-Howard appealed to Stern, who, not surprisingly, ruled that staff could run for president.

After reformers threatened to run a “vote no” campaign, a compromise was crafted where the president would be a rank-and-file member but the local would have a Chief Elected Officer, a position for which staff could run. The CEO would control hiring, firing, and assignment of staff.

Sin Yee Poon, a rank-and-file leader from San Francisco’s Human Services Agency, says, “This ‘elected’ CEO position is a monstrosity that turns what is essentially an executive director position into an elected officer who does not report to the executive board.”

Reformers suspect the International saw the CEO position as a way to salvage Davis-Howard’s election prospects and keep the International’s hand in the local’s affairs. The message from Stern was clear: accept the compromise or face a trusteeship. The reformers decided to run Poon for CEO, and she took the position by a 2,141 to 1,445 tally over Davis-Howard.

But some reformers were fed up, after hundreds of hours of work on the bylaw changes. County and municipality workers in Marin County filed a decertification petition January 29 among the 1,500 members of the unit. They plan to create an independent union. Representation was poor; Local 1021 closed the local office in Marin. Other areas are murmuring about decertifying as well.

No date has been set for the Marin decertification election, however, and reformers worked to involve them in the campaign.

THROWN OVERBOARD
When the reform slate formed, the administration team cracked. Some incumbents felt Davis-Howard would be a liability, so they jettisoned her and formed a new slate. Neither of the two incumbent slates claimed the mantle of incumbency. Both repackaged themselves as something new and fresh.

Of course, winning is only the first step. Poon cautions, “We will have to deal with a huge task of rebuilding a union in a new direction.”

Sanchez agrees. “Even in better times this was difficult,” she said, “but with our local union in such disorder and our International union so estranged from its members, it will be a formidable challenge.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Larry Bradshaw won his bid for third vice president on the Change 1021 slate by a 2,914 to 1,350 result.

http://www.change1021.org/

SEIU 221 Abandons $107,000 "Severance" Pay for Moore

2010-03-20T15:46:00.000-07:00

Feb 4, 2010

The SEIU Local 221 Executive Board met this evening.

The agenda was amended to NOT have the Board's election of a replacement Secretary of the Local be part of the closed, executive session. The items on repealing the $107,000 severance pay deal and the consulting contract deal for former President Sharon-Frances Moore were hidden away from ordinary members of the union by the tactic of going into closed executive session.

Votes for Local Secretary were 9 for Al Parra and 5 for Rick Lovett. Secretary Parra will now serve as co-president, along with VP James Slade and Treasurer Alison Barkley, until a new permanent replacement for the Local President is voted in.

Around 9 PM the meeting ended and Board members said they repealed the $107,000 severance pay to Moore. They also voted to terminate the 60-day "transitional" consulting contract with her. In other words, the contract had already been signed, despite the warning from International President Andy Stern that it should NOT be.

Before the meeting really got started, Interim Local 221 President Slade read the letter from the U.S. Dept of Labor, in which DOL and the Local agreed to an extension of the deadline for DOL court action, to March 3. The union's attorney, Fern Steiner, then read another letter from DOL to the Local, which states that DOL has made a preliminary finding of VIOLATIONS. Steiner explained that the March 3 deadline was negotiated to give the union extra time to try to show evidence that the DOL's preliminary findings are wrong, and that the union has until Feb. 22 to do that. DOL has focused on the lack of secret ballots at the polls, improper restrictions on candidates right to inspect the union voter/member lists, and LACK OF NOTICE OF ELECTION TO THE MEMBERS.

Steiner was asked by an E-Board member if she had been given copies (by the union) of the complaints and appeals and rulings thus far. Steiner said she "may" have been given a copy of the original election protest (July 2009) but that she was NOT given a copy of the complaint filed with DOL. She said she only recently obtained it, BY DOWNLOADING IT OFF OF THE REFORM221 WEBSITE !!!!!!!

http://reformseiulocal221.blogspot.com/

For Union Democracy,
Monty Kroopkin

SEIU-sent officials to probe complaints: Ex-labor leader’s pay deal at issue

2010-03-20T15:40:00.000-07:00

By Jeff McDonald, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 1:17 a.m.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/jan/28/seiu-sent-officials-to-probe-complaints/

OVERVIEW
Background: SEIU Local 221 officials agreed to pay former president Sharon-Frances Moore a severance and hire her as a consultant after accepting her resignation this month.

What’s happening:Officials from the international SEIU office have arrived in San Diego to investigate member complaints.

The future: The investigators will report to international union President Andrew Stern within 30 days.

International leaders of the union representing thousands of county government workers have arrived in San Diego to help sort out a dispute over management of the local group.

Andrew Stern, the international president of Service Employees International Union, appointed two personal representatives to investigate whether the local chapter wrongly paid former president Sharon-Frances Moore a six-figure severance and hired her as a consultant.

Local union officials said they welcome the investigation and help finding a new president. Moore cited personal reasons in resigning this month as president of SEIU Local 221.

Last week, the local’s executive board named three members to manage the union on a day-to-day basis until a successor can be named, but some union members complained that the action violated the organization’s rules.

In a Jan. 22 letter to local union officials from his Washington, D.C., headquarters, Stern said he was looking into the complaints and advised them to withhold any payments to Moore.

“I have directed my representatives to report to me within 30 days on the situation in Local 221,” he wrote. “In the meantime, I counsel the Local 221 officers and executive board not to execute or implement the challenged payments or contract at this time.”

Local 221 spokeswoman Melinda Battenberg said decisions regarding the severance and consulting agreement are internal union business that she cannot discuss publicly.

Specifically, rank-and-file members complained about a $107,000 severance package awarded to Moore and objected that she will keep working for the union as a consultant. Several people wrote to Stern to demand an investigation.

“The general membership of the Local 221 was unhappy before this meeting,” SEIU member Denise Knobloch wrote. “When word becomes more public about these issues, I feel that many more people will pull away from the union.”

Many of the same members previously had filed complaints with the U.S. Department of Labor claiming irregularities in the conduct and results of the July election of union officers.

That complaint is still under review by federal labor officials.

SEIU Local 221, which represents about 10,000 county employees and other workers, is a separate organization from the SEIU bargaining units that were voted out by Kaiser Permanente employees this month.

Jeff McDonald: (619) 293-1708;

Labor leader resigns amid election dispute

2010-03-20T15:32:00.000-07:00

By Jeff McDonald, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

Friday, January 22, 2010 at 12:04 a.m.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/jan/22/labor-leader-resigns-amid-election-dispute/

The president of one of the largest labor groups in the region resigned this week, citing personal reasons for leaving at a time when a recent union election remains in dispute.

Sharon-Frances Moore of Service Employees International Union Local 221 left the labor group Monday, a spokeswoman said. She joined the organization in March 2007.

The union will be jointly managed by the vice president, treasurer and acting secretary as the executive committee searches for a successor over the next several months.

“We negotiated a financial agreement with her, and she will serve as a consultant during this period to make sure our members don’t experience any disruption in services,” communications director Melinda Battenberg said.

The resignation comes amid an ongoing review of the union’s election last summer by the U.S. Department of Labor. A group of members complained that the vote wasn’t conducted fairly.

Moore’s resignation was formally accepted after a meeting of the SEIU Local 221 executive committee Tuesday night.

Battenberg declined to say how much money was involved in the severance package.

“Members are questioning if the severance package deal is ’hush money’ and asking if the union’s officials are trying to avoid another major press scandal over allegations of misuse of union funds,” union activist Monty Kroopkin said in prepared remarks.

Kroopkin was referring to a separate investigation into spending practices of leaders of the international union, which represents about 10,000 employees across San Diego and Imperial counties.

The union was largely responsible for qualifying a measure for the June ballot that would impose term limits on the county Board of Supervisors.

Moore earned $136,120 in 2008, according to the union’s most recent federal tax filing. Before arriving in San Diego, she managed a nonprofit organization that steered government aid and private donations to victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Jeff McDonald: (619) 293-1708; jeff.mcdonald@uniontrib.com

SEIU LocaL 221 President Resigns!

2010-01-20T18:06:00.000-08:00

SAN DIEGO -- SEIU Local 221 President Sharon-Frances Moore has resigned. She will get over $107,000 of our union dues money to leave!

It was announced Tuesday evening, January 19, 2010, at a special meeting of the SEIU Local 221 Executive Board. Her stated reasons were "personal". However, it comes after weeks of speculation about ethics charges reportedly filed against her with the International Union. The charges were reportedly filed against her by both members of the paid staff of the Local Union, and by one or more members of the elected Executive Board of the Local.

A federal investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor is also continuing into charges that her election in July of 2009 was stolen. The federal complaint, filed by candidates and members of the Reform221 Slate, charges that hundreds of the union's members were denied the right to vote. Details of these charges are available at http://reformseiulocal221.blogspot.com/

The Local 221 Acting President, James Slade, began tonight's Executive Board meeting by "entertaining" a motion to "suspend the rules". The motion passed, 7-2. Slade then announced that he, as chair of the meeting, would not recognize any non-board members to speak. The union's constitution expressly states that members of the union have the right to be recognized and to be heard at Executive Board meetings. Although procedural rules adopted by the board may be suspended, the board has no authority to suspend the union's constitution.

The constitution expressly provides that "The meetings of this Local Union shall be governed by Roberts Rules of Order" and "Subject to reasonable application, no provision of these Bylaws, rule of parliamentary procedure, or action by the Union or its officers shall be administered in such a way as to deprive individual members of the following rights: ...The right to appear and be heard by the Executive Board of the Local Union."

During the course of the meeting, a number of members did seek to be recognized or to make points of order, and Slade claimed they were out of order. He went further and said, at one point, that members who would not stop trying to speak would be held to be "insubordinate". Members are not employed by the union and cannot be held to be "insubordinate." Members pay union dues and support an annual union budget of more than $7 million dollars, and have legal rights of participation under both state and federal laws, as well as the union constitution and bylaws.

Slade also "ordered" the union's paid staff to leave the room. They all did so, but the senior staff then returned to the room and stated that under the Local Union's constitution and bylaws, the senior staff are dues paying members of the union, and cannot be forced to leave a normal meeting of the Executive Board. Using his new power as Acting President, Slade then told the senior staff that if they did not obey his order for them to leave the room that they would be "insubordinate". Staff can be fired or disciplined for insubordination. The President of the union has hiring and firing power over the union's paid staff. The senior staff did leave the room, under protest.

The Executive Board then approved a severance package including more than $107,000 in severance pay to Moore. The package, which was not provided to the board in written final form, was said to also include a waiver of Moore's right to exercise her rights regarding any liability of the union.
The Acting President then informed the meeting that the union's constitutional provision for division of the president's powers would be implemented, because he works full time for the city of National City and is not willing to assume the president's duties as a full-time job. The union's constitution provides that the powers will be shared between the Vice-President, the Treasurer and the Secretary of the Local Union.

However, the position of Secretary has been vacant since July 2009 when Secretary Omar Lopez took a job at San Diego State University, and was therefore no longer a member of the union. Slade announced that one of the Executive Board members, Richard Lovett, would be "Acting Secretary" and would share the presidential powers. The union's constitution does not allow the President to make any such appointment to fill a vacancy on the board. Only a vote of the Executive Board can fill a vacancy, and there has been no such vote.
Members are questioning if the severance package deal is "hush money" and asking if the union's officials are trying to avoid another major press scandal over allegations of misuse of union funds.

The meeting was video taped, and members have the right to view the tape at the union hall.

The Local Union's Constitution and Bylaws are available at the union's website at
http://www.seiu221.org/bylaws/Default.aspx

Reform Slate in SEIU 221 Election!

2009-07-22T03:06:00.000-07:00

Reformers threaten County union’s status quo
By Frank Gormlie on July 17th, 2009

[to see the photos, please see the original posting of this article at OBRag.org]

There is an insurgent reform movement within the union that represents most of the County of San Diego’s employees. And it threatens to overturn the status quo within SEIU Local 221. SEIU - or the Service Employees International Union - is the largest public-employee union in the country, and its San Diego affiliate in Local 221 is having an internal election this month. The candidate for president on the reform slate is Monty Kroopkin, an old friend of ours.

SAN DIEGO, CA. Monty Kroopkin appears to be an unlikely candidate for president of Local 221. With his salt and pepper beard and pony-tail, and glasses tipping off his nose, he appears to be more suited for some intellectual post at a local university, or perhaps polishing and working on his Harley.

Yet he and his fellow reformers are running against the status quo in Local 221, a status quo upheld by the current leadership of president Sharon-Francis Moore and her Executive Board. Monty did not mince words in describing the problems he perceives with the union caused by Moore’s presidency.

Patty and I met Kroopkin at his small 2-bedroom North Park home, and with coffee cups in hand, followed him to an upstairs outside deck next to the attached granny flat. There the welcome breeze cooled us.

I have known Monty Kroopkin for many years, since both of us attended UCSD in the early Seventies. Back then, he easily fell into being the mentor for numerous student-journalists on several campus-sponsored newspapers over the years. Monty personified the student-as-activist role model for the waves of younger kids who streamed through the university on their way to careers and middle-class lifestyles, instilling in them a perpetual stance of questioning authority and being on the underdog’s side, whether it was Vietnamese peasants or South African freedom fighters.

Growing up in New York, he had ended up in San Diego in 1970, gravitating to the areas primo college. He had graduated from UCSD with a Sociology and Communications degree, and had started a PhD program that he had to eventually shelve in order to find work and pay the bills.

As our own lives took their separate turns, Monty and I always stayed in touch over the decades since. He had been an early supporter of the original OB Rag, and when this blog appeared, Monty quickly jumped on our bandwagon and has supported us ever since.

So, as I climbed the stairs to the deck for our interview, I felt like I was sitting down with an old friend who was walking out on the proverbial gangplank with his candidacy - for if he loses, his name will be mud around the Union hall on Kearny Mesa Road, a stones throw from 805.

Yet as we talked, and as I listened to his passion for union democracy, his deep concern for the union members, and listened to how he had organized a reform slate to run against the entrenched leadership in the upcoming union elections, my trepidation grew into an excitement that I was unprepared for.

His knowledge of the details of how Local 221 was organized, and all the people it represented, was amazing, but to be expected. The Local, with a membership around 8,000, represents most of the classified workers at the County; these include nurses (public health and at the jails), eligibility workers, social workers, adult probation staff, the clerical staff throughout the County - including the Sheriffs Department, and such folks as environmental health inspectors. This numbers between 13,000 and 15,000 people. The Local does not represent attorneys - DA’s, County counsel, Public Defenders, and does not have Sheriff deputies.

221 also represents clerical people and classified posts at a number of incorporated cities in the County: National City, Imperial Beach, Chula Vista, La Mesa, Encinitas, San Marcos and even Calexico. These cities combined account for about 500 to 600 workers.

Members get to vote - for officers for the leadership, and theoritically on policies, issues and the direction of the Local. But here is where Kroopkin has problems with the current union leaders.

“The current president, Sharon-Francis Moore, … she and the rest of the appointed Executive Board rigged the vote and wrote the new constitution for the local. The membership was shut out.” Monty explained that Local 221 was formed two years ago with the merger of two other SEIU unions - Local 535 and Local 2028. The International - meaning the national office - led by Andy Stern - appointed Moore and the rest of the current Executive Board. “The members were promised a new election within 6 months,” Monty said.

“And that was a year and a half ago,” I asked. Monty nodded. Sharon-Francis Moore, an attorney from New York, had no area roots, yet she was set up and given an annual salary of over $130,000 by the Ex Board, again a Board appointed by the national’s leadership and beholden to her.

The current president and her senior staff re-wrote the local’s constitution and made deep changes in how the locals that had merged were set up. They minimized the Executive Board, and moved from a proportional representational model where chapters elected people to fill the seats of the Board to one that “was set up to protect their own positions,” Monty said. “Now, there is no rational basis for the seats on the Executive Board,” he added.

I asked Monty point blank: what are his problems with Sharon-Francis Moore.

“Currently,” he said, “she has four unfair labor practices charges filed against her, by her own staff at the union hall.” These folks work for the union as staff. During contract negotiations, a number of them picketed Moore’s home. “She then threatened to take away any Family Leave benefits. She targeted the picketers and the ringleaders - and harassed them with phone calls to their homes.”

Kroopkin continued: “Members complain that their calls to the union are not returned.” This was a common complaint, I said, among members of any union - I had experienced this when I was a union rep years ago.

“Yeah,” he replied. “They missed all kinds of deadlines - grievance deadlines - contract deadlines.”

“One wide-spread complaint (from the members) is poor representation.” Monty went on, “This allows management to run amok!”

There is also, Monty said, “an attitude of arrogance towards the members by senior staff.” He has witnessed times when staff would yell at members, deriding them. “This is unacceptable,” he said. “The staff don’t work for the members, they work for the president.” It should be the other way around, he implied.

“Andy Stern (the International president) has pushed a corporate model of management onto the union.” And now, Monty continued, “there is vast contempt with the union among members. People don’t even know who the leadership is, as there is so little communication with the members.”

In response to all these problems, Monty began organizing a reform slate to run in the current election. He formed the slate from a loose community of stewards and activists from both the unions that merged to form 221. Now, the Reform 221 slate has 11 candidates for the 16 open positions.

Monty himself was a steward for 7 years, and was elected by his co-workers to be on the contract negotiating team twice.

The union election is being run by an outside firm that specializes in union elections. A mail ballot was sent out to all the members July 1. They must be returned and in the hands of the pollsters by July 21. In addition, from July 14 to the 21st, there are various polling sites around the County for members to cast their ballots. The tally will be made on the 21st.

Monty believes that if the turn-out is good, he and his slate have great chances of winning the election. But the members have experienced a couple of years of poor representation, plus there’s apathy, people not caring, not thinking that they can change things at their union.

“We have a better organization than the incumbents,” Monty said, “and they don’t have popular support.” Monty and his reformers want to change the make-up of the Executive Board, bring back proportional representation, “so every kind of worker and every kind of work is represented.”

Go to http://reformseiulocal221.blogspot.com/for the candidates and their positions.

This is exciting. My old friend could be the next president of Local 221. There is indeed a reform movement throughout SEIU, all over the country, of union members so upset with the way Andy Stern and the International has treated them, that they have organized themselves against that leadership. The reformers have formed something they call SMART - SEIU Member Activists for Reform Today. SMART-inspired insurgencies have won in various locals around the nation, including a couple of wins here in California.

Monty Kroopkin is working for a victory here in San Diego. It’s all about the turn-out, he tells me. “The tide is turning.” We shook hands and then Patty and I turned into the approaching night air.

Reformists Take Back SEIU 888 in Massachusetts!

2009-05-10T15:52:00.000-07:00

From: "Dan Clawson"
Date: April 29, 2009 10:48:21 PM EDT
Subject: Fw: insurgent SEIU slate ousts trustee

In SEIU 888 in Massachusetts, formed about five years ago by the merger of
assorted public sector locals, Susanna Segat was appointed as the trustee.
She won her first election, but has just been ousted by an insurgent "Bring
Back Our Union" slate, which won by a more than 500 votes for president
(1801 to 1284, with slightly different votes in other races; the insurgents
won every seat they contested, but ran only 5 candidates for 18 Executive
Board seats).

About four years ago, 2500 members left this SEIU local and went into NEA
locals at the University of Massachusetts. The group had threatened to
decertify, but at the last minute SEIU voluntarily consented to the group
leaving, and cooperated with the process.

I've attached the election results for your interest. These are hot off the press; the count was today.

[see results at www.change888.org]

SEIU President Andy Stern Has Crossed the Line

2009-05-10T15:20:00.000-07:00

by Fred Ross, Jr.‚ May. 07‚ 2009

For the past ten years I have worked for SEIU, most recently leading a campaign to organize 9,000 healthcare workers at St. Joseph Health System (SJHS) hospitals across California. I was drawn to SEIU because of its commitment to social justice, including its inspiring Justice for Janitors campaign, its successful work on behalf of homecare workers, its leadership on immigrant rights, and its innovative strategies to hold corporations accountable. I have been an organizer since 1970, when I first started organizing with Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers (UFW). I know a little bit about struggle and the terrible cost of internal union conflicts. I’ve been shot at by a supermarket security guard, knocked unconscious by a Coachella Valley grape grower, and survived a heated confrontation with the Salvadoran military.

This is why SEIU’s recent attacks on UNITE HERE have come as such a shock. I am deeply disappointed that SEIU president Andy Stern is financing and helping staff a disruptive attack on the leaders and members at UNITE HERE around the country — the worst instance of a union undermining another union since the Teamsters sought to undermine Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers in the late 1960s and 1970s. Last month I decided to leave SEIU, in part because of these attacks. [emphasis added]

Over the past six weeks, a number of longtime friends and allies from the UNITE HERE leadership have asked me to join them in their current struggle. Let me tell you why I am proud to support the courageous members and leaders of UNITE HERE.

UNITE HERE has made organizing non-union hotel, gaming and food service workers its top priority. Unionized workers in each of those industries have sacrificed to advance organizing.

In 2004, in San Francisco, Local 2 members went out on strike, were locked out for fifty-three days, and held up their contract for two years, costing the industry over $100 million, in order to maximize their bargaining power for workers in New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Honolulu! The industry gave in and negotiated unprecedented card-check agreements in hotels in the Midwest and Southwest.

UNITE HERE is doing exactly what Change to Win set out to do: organize and use leverage along core industry lines. It is more than ironic that this union is being raided by SEIU, another Change to Win union.

This unjustified attack comes at a time when more than twenty thousand hotel workers are organizing campaigns to win new contracts in one of the worst economic downturns in decades. Sadly, Stern’s actions are also causing very serious collateral damage to the progressive movement.

First, they jeopardize the opportunity to reunify the divided national labor movement. Second, Stern’s war of choice has created deep divisions within the national immigrant rights movement. Third, at the local level, this conflict rips asunder decades-long relationships and progressive labor-community coalitions in cities across the country.

One of the most important lessons that I learned from my father, Fred Ross Sr., is that organizing is about relationships. My relationships with UNITE HERE leaders are deep, born of common struggle for worker justice, immigrant rights, farmworkers, peace with justice in Central America and, most recently, solidarity on behalf of the 9,000 unorganized SJHS healthcare workers fighting for free and fair union elections.

These relationships span thirty-six years, from the time I was a twenty-five year old organizer with Cesar Chavez and the UFW. I have probably gone to jail with hotel workers as often as with farmworkers.

Back in 1973, I recruited New York UNITE HERE leader Bill Granfield for the UFW. In turn, the legendary Miguel Contreras, whom I knew from the UFW, recruited me to join a picket line at the Parc 55 Hotel with members of HERE Local 2 during its citywide 1980 hotel strike. This was the first of many lively and militant street actions I would join with HERE members.

While I was going to law school at the University of San Francisco, my father and I helped a young reform leader, Sherri Chiesa, in her first election as an officer of HERE Local 2. In 1983, a young organizer from the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), Mike Casey, recruited me to do human billboarding with him on behalf of Ohio tomato workers who were boycotting Campbell’s Soup. In December 1989, when Neighbor to Neighbor launched an international boycott of Salvadoran coffee, Mike Casey and Tho Do, along with dozens of HERE members, joined us.

HERE was the first union in the country to recruit and welcome ex-UFW organizers into their ranks. UNITE HERE leaders learned valuable lessons from Cesar Chavez and the UFW. They were willing to make sacrifices and to undertake long, hard campaigns to win against tough odds. They have brought creative strategies to the struggle.

I have also long admired and respected UNITE HERE president John Wilhelm for his commitment, tenacity and strategic vision for building a democratic, vibrant and powerful union and revitalized labor movement.

I have longtime friends and allies on both sides of this conflict. SEIU and UNITE HERE have joined together countless times in mutual solidarity, supporting each other’s strikes and causes.

Ten years ago I recruited SEIU executive vice president Eliseo Medina, whom I have known for more than forty years, to join me, John Sweeney and hundreds of HERE members to engage in a massive sit-in in front of the Marriott Hotel in San Francisco. Several years ago, when I was organizing a city-wide contract campaign with SEIU Local 1877 President Mike Garcia, the members of HERE Local 2 were our most important labor ally. Three years ago, when I was first organizing support in Orange County with SEIU for the St. Joseph Health System campaign, the first labor leader to join us was the local UNITE HERE leader Ada Briceno.

SEIU and UNITE HERE have also been important strategic allies in the broader movement to fight for social and economic justice in this country. For example, Eliseo Medina, John Wilhelm and Maria Elena Durazo are critical allies in the fight for comprehensive immigration reform.

At this critical juncture, when we face both a major economic crisis and an historic opportunity to win universal healthcare, labor law reform, and comprehensive immigration reform, we must find a way to resolve this conflict based on mutual respect and solidarity. To win these epic legislative battles we will need unity and laser-like focus.

My hope is that SEIU will reclaim the best of its proud tradition and help build a more powerful and unified labor movement. Under Andy Stern’s leadership, SEIU made an enormous contribution to the election of President Obama and a progressive majority in Congress. Now he can make a major contribution by making peace with UNITE HERE.

Until he does, I will be standing in solidarity with the members of UNITE HERE.

Si se puede,
Fred Ross Jr.

Ross Jr.is a longtime labor and community organizer.

SEIU president Andy Stern has been bashing Bank of America - the same bank that gave union big loan

2009-04-30T15:58:00.000-07:00

http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2009/04/30/2009-04-30_seiu_prez_bashing_bank_that_gave_union_big_loan.html

by Juan Gonzalez

Thursday, April 30th 2009, 4:00 AM

For the past few months, Andy Stern, president of the powerful Service Employees International Union, has railed against the government's $45 billion Bank of America bailout.

He has condemned the bank for lavish bonuses, for exploiting millions of mortgage and credit card customers, and for mistreating its low-level workers.

SEIU's Change to Win labor coalition even led a "Just Vote No" shareholder revolt Wednesday at the bank's annual meeting in Charlotte, N.C., at which Ken Lewiswas ousted as bank chairman but kept on as CEO.

But guess what? Despite all the public fanfare, Stern has been quietly doing big business with Bank of America.

Last year, his union borrowed $10 million from the bank, SEIU's financial report shows. That loan brought the union's total debt with Bank of America to $87.7 million.

Ken Lewis, in other words, is SEIU's main creditor.

And that's not the only surprise in the report.

SEIU's other big lender last year - to the tune of $15 million - was Amalgamated Bank. That's the institution owned by UNITE HERE, a rival union that represents clothing, hotel, restaurant and laundry workers.

The Amalgamated loan was issued in September, an SEIU spokeswoman said. It arrived just before a power feud between UNITE HERE's two top leaders, Bruce Raynor and John Wilhelm, erupted into the nastiest labor split in years.

Once it became clear that Wilhelm had leadership support in that dispute, Raynor rushed to rewrite the bank's bylaws in December to assure himself control of Amalgamated's board of directors. He then ousted Wilhelm as a bank director.

Amalgamated is the only union-owned bank in America. It has $500 million in assets, and is often called the crown jewel of the labor movement.

By the time he ousted Wilhelm from the bank board, Raynor was openly working with Andy Stern to convince a third of UNITE HERE's nearly half-million members to secede and affiliate with SEIU.

The UNITE HERE breakaway group calls itself Workers United. Stern spoke at its founding meeting last month. SEIU bankrolled the secession effort and a suit aimed at getting control of Amalgamated.

"Raynor conspired to move money from Amalgamated Bank to SEIU for the purpose of attacking our union with money from our own bank," Wilhelm says.
Last week, UNITE HERE's leadership voted to start suspension proceedings against Raynor, who's still the union's president.

Raynor declined to talk about the Amalgamated Bank loan. SEIU spokeswomanRamona Oliver dismissed Wilhelm's claim.

"We do a lot of business ... with Amalgamated," Oliver said. "There nothing unusual about that $15 million loan."

So why would SEIU, which boasted nearly $250 million in dues income from members last year, even need to take out big loans from Bank of America and Amalgamated Bank? It turns out Stern's organization has been burning through cash.

Last year, the union spent $67 million on "political and lobbying" expenses - twice what it spent in 2007. It sold virtually all of its investments to generate additional cash.

Much of that money went to elect Barack Obama.

"We put all we had on the table to make sure that [Obama's victory] happened," Oliver said.

The union's latest financial report shows SEIU has only $33 million in net assets. That's an average of just $18 for each of its 1.8 million members. UNITE HERE, on the other hand, has more than $200 million - an average of about $568 per member.

SEIU's outstanding loans total $102 million. Its liabilities have skyrocketed to 82% of its assets.

Like the Wall Street banks Stern has rightly criticized, SEIU is spending beyond its means. His solution seems to be a hostile takeover of another union's membership, along with a plan to snatch up labor's only bank.

Ken Lewis should take survival lessons from Andy Stern.

jgonzalez@nydailynews.com

SMART's Open Letter Against the Trusteeship of UHW

2009-04-28T21:31:00.000-07:00

In February, SMART sent an open letter against the trusteeship of SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West to SEIU president Andy Stern, the SEIU International Executive Board, US president Barack Obama, and then-designate for Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis.

The full letter including the cover page that was sent is available online, but the text of the statement itself reads below:

The economic collapse in California and nationally is the largest in our generation and a dangerous threat to our union, society, and lives. The need for a democratic labor movement is greater than ever.

This is why we will not accept any attempts to place the 160,000-member California-based local SEIU-UHW under trusteeship by SEIU's top leadership. UHW should not be punished for voicing the opinion that union democracy and rank-and-file member participation are essential to a strong labor movement.

We call on all SEIU members and locals throughout the country to call for a halt to this attempted take-over of a historic local—one which has led the way for SEIU members in California. UHW is a local that stands at the forefront of the struggle for union democracy, that maintains high contract standards for its workers, and that has been the fastest growing local within SEIU.

The destruction of UHW will be a severe detriment to SEIU. It will be used by anti-labor forces and management to attack the labor movement as a whole. It will be used to give unions a black eye by unscrupulous forces that would rather not see pro-labor legislation like the Employee Free Choice Act pass. This attempted trusteeship will only benefit
labor's enemies.

In light of these reasons we call on all SEIU members to stand up and be counted in opposition to these tactics and call on SEIU and its president Andy Stern to draw back and accept democratic local control of SEIU-UHW.

SEIU Member Activists for Reform Today!

2009-04-26T21:46:00.000-07:00

SMART is an international rank-and-file movement for the democratic reform of SEIU. We are leaders from many local unions, and from every division of SEIU: public-sector, property services and healthcare.

We are organized rank-and-file members who believe that members are the real source of strength for our Union and the people behind every victory.

Members have fought for years in our work sites, in the streets, and in the halls of government to make SEIU the largest and strongest union in the country – now two million workers strong. Members also know that growth is critical to our success, and to rebuilding a fighting labor movement – but not growth at all costs, and not without full participation of the members.

In the name of growth, some recent agreements orchestrated by SEIU’s leadership have traded away high contract standards, limited members’ free speech and ability to protect the public we serve, and compromised our right to strike. All this has been done without real member involvement.

Many in SEIU have grave concerns that in recent years, SEIU’s leadership in D.C. has drifted away from the membership, forgetting that we are the ones who make our union strong. Dozens of mergers have been imposed without any member involvement or democratic procedures, elected leaders have been replaced with appointed ones. Constitutional changes have given the president and international union’s executive board unprecedented powers to force coordinated bargaining, appoint our bargaining teams, and settle our contracts.

It’s time to remind our leaders that SEIU is a union of, by, and for the members!

Member dues pay their salaries
Members fight to win every day in the workplace
Members are the political voice and power needed to win in government
Members are the most effective organizers of new workers
Members win the victories that generate SEIU’s growth.

SMART is building a membership reform movement that will:

Prevent the recent abuses of power by our leaders
Preserve democracy, member decision-making and involvement
Focus on winning higher standards along with growth.

We Believe:

SEIU is OUR union. Members have made it successful.
SEIU must be democratic, bottom-up and rooted in the membership with strong member leaders, to win.
SEIU must negotiate from a position of strength, not weakness and fight when necessary.
All members must have the right to vote for SEIU officers, negotiating teams, on our contracts, and to authorize strikes.
We must have right to vote by Local on mergers or reorganizations, elect officers of new locals quickly, and expect that Locals will never be trusteed for political reasons.
Members must play lead roles in organizing in our core industries. Strong contracts are the best motivator for new members to join SEIU.
Contracts must protect workers’ rights and standards of existing members. We do not believe in second-class workers or second-class contracts.
SEIU must advocate for the communities we serve on the job, and ensure adequate funding for public services.
We must re-unite and rebuild the labor movement, and we must build political power to demand real social and economic justice.

Join SMART now!

Contact SMART now!

SEIU Stern Administration Continues Raid on UNITE HERE

2009-04-26T12:48:00.000-07:00

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/apr/26/another-union-seeks-culinarys-right-organize-strip/

Another union seeks Culinary’s right to organize Strip workers

A month ago, when labor leader Andy Stern was drumming up excitement over a nationwide campaign to organize hotel and casino workers, he said his union wouldn’t set up shop on the Strip.

This was, after all, Culinary country.

“We are certainly not intending to go raid anybody,” Stern said at the time. “We don’t think there’s a need in Las Vegas for another union to represent the hospitality workers that are there.”

That was then.

An affiliate of his Service Employees International Union is now knocking on doors. It wants in.

The affiliate, called Workers United, sent letters this month to gaming companies in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, asking for the same organizing rights afforded the Culinary and its parent union, Unite Here. Letters were also sent to hospitality and food service companies across the country where Unite Here represents workers.

The action is the latest chapter in the escalating rivalry between two of the nation’s most progressive unions, with the hotel workers union accusing the service workers of attempting to cut into Unite Here membership and turf.

Some background:

In 2004, the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, known as Unite, and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, known as Here, merged into one union. But over the past six months the factions have been engaged in a nasty power struggle over the direction the union.

Former Unite officials called the merger a failure and encouraged former Unite members to break away, while former Here officials argued that both sides are stronger together as they struggled to keep the merger intact.

The SEIU’s Stern promoted the division by inviting either or both sides of Unite Here to simply join the SEIU. Last month at a weekend meeting in Philadelphia, delegates representing 150,000 of Unite Here’s 400,000 members announced they were splitting away and, calling themselves Workers United, joined the SEIU.

This month, the Nevada AFL-CIO, of which the Culinary is a member, adopted a resolution condemning Stern and the SEIU for, among other things, “claiming organizing jurisdiction over hotels, gaming and hospitality, which is (Culinary) territory.” The resolution told him to back off.

In Las Vegas, Culinary leaders lashed out at the SEIU, telling its own members:

“In these difficult times, the last thing we need is another union trying to divide us and weaken us. Unfortunately, the SEIU is using the tactics of anti-union employers to further their goal of taking over your union.”

Culinary Secretary-Treasurer D. Taylor said members in Las Vegas and Atlantic City had recently received mailers and robo-calls promoting secession. He made no distinction between the SEIU and Workers United.

“They are clearly trying to divide workers in order to do a raid and a takeover,” Taylor said. “Obviously they don’t care about the benefits of the workers.”

Workers United spokeswoman Amanda Cooper vigorously denied the Culinary’s claims, saying the letter was simply part of the “due diligence” involved in establishing a new union.

“This is just a process we went through to let people know we’re open and we’re representing people,” Cooper said. “Workers United is interested in organizing unorganized workers. The point of the letter is to find out about organizing rights for workers that don’t have a union.”

She said Workers United would not compete for Culinary members.

But the letter says differently. In it, Workers United President Edgar Romney asks casino operators to sign agreements identical to the ones afforded the Culinary, which allows card-check organizing without management interference.

But that agreement also explicitly defines which job classifications are subject to organizing. By extending that agreement to Workers United, it would seem to put the two unions in direct competition for new members.

That competition could play out with the opening of MGM Mirage’s CityCenter, if the company grants the SEIU affiliate’s request.

The Culinary secured immediate organizing rights for half of the development’s 12,000 employees in its contract talks two years ago.

Under labor law, Workers United could also make a play for Atlantic City workers this year because their contract expires in September.

Cooper denied any attempt to raid the Culinary and its Unite Here affiliates.

“There is no plan for Workers United now or in the future to take existing Culinary members,” she said. “Our concern is for unorganized workers.”

Representatives of MGM Mirage and Harrah’s Entertainment said their labor attorneys are reviewing the SEIU affiliate’s letter.

But with the Culinary’s long history of labor relations with Strip resorts, operators might be reluctant to welcome a new player.

“The rights that the Culinary has have been developed through four decades of bargaining,” MGM Mirage spokesman Alan Feldman said. “We, along with the union, have bargained very hard to create a relationship that benefits both of us.”

Reports from UHW members and others in our movement.

2009-02-10T20:27:00.000-08:00

Click "Read More" for all reports from union activists and supporters of union democracy.

United Healthcare Workers Holding Our Ground.
By Amy Thigpen, Medical Social Worker and UHW Member.

"Last night I slept on the kind of carpet you don't really want to examine too closely. It's splotched with decades of coffee stains and salsa and too many conversations still seem to hang in the stale air, but there I was, curled up on my air mattresses in the union hall in downtown Oakland, the home of United Healthcare Workers West, my union. On my right my sister the Medical Assistant slept peacefully, on my left my sister the Call Center Representative, across my sister the Ultrasound Technician, and my sister the Optical Technician. All of them healthcare workers, member leaders and officers in our union. I realized that I loved this stale, stained room, with carpets held together by duct tape, I love the room because it holds the waking dreams of my sister and brothers in UHW-W. The place may be held together by duct tape but we as a union are held together by something stronger."

Read the full post (and see more pictures) at www.mydd.com.

In the Streets - A report on UHW members' Jan 24 meetings.
By Ellen Dillinger, UHW member.

"UHW members from the Bay Area and elsewhere in Northern California met at the ILWU hall in Oakland to assess SEIU's plans for UHW. The International Longshore & Warehouse Union has a long history of fighting for union members' rights, and their hall was a fitting place to contemplate UHW's future."

Read the full report and see many more pictures at www.dillingertoons.net

SEIU Launches Takeover of United Healthcare Workers-West.
By Mark Brenner at Labor Notes

"Financial assets for the 150,000-member local were immediately seized, the executive board was dissolved, and full-time officers were removed from payroll. Reports circulated among workplace leaders that SEIU also dismissed UHW stewards, and that employers are holding captive-audience meetings to introduce new SEIU-appointed staff representatives."

Read the full article at Labor Notes

Defending their union against the SEIU.
By Jessie Muldoon, of the Oakland Education Association at Socialist Worker.

"CHANTING "WHEN in doubt, kick 'em out," hundreds of members of United Healthcare Workers-West (UHW) rallied at their union's offices in Oakland, Calif., January 27, as the national leadership of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) threatened to take over the 150,000-member affiliate.

Earlier in the day, SEIU President Andy Stern announced that the UHW was being placed in trusteeship. Last night's protest was called on short notice after a UHW mobilizing meeting of hundreds of workers. Members of other SEIU locals--and of other unions representing nurses, dockworkers, painters, carpenters and teachers--attended and voiced their support."

Read the full post at Socialist Worker

Media Reports on the UHW Trusteeship

2009-02-06T20:26:00.000-08:00

Click on "Read More" for a full roundup of media reports on the events of the last week.

Sacramento Business Journal, Jan 26.
Healthcare workers to SEIU: Let us decide on representation.
"Faced with takeover by the international union as early as Tuesday, leaders at Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West called on the international to let workers decide who will represent them.

SEIU officials in Washington, D.C., issued an ultimatum to UHW on Thursday: Agree to support the transfer of 65,000 nursing home and home care workers out of UHW or face immediate takeover and the expulsion of the local leadership."

LA Times, Jan 28.
Leaders of healthcare workers union are relieved of duty
"The leaders of an Oakland union were removed from office Tuesday by their Washington bosses, the culmination of months of fighting over who will represent tens of thousands of home health aides.

The Service Employees International Union served the officers of the 150,000-member United Healthcare Workers West with a trusteeship notice Tuesday afternoon. It appointed its executive vice presidents, Eliseo Medina and Dave Regan, as trustees.

UHW said in a statement that it has "rejected this imposition.""

SF Chronicle, Jan 28.
SEIU takes over local health care workers union
"Oakland-based United Healthcare Workers-West, the fastest-growing health care union in the nation, was taken over Tuesday by its parent union, the Service Employees International Union.

The president of United Healthcare Workers-West and 100 other elected officers were removed."

Calitics, Jan 28,
Blog Post by Brian Leubitz
"I'm currently on a conference call with the former leaders of SEIU-UHW where they are announcing the formation of the National Union of Healthcare Workers. They'll be working to decertify UHW at many of the facilities. This will be a long fight as the negotiations come up throughout the next coming years.

This is all in response to SEIU International's trusteeship of the UHW local. As I understand it, the International has placed calls to employers notifying them that UHW employees no longer represented the employees."

LA Times, Jan 29.
Ousted UHW leaders form new union
"The ousted leaders of Oakland-based United Healthcare Workers West on Wednesday announced that they have formed a new union and intend to begin recruiting their former members, a continuation of brinkmanship between UHW and the Service Employees International Union.

The new group is called the National Union of Healthcare Workers, and organizers are busily collecting union cards from UHW members, the first step toward recognition in workplaces."

Former Leaders of UHW Local Quit SEIU, Plan to Form New Health Care Workers Union

2009-02-03T20:24:00.000-08:00

By Michelle Amber and Joyce E. Cutler, Daily Labor Report, Jan 29. A great summary of SEIU's hostile takeover of UHW with analysis from many in our movement for union democracy.

One day after the Service Employees International Union placed United Healthcare Workers-West under trusteeship, the former leaders of the 150,000-member local Jan. 28 announced plans to form a new union—the National Union of Healthcare Workers.

In a teleconference call, Sal Rosselli, who was removed as president of the large California health care local, told reporters that some 100 elected leaders and members of the full-time staff had resigned their memberships from SEIU earlier that day.

Rosselli said the leaders were responding to demands from thousands of UHW members across California that the local disaffiliate from SEIU, which is moving 65,000 of UHW's long-term care members to a new statewide local of long-term care workers.

SEIU President Andy Stern Jan. 27 announced that he had placed UHW under trusteeship, removed all the elected leaders, and appointed two international executive vice presidents—Eliseo Medina and Dave Regan—as the trustees in order to “correct financial malpractice and to restore compliance with democratic procedures” (16 DLR A-20, 1/28/09 ). He also said the local failed to comply with conditions set by an outside hearing officer to abide by the decision to move its long-term care members.

The trusteeship was imposed five days after SEIU's International Executive Board adopted a 105-page report and recommendations by former Labor Secretary Ray Marshall, who conducted hearings last fall on whether UHW should be placed under trusteeship (13 DLR A-8, 1/23/09 ). While Marshall found that the leaders of UHW engaged in “financial malpractice” by transferring funds to a nonprofit organization to be used to fund legal disputes with the international, he did not recommend that SEIU establish a trusteeship based on those actions.

Rather, Marshall had recommended imposing a trusteeship if the local refused to abide by and cooperate with a January 2009 IEB decision that calls for the creation of a statewide local for long-term care workers that would include 65,000 UHW members along with workers from two other locals.
In ordering the trusteeship, Stern said the local had not fully complied with the conditions set forth by Marshall.

UHW responded that it would comply with many of the conditions but officials insisted that the long-term care members be allowed to vote on whether to switch to another local.

Addressing the teleconference, Angela Glasper, a former UHW elected leader, who is employed as a service clerk at Kaiser Permanente, said for decades “health care workers in California have wanted to be part of a democratic, progressive movement that would raise standards for caregivers and the patients and residents we serve. Events over the last several days have proven that's not possible in SEIU,” she said, adding that health care workers “deserve to be part of a union that they control democratically, not one that is led by a handful of outsiders from Washington, D.C.”

Existing UHW officers will serve “on a volunteer basis” to form a founding committee for the new union, and will select temporary officers, Rosselli said. “Some months in the future” there will be elections of officers, he said.

Rosselli said there are lots of things that the union leaders still need to figure out about the new organization. But, he said, “we will put together a plan to give members of UHW the opportunity to join that union.

Under federal labor law, workers may only switch unions during a specified window period prior to the expiration of their collective bargaining agreement. While there are numerous contracts that UHW has with employers that are up for renegotiation this year, Rosselli said he did not know how many UHW members would be able to join the new union.

SEIU Asked About New Group.
During a conference call later Jan. 28 with SEIU officials about the UHW trusteeship, when asked about the new organization that is being formed, SEIU Executive Vice President Mary Kay Henry said it “makes no sense” for a group to “create another vehicle to represent workers who are already organized.” She added there are 9 million health care workers who are not organized, adding health care workers will be further divided with a new union.

There was some disagreement between the former UHW leaders and the new trustees as to what employers are being told about the situation. Rosselli said members have told him that employers are telling their workers that they have been instructed by SEIU not to recognize the current stewards, and not to bargain with the current representatives. Rather, they are to deal only with SEIU.
But, Regan said all the union stewards are “remaining in place” and it is his intent to work with the “member leaders.” He said he had been in touch with some employers to let them know that the full-time staff of UHW are on a short, paid, leave of absence.

Regan said he and Medina plan to restore “confidence, accountability, and trust” with the members of UHW and “clarify the mission” of the local.

He said he plans to make sure that going forward the local is “solely focused on the needs of health care workers. We are now fully engaged and on top of representing members of UHW,” he said, adding there will be “no gap in collective bargaining or representation of members.”

Medina said he and Regan have been talking with thousands of UHW members and after discussions with many board members he is confident that “they want to get this chapter behind them.”

When asked about reports that many UHW members want to disaffiliate from SEIU, Regan said it is up to the members to decide whether they want to be in the union. However, he added that the international has an obligation to make a case to the members that the only way they are going to do better is to be together in a single, focused, powerful union.

Disapproval Expressed by Observers.
Several academics and labor observers expressed strong disagreement with SEIU's decision to trustee the local. In interviews conducted between Jan. 22 and Jan. 28, several said the fight is over the democratic rights of union members.

Herman Benson, the founder of the Association for Union Democracy, told BNA Jan. 28 that it is the “height of absurdity on the facts that are there to disrupt a huge section of the union and destroy it.”
Benson said Rosselli had agreed to many of the conditions imposed by the IEB, but wanted to “introduce several democratic procedures,” which he called “reasonable.” Nonetheless, Stern went ahead and imposed the trusteeship anyway, he said.

Benson said the Marshall report was a “flawed decision,” and said it was an “outrage” for him to say that Rosselli could not oppose the “slicing off of 65,000 of his members.” He pointed out that the jurisdictional dispute was not even a charge that Marshall was asked to consider during the trusteeship hearing.

When asked about Rosselli's announcement of the creation of a new union, Benson said he did not see “any other option.”

Noting that the only time workers could switch to the new union would be during the window period before contract expiration, he said it would be “difficult” to create the new union and the leaders would have to have “real sticking power and keep at it for a couple of years.”

Trusteeships Historically Used for Serious Crimes.
Most trusteeships were designed for situations when a “nefarious group or clique at the top that does something wrong,” according to Nelson Lichtenstein, a history professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara and director of the Center for Work, Labor and Democracy.

He noted that last summer SEIU placed into trusteeship United Long Term Care Workers Local 6434, SEIU's largest local in California, and in December permanently banned local President Tyrone Freeman from holding union office or membership (230 DLR A-5, 12/1/08 ). The move followed an outside hearing officer report that Freeman violated the SEIU constitution and local bylaws in “a pattern of financial malpractice and self-dealing.” Freeman was ordered to make restitution of more than $1.1 million of misappropriated local funds.

“This one [UHW] is unusual in that you have, almost to every mind, and Marshall says this as well, a big, vibrant democratic local which has a policy disagreement with the international,” Lichtenstein said. UHW is “a model local in many ways,” he said, adding that “it seems to me that in situations like this that an international should be extra hesitant in destroying or … dividing up a local of that sort. The absolute goal of the labor movement is an energized, localized leadership.”

Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, told BNA prior to the imposition of the trusteeship that “the world is watching ” the parties in the dispute. Unlike the Freeman situation, “there is no evidence of corruption in UHW, and you have this huge, huge deal,” she said.

Going Independent.
Prior to Rosselli's announcement about the creation of a new union, Lichtenstein told BNA that he thought UHW could become independent, “but it wouldn't be easy because there'd be multiple jurisdiction disputes and decertification elections.”

“I think it is true that UHW could succeed. But it's also clear that SEIU, by sending in the troops, they're going to fight these things and it's going to be messy,” he said.

The California Nurses Association disaffiliated from the American Nurses Association in 1995, and the Maine State Nurses Association and Massachusetts Nurses Association in 2001 pulled away from ANA, “and they're all surviving perfectly well,” according to Rose Ann DeMoro, CNA's executive director. DeMoro criticized SEIU under Stern. “We see SEIU as a management surveillance team. They will do anything. There is no bar that is too low for them to go to get dues. It's all dues chasing,” she said.
Like a corporation, DeMoro said, Stern is making a “hostile takeover of a smaller business in his model. Workers are objects of trade; he is outsourcing representation in call centers and sees no contradiction between workers' needs and corporate demands.”

Stan Greer, spokesman for the National Right to Work Committee, said Stern “has very specific ideas about how he wants the union to be run” and is not a hands-off leader.

“Now it seems like Andy Stern and the people working most closely with him are grabbing at any pretext to get rid of local union officials that they don't think are on the team,” Greer said. “I have seen a variety of abuses but there's a distrust of the officers of the affiliated unions [that] is of a level I don't recall seeing before.”

Disparate Treatment.
Bronfenbrenner said the trusteeship raises the question of “disparate treatment” among SEIU locals. In the rest of the country, SEIU “health care locals have been kept together and in California health care locals have been divided,” Bronfenbrenner said. “The problem is there is a consistency question.”
Comparing New York, where 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East represents all health care workers, and California, which is being split, Bronfenbrenner said, “[W]hy is what's good for one not good for the other? And that's the question.”

Bronfenbrenner said a strong fight can be expected. “When you have a group of people who have a very strong sense of identity and solidarity who feel aggrieved they fight back even harder,” she said. Whether right or not, “they have champions, this has just given them even more champions than they ever had.”

Solidarity Forever Revised - Song from a UHW Member

2009-02-01T20:21:00.000-08:00

When the thirst for strength and freedom through the members' blood shall run,
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun;
But what union could be weaker if accountable to none,
Our union makes us strong...

CHORUS:
Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
Our union makes us strong.

Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite,
Who would force us into silence, take our union dues in spite?
Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?
Our union makes us strong.

It is we who built our union; won the power that they trade;
Stood together while they plotted to divide us and invade.
Now we stand outside our union halls, our will has been betrayed;
But our union makes us strong.

They can take our empty buildings but our union's ours alone
We have laid the wide foundations; built it skyward stone by stone.
It is ours, not to slave in, but to master and to own.
Our union makes us strong.

They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn,
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.
We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn
That our union makes us strong.

In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold,
Greater than the might of armies, magnified a thousand-fold.
We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old
Our union makes us strong.

SEIU International Trustees UHW

2009-01-28T20:19:00.000-08:00

After more than a year of threats and smears, SEIU International's circular firing squad pulled the trigger on Tuesday January 27 and announced a trusteeship of UHW.

The trustees are to be Dave Regan and Eliseo Medina. UHW members are organized and rejecting the trusteeship, and now SEIU risks losing one of the union's largest, strongest, and most stable locals.

Much more info coming very soon from UHW members, the media and the rest of our movement for union democracy.

UHW members and others, email us your own pictures and reports.

Who Rules SEIU?

2009-01-03T20:18:00.000-08:00

Steve Early in Counterpunch describes the terrifying way our union is now structured and run, and what it could mean for UHW members as soon as this month.

“SEIU has evolved into a dictatorship in which Andy Stern and others have consolidated power, decision-making authority, and resources among a few.” --Sal Rosselli, president of SEIU’s United Healthcare Workers-West, in The San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 3, 2008

On Thursday, January 8, a group of 70 Service Employees International Union (SEIU) officials will join a conference call, set up in Washington, D.C., to decide the fate of 150,000 members of United Healthcare Workers-West, SEIU’s third-largest affiliate.

Among the actions the SEIU International Executive Board (IEB) may take is transferring 65,000 long-term care workers in California, against their will, from UHW into a new statewide entity with officers appointed by SEIU President Andy Stern. Either on this call or during a meeting Jan. 20., Stern’s board may also approve a headquarters take-over of UHW’s remaining 85,000 members. This would be accomplished via a Stern-imposed trusteeship that would replace all UHW elected leaders and further obliterate their local, one of the fastest-growing and most dynamic in SEIU.

SEIU spokesmen are downplaying the impact of either course of action...

They say it’s just an “internal matter,” a question of changing “local union jurisdiction,” after a long deliberative process, resulting in “democratic” decisions. Stern points to a recent “advisory vote” with an 86.2 percent showing in favor of his California re-organization plan. What he neglects to mention is that only 24,000 members cast valid ballots, out of 309,000 who received them—a 7 percent participation rate. More than 120,000 workers—in UHW and two other locals—actively boycotted the election, signing cards or petitions protesting it. Members pointed out that SEIU’s ballot only gave them two options, both leading to UHW dismemberment. As rank-and-filer Lola Young explained to The Sacramento Bee, “It was like asking me if I wanted to be shot in the left knee or the right knee. It’s not much of a choice.”

As widely reported in the California press, tens of thousands of hospital, nursing home, and home care workers like Young spent much of last year mobilizing to keep UHW intact and their own popular president, Sal Rosselli, in office. They made it clear, on numerous occasions, that they favored Rosselli’s approach to health care organizing and bargaining over Stern’s. In late 2008, they picked up support from prominent friends of labor and revered union figures like United Farm Workers founding mother, Dolores Huerta. In two recent public letters, nearly 300 elected officials, community activists, clergy members, academics, and trade unionists noted that Rosselli’s local had “consistently acted with the highest integrity, placing the best interests of caregivers, consumers, and communities at the center of its work.” The concerned politicians--including leading California liberals like Sheila Kuehl, Mervin Dymally, Fiona Ma, Tom Ammiano, and Dean Florez--urged Stern to “seek a peaceful resolution of your dispute with UHW rather than precipitate a crippling civil war inside SEIU.”

Despite such appeals, SEIU headquarters is still poised to launch the union equivalent of George Bush’s “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” Stern’s own misbegotten invasion of California could cost millions of dues dollars (on top of the huge amounts SEIU has already spent trying to undermine UHW). It will require the deployment of many international union staffers (who numbered more than 600 at last count and presumably have better things to do elsewhere.) None of these would-be occupiers of UHW will be greeted as “liberators” by the rank-and-file, as they attempt to displace elected UHW board members, bargaining committees, stewards, and mobilizers. UHW employers will have a field day with the resulting disruption of contract negotiations and enforcement.

At a time when unions are urging Congress to pass an Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), to aid union organizing and bargaining, there will be much damaging publicity for all of labor. It will highlight the fact that most SEIU members in California no longer have the right to choose what local they’re in or who represents them. Already anti-EFCA groups have run full-page ads in major newspapers playing up SEIU’s role in foisting Gov. Rod Blagojevich on the now unappreciative citizens of Illinois. When and if Stern pulls the trigger on UHW, UnionFacts.com and similar management front groups will have a propaganda field day displaying the corpse of workers’ rights within SEIU.

For some outside observers, one of the mysteries of this affair is why SEIU board members have, so far, gone along with what N.Y. Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez calls a “colossal scam” and “a stunning assault on union democracy.” SEIU’s IEB is, after all, the union’s top decision-making body (except when its convention is in session once every four years). In their own communities, some IEB members are well-known progressives. Among those with a resume that includes Sixties’ activism, a few were once even communists, socialists, and/or union dissidents themselves. Today, they’re understandably proud to be part of a board, which is, by far, the most diverse in labor, in many important categories. Among SEIU’s president, secretary-treasurer, six executive vice-presidents, 23 vice-presidents, five Canadian or retiree representatives, and 37 others simply titled “IEB Member,” one finds more women, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latinos, and gays than in any other similar executive body.

Unfortunately, how this “diversity” was achieved creates a major problem in terms of IEB accountability to the membership vs. the top leadership. The SEIU board has been structured and its members recruited in such a way that it doesn’t provide a check on the power of the president or secretary-treasurer, Andy Stern and Anna Burger respectively, or any meaningful oversight of their activities. Some officials on the board do have a base in their own local unions (usually, smaller ones) that they developed themselves as locally elected leaders and four out of 73 are elected just by their fellow Canadians, as a concession to Canadian “autonomy.” But the vast majority owes their union jobs and careers, now and in the past, to the two top officers. In very corporate fashion, Stern and Burger have transformed their board into a “management team,” that has about the same degree of real “independence” as corporate directors hand-picked by a powerful CEO. If any member ever steps out of line—like Rosselli did in recent years, due to policy differences with Stern—he or she will be dropped from the team, as Rosselli was last June when the current Stern-Burger “administration slate” was elected by 2,000 delegates meeting in Puerto Rico. At SEIU conventions--since the entire board (except for Canadians) is elected “at large”--an independent candidate has about as much chance of winning as a dissident shareholder running for director of General Electric at its annual meeting.

In other labor organizations—even ones more deserving of the moniker “business union”—national executive boards are filled with former workers who came up through the ranks. Ambitious rank-and-filers have a much better chance of making it to the top elsewhere than in SEIU. Candidates for board positions usually start out as a shop steward. Later, they become an elected local union leader, perhaps serve on the national staff for awhile, and then run for a seat on the national executive, as an independent or on someone else’s slate. In big unions like the Teamsters and Steelworkers, some candidates run for at-large positions—ie union-wide office, like the presidency—but most board hopefuls have to compete for fellow members’ votes in regional conferences or districts where they live, work, and are known.

In unions like my own former employer, the Communications Workers of America, the top officers and executive board are elected, as in SEIU, by convention delegates chosen by the members, not via the more democratic Teamster or Steelworker method of direct elections. But, regardless of whether voting is direct or indirect and no matter how bureaucratized a union may have become, the allocation of executive board seats to different constituencies (smaller than the entire union) tends to make some board members more politically accountable to those at the bottom rather than just the top. In the Communications Workers of America, for example, most board members represent either multi-state districts (ranging in size from 20,000 to 175,000 members). Or they are elected from occupational groups such as manufacturing workers, flight attendants, public employees, or journalists. Competition for seats on the CWA board is quite common. Independent candidates can even oust incumbents backed by the national president and fellow board members, as a challenger did last spring in the CWA/Newspaper Guild. Even the current president, Larry Cohen, was first elected to CWA office ten years ago only after facing stiff competition from an incumbent board member vying for the same open position as EVP.
What’s striking about SEIU is not only the absence of similar opportunities for competitive elections, but also the union background and current payroll status of many board members. According to an analysis done by UHW prior to the election and expansion of the IEB last year, “the majority are Stern appointees or staff. Out of [what was then] 67 members of the IEB, well over half are either SEIU International Union staff, or local leaders who were originally appointed to leadership positions in their local by Stern, rather than being elected by their members.” Opportunities for such career-advancing appointments abound in SEIU, to a degree unique in the labor movement. That’s because, under Stern, nearly 80 local unions have been put under headquarters trusteeships and/or re-organized with new leaders named by him, rather than elected by the members. (Due to its consolidation into huge, regional bodies, SEIU now has only 300 “locals” left.)

Union trusteeships are supposed to be a method of rooting out corruption, straightening out a troubled local’s finances or functioning, and then holding elections within eighteen months that return the local to membership control.

In SEIU, however, Stern-installed trustees or “interim presidents” are usually staffers from outside the local who are given as long as three years to entrench themselves politically, before facing any membership vote.

Running as de facto incumbents, they usually win, with the help of a large number of other paid staffers who are, by then, working for them on the union payroll as well. To get the picture, one need look no further than the six officials who serve directly under Stern and Burger—Annelle Grajeda, May Kay Henry, Gerry Hudson, Eliseo Medina, Dave Regan, and Tom Woodruff. Now earning nearly $200,000 each, four of these six executive vice-presidents have never been working members, in any SEIU jurisdiction; the other two became part of SEIU through its merger with District 1199, the New York-based health care union. The four originally hired from outside served as either trustee of a local, a local union executive director, or in some other appointed staff position. All owe their original or later, higher-ranking jobs to the sponsorship of Stern, Burger, or a fellow EVP.

Within the larger SEIU board—as talented as some members may be--this patronage system has been producing some rotten fruit lately (or, as SEIU loyalists describe it, “a few bad apples”). Just two months after her elevation to EVP on Stern and Burger’s ticket, Grajeda came under investigation for financial improprieties and was forced to take a leave from her local (where she was a Stern-appointed “interim president”), from SEIU’s California state council (where Stern helped her replace Rosselli as chairperson), and her new International union job (another 2008 gift from the SEIU president).

Also absent from this week’s conference call to decide the fate of UHW will be Tyrone Freeman and Rickman Jackson, two more Stern protégés who became public embarrassments. They were elected to the IEB last June but removed shortly thereafter in the huge corruption scandal engulfing Local 6434 in Los Angeles, SEIU’s second largest affiliate. Freeman has since been kicked out of SEIU and ordered to pay back $1.1 million that he embezzled; he still faces likely criminal charges. Jackson was stripped of the Michigan local that Stern had awarded him, ordered to make restitution as well, and then exiled to Canada, where he is being given a “second-chance.”

Due to an unrelated scandal, former SEIU research department staffer, Tom Balanoff, now a Stern-installed national vice-president in Chicago, has been dodging reporters lately (although reportedly also cooperating with the FBI) about his wire-tapped conversations with the recently arrested Rod Blagojevich, governor of Illinois. Presumably, Balanoff will be voting this week on the future of UHW, along with a number of current SEIU headquarters staffers, who in most cases have never held any elected office in SEIU other than being on the board. One might reasonably wonder how SEIU presidential assistants or department heads like Kirk Adams, Eileen Kirlin, Stephen Lerner, or Debbie Schneider can be expected to cast an independent vote on questions related to UHW (or anything else) when Stern and Burger sign their paychecks and they serve in their regular jobs at the pleasure of the officers?

Deliberating with them will be board members whose own political empire building, unpopularity with dues-payers, or semi-retired status make them unlikely profiles in courage or free-thinkers either. One thinks here of Susana Segat, an ex-political operative now running a Boston local that lost several thousand members to the Mass Teachers Association because of her high-handed, Burger-backed methods. Or SEIU vice-president David Holway, a lawyer and ex-lobbyist, whose New England-based Local 5000 now has a license from Stern to gobble up smaller groups as far away as Georgia. Or their fellow Bostonian Celia Wcislo, who was put out to pasture when her local was absorbed by 300,000-member SEIU/1199 in New York, eliminating any further need for her services as an elected president of 25-years standing. Or former foundation official and environmentalist Jane McAlevey, whose brief reign as appointed director of SEIU Local 1107 in Nevada was so dysfunctional that she was forced out last June, while retaining her seat on the SEIU board.

And then there are all the SEIU janitor local leaders around the country who’ve never worked a day in their life as janitors but serve on the IEB anyway because of their past role as staffers or Stern-anointed trustees. The newest of these is Javier Morillo-Alicea, a former Macalester College history instructor who is gay, Latino, and now president of Minneapolis Local 26, where he worked briefly as an organizer. Morillo-Alicea is young, energetic, and much-admired locally. But does anyone expect him to buck his powerful SEIU patrons in Washington, D.C., when that means risking all that he’s acquired in a just few short years, including the Minnesota janitors’ franchise, an executive board position, and a Stern-created slot on SEIU’s new “ethics commission”? I wouldn’t bet money on Morilla-Alicea speaking out, unless he wants to have his local endure the same kind of headquarters’ assault that UHW has suffered and he, personally, is ready to return to the tenure track in academia.

The great irony of the cast of characters that Stern and Burger have assembled to administer the coup de grace to UHW is that, structurally, the SEIU board now resembles the ruling body of International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), before that union was democratized and reformed over the past twenty years. During the IBT’s mob-dominated past, its members had no right to elect top officers in a nationwide vote or elect, from their own region, the Teamster vice-presidents who make up the rest of the executive board. The only successful IEB candidates were all elected at-large, by delegates at leadership-dominated conventions, as part of slates formed by Teamster presidents (four of whom were indicted and three of whom went to jail in corruption scandals). Each of these pre-1989 Teamster chiefs would add or drop people from their leadership “team,” as needed, to insure executive board conformity with their wishes (using the additional carrot of a full Teamster salary, on top of any others, just for meeting attendance).

Beginning in 1991, thanks to the presence of TDU and the settlement of a federal racketeering lawsuit, the IBT has had a series of contested elections for the top leadership, and convention delegates only get to nominate the candidates. In each race, the president, secretary-treasurer, and some V-Ps have run “at large,” with all 1.4 million Teamsters eligible to vote for them. All other board members, representing regional constituencies, have had to campaign for election among a smaller number of rank-and-file voters who live and work in the same area they do. Almost all successful IEB candidates, whether liberal or conservative, “old guard” or reformer,” have been working members of the union, not appointed staffers; with the notable exception of current president James Hoffa, all previously served in lower-level elected positions.

Reflecting the IEB’s local union roots (and legal protections in the Teamster constitution), a bigger Teamster local can’t take over a smaller one without members of the latter voting to approve the merger. Although trusteeships were often used in the IBT’s bad old days to crush dissent, they have, since 1989, been mainly used to oust crooks. Tom Leedham, the progressive leader of a Portland, Oregon local, has run for international president three times as a TDU-backed candidate, sharply criticizing Hoffa’s leadership and always gaining 35 to 40 percent of the vote. Unlike Sal Rosselli, Stern’s leading foe in SEIU, Leedham has not faced the threat of trusteeship in retaliation for his dissent. As Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) organizer Ken Paff told The Los Angeles Times Dec. 30: “When your union [SEIU] is less democratic than the Teamsters, you have to look in the mirror and ask, ‘What happened?’”

More friends of SEIU should be asking this question. More labor-oriented academics should be doing some Sixties’-style “power structure research”—which means taking a closer look at “who rules SEIU,” how they do it, and what price workers pay for having such an unhealthy concentration of power and privilege at the top of their national union. And, finally, concerned trade unionists around the country should be coming to the aid of UHW, in its hour of need, before Andy Stern’s pending assault on SEIU dissidents backfires on all of organized labor, making the campaign for labor law reform a dead letter on Capitol Hill.

Read this article at www.counterpunch.org

Steve Early is a former CWA organizer who has been a supporter of Teamster reform and a commentator on Teamster politics since 1977. His recent reporting on labor has focused on SEIU, the subject of a forthcoming book. He is also the author of Embedded With Organized Labor: Journalistic Reflections on the Class War at Home (Monthly Review Press, 2009). He can be reached at Lsupport@aol.com

Want to Join SMART?

2008-05-10T16:07:00.000-07:00

Please write us at info@seiusmart.org! Please include your name, number, email, local, and how you'd like to help!

Media Archive.

2008-01-05T21:52:00.000-08:00

More from the media on our movement and democracy within SEIU. You can find our SMART site archives in the right-hand column of the page.

Labor Notes - Mark Brenner on the convention, our challenges to international management's program,and our reform movement.

New York Times: "the (SEIU) is about to jettison a time-honored union tradition - having members go to their union representatives with their questions and grievances."

LISTEN NOW! Commentary on the Violence at the Labor Notes Conference, an interview with Joe Iosbaker, member of the SEIU Local 73 Executive Board, who was present during the assault. Credit to Joe Isobaker and Fight Back News.

Wall Street Journal: "At issue is Mr. Stern's approach to unionism."

New York Times reports on criticism that SEIU's "growth at any cost" mentality hurts workers

Fight Back News book review By Joe Isobaker: "Andy Stern's A Country That Works and the struggle in SEIU"

Link to Walter Ballin's SEIU blog: "Labor Union Members Fight For Democracy, & My Experience"

Counterpunch article By Steve Early: "Reforming the SEIU (A Purple Uprising in Oakland)"

"SEIU skullduggery exclusive: Internal emails show top staffers at SEIU seeking to undermine dissidents in contested union election." By JB Powell, San Francisco Bay Guardian

"A less perfect union. At a time when organized labor is slipping, SEIU's national leaders are wasting their resources trying to discredit Sal Rosselli." By JB Powell, San Francisco Bay Guardian

"SEIU Officials Have a Blast...the real deal on the disruption at the Labor Notes conference by a group of SEIU officials and members." By Ken Paff, National Organizer, TDU.

A brief history of SEIU.

2008-01-05T21:50:00.000-08:00

SMART activist Zev Kvitkey on how and why SEIU is changing

A changing global economy
For decades, power and wealth has shifted towards corporations and the wealthy and away from working people. One-sided policies in Washington D.C. have caused the loss of manufacturing jobs, the rise of off-shoring and outsourcing, privatization, and attacks on union organizing rights. These changes have all contributed to a dangerous decline in the number of unionized workers. The declining strength of unions has in turn led to stagnant wages and benefit take-backs — in fact all of the social progress made by organized labor is threatened. This holds true across the globe, as unions struggle to defend past victories and remain vehicles for worker power. With the rising power of global corporations displacing that of unions and even nations, unions must choose to either compromise with CEOs or rebuild worker power and fight back for working families.

SEIU Leaves the AFL-CIO, Forms Change to Win
In 2005, against the backdrop of declining union strength, SEIU, under Andrew Stern’s leadership, led a coalition of unions to leave the AFL and form a rival labor federation, Change to Win (CTW), promising massive union organizing and growth. However, there was hardly any member involvement in this split, and many unanswered questions. The split sparked a debate in the broader labor community, but it was largely limited to academic journals and a small group of leaders and activists. Outside of Stern’s blog and a handful of poorly attended membership meetings, most members knew little of the change until it was reported in the media that SEIU and other unions walked out of the AFL-CIO Convention.

Many academics and activists applauded the effort to try a new and different approach, recognizing that unions are failing to overcome the challenges of the new corporate landscape and facing a dangerous decline in membership. What little debate took place focused on questions of structure and program, largely ignoring the role of (and impact on) union members.

But SEIU’s new direction has caused many problems for us as members, and in some respects isn’t new or different in comparison to other unions. Recent debates have erupted within SEIU over closed-door political deals, forced mergers and trusteeships, and undemocratic deals struck with employers. Some of the details of “template” agreements reveal a troubling willingness to give away traditional collective bargaining standards for the right to organize more workers. Our bosses have never been afraid of union officials in Washington, D.C. The only way the labor movement has ever been able to win improvements for workers is with strong member involvement. To assess whether the recent changes in SEIU have been positive or not, we need to review those changes and the corresponding results to date. It is insufficient merely to talk about how much SEIU (or CTW) has or has not grown. We must also assess what SEIU has been able to win for us, and how effectively it represents those of us who compose it.

Restructuring Within SEIU
The split from the AFL-CIO came after years of restructuring within SEIU. CTW sought to build a labor federation using a similar internal structure to the one used by SEIU.

The restructuring of SEIU began in earnest in 1996 with a new focus on growth. Local Unions were required to dedicate 20% of all dues income to organizing, and the International allocated 35% of its resources to organizing. To accomplish this, the International cut funds for other services such as research, health and safety programs, and member education.

The 2000 SEIU Convention
The approved New Strength Unity plan centralized decision-making considerably. One third of the Canadian membership left SEIU as a result of these changes, although many Canadian members later negotiated a return to our union, SEIU still lost thousands of members as a result of these changes.

The plan also created new “Unity Councils” that superseded Local autonomy in order to coordinate bargaining and organizing, and gave the President new power to intervene in Local affairs and to direct contract bargaining. Union dues were increased substantially to fund these new councils and programs. Mergers and trusteeships became commonplace in the following years, as Locals were merged and restructured to create larger ones. In “Poor Workers’ Unions, Rebuilding Labor from Below”, (2005) author Vanessa Tait writes that, “Since 1996, some 40 locals, or about 14% of SEIU affiliates, were forced into trusteeship with officers newly appointed by the national union, usually from outside the units they headed. Even at the peak of the court ordered clean up of the Teamsters in the early 1990s, only 10% of its locals were put under trusteeship, and this was under justice department indictment for ‘racketeering’.”

The 2004 SEIU Convention
This trend accelerated at the next SEIU Convention in 2004. The powers of SEIU’s President and the International union were vastly expanded under the approved changes to the Constitution and Bylaws. Here are just some of the changes implemented:

Allowed the President or an appointed committee to be in charge of bargaining during joint contract negotiations among local unions. In theory, these changes could allow the President to appoint our bargaining teams, approve our contracts, and decide if we went on strike.
Provides that elected Local officers are automatically removed when trustees are appointed by the International union.
Changed from elected to appointed SEIU delegates in State Labor Councils.
Increased our dues rates and raised political payments to the International.
Required local unions to set aside 20% of budget for organizing and gave (appointed) Unity councils authority to set additional standards on how organizing money could be used by Locals, as part of their “growth at any cost” strategy.

At the time, we were told that these changes were necessary to restructure the union to the new global economy, in order to organize more workers and win better contracts.

It now appears these changes have turned SEIU into the country’s first true corporate union, mirroring many of the worst aspects of our corporate bosses. Most SEIU Locals are now regional, state, or national “Locals” in which democratic structures and member involvement were often casualties of the mergers or restructuring that created them. Even these new Locals have limited control over their own policies, taking increasing direction from the International Union. Newly created and merged “Locals” are often headed by leaders appointed directly by Stern, typically leaders who are loyal to the President or who came from International SEIU staff positions. This has created a national bureaucracy dominated by professional staff and loyal patrons who are largely unelected by the rank-and-file membership. It would be hard to distinguish the structure of our union today from that of most large corporations, with a powerful CEO directing, a board of directors, divisions with appointed leadership, leaving little real power in the hands of the members.

A Country That Works?
In 2006, Stern wrote a book, “A Country That Works, Getting America Back on Track” which SEIU helped to pay for and promote. Even though many International officers of SEIU had no idea what was written in Stern’s book prior to it’s publication, the statements in the book were taken by the public to be our union’s official position. Many of the statements made by Stern would have been controversial, had they been discussed in detail with members. He insists that our members need to “add value” to our employers, disregarding the fact that most workers have seen their wages stagnate and workloads increase, while our bosses reap increasing profits. He proposes that we model our union after Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) like the AARP, ignoring that NGOs are organizations funded primarily by wealthy donors, and do not have the same democratic decision-making structures as labor unions.

He praises organizing campaigns for janitors and homecare workers without any mention that many of these organizing efforts have failed to produce substantial increases in wages and benefits. A majority of the Los Angeles homecare workers still make barely over minimum wage and receive no health benefits. In Illinois, homecare workers paid union dues for years without any contract at all.

Most alarming is a revisionist history of major struggles in which the workers who fought their employers are literally erased from the story. In Stern’s version, he alone intervened in conflicts with Kaiser Hospitals and Beverly Nursing Homes, bringing an end to years of strikes and bitter struggle, and accomplished new partnerships that benefited workers and employers. Victory was due to Stern’s brilliance and top-down strategies developed in Washington, DC. This is an offense to those of us who fought those struggles, and who know that these partnerships and victories would have been impossible without the respect from the employers we won in hard-fought strikes and struggles over the previous years.

How Have These Changes Affected SEIU Members?
After these waves of restructuring, and the granting of broad authority to the President and his appointees, what has been the result for SEIU members? Has growth led to greater victories for us, and better contracts? Let’s take a look:

Undemocratic mergers of Local Unions and appointment of Officers:

Local 87 in San Francisco, CA was trusteed after refusing to merge with Local 1877. They later voted to leave SEIU, and returned only when SEIU agreed to leave their Local alone.
Local 36 leaders with the “Philly Home Team” ousted an appointed trustee in 2003 after widespread dissatisfaction with the trusteeship and resulting contract negotiations.
In 2004, Local 134 members in Rhode Island voted to leave SEIU after being forced to merge with Local 615. SEIU later sued staff members who worked with dissident Local 134 members.
In 2005 2,000 members of Local 888 in Massachusetts left SEIU after a failed merger that left them without elected officers or Bylaws for years.
The 2006 reorganization of Local Unions in California was implemented undemocratically, without a vote by Local or bargaining unit. Some units now face legal challenges to their union recognition, while others like Local 347 in Los Angeles are refusing to submit to the merger into large “mega-Locals”.

Replacing union representatives with call centers:

Workers "are not interested in coming to union halls," says Stern, suggesting that call centers and text messaging -- instead of shop stewards -- are part of the new communications paradigm for unions. (Crain’s Insider, 5/2/2006)
In many Locals, ineffective call centers have impeded good representation, and raised concerns about privacy of personal information. Some call center Directors describe their work as “servicing accounts” instead of fighting for workers.
Members of Service Workers United (SWU), formed by SEIU and UNITE/HERE, allege that calls to their Worker Resource Center went unanswered for months, and “service representatives” were unable to provide critical information about their contract and benefits, while grievances went completely unaddressed.

Contract negotiations that exclude members, and trade organizing for fundamental union rights and the public interest:

A 2005 agreement between Washington Local 775 and several nursing home companies was negotiated in secret (but details were later leaked to the press). The ten-year agreement allegedly prevents workers from going on strike, prevents nursing homes and the union from speaking ill of one another, guarantees increased profits to nursing homes through lobbying for more public funding, and gives companies the right to direct new organizing.
A similar agreement with nursing home companies in California was killed in 2007 after secret negotiations were made public. The agreement would have meant workers lost their right to strike or complain publicly about quality of care problems, and greatly limited their power to improve pay and benefits. Nursing home companies would get SEIU’s assistance in lobbying for more funding, supporting tort reform, and opposing stricter staffing requirements. Nursing home companies would allow limited new organizing based on political success in funding and other areas.
During Unity Council bargaining in 2007 for Tenet Healthcare workers, SEIU officers and staff attempted to vote on behalf of unorganized workers who weren’t even organizing yet. Their attempts undermined the efforts of actual union members in bargaining with Tenet, who would have lost the right to strike for seven years and were pressured to settle for lower contract standards.
This year, SEIU unilaterally eliminated the Catholic Healthcare West (CHW) Unity Council and appointed a consultant from D.C. to manage contract negotiations, even though creation of the Council was ratified by a vote of the members. This threatens to weaken SEIU members with their bosses just as they are about to begin contract negotiations for 16,000 members in California.
Service Workers United (SWU) gives large contracting companies like Aramark and Compass unilateral power to determine when and where workers are allowed to organize and does not disclose the terms of its contracts with these companies. Subcontracted SWU members often work in the same locations, doing similar work as other SEIU members. In these cases, their inferior wages and benefits create an unjust lower tier of union membership.

SEIU Contract victories that leave union members in poverty:

Illinois homecare workers were represented by SEIU for twenty years without any collective bargaining agreement, and as of 2007 still made less than $10 an hour. (see note A below)
SEIU fought with AFSCME for representation of 49,000 childcare workers in Illinois, even though SEIU’s negotiated wages were under $10 an hour, undermining wages negotiated by AFSCME. (see note B below)
In his 2006 book “Solidarity for Sale”, Robert Fitch reports that Maryland homecare workers earn $50 a day and lacked health care, sick days, or retirement benefits.
Tens of thousands of homecare workers in Los Angeles, whose organizing success in 1999 was claimed the biggest union victory in decades, still make $9 an hour and most lack health benefits.
Many janitors in California and elsewhere still don’t have the justice they deserve, making $9 an hour—for jobs that used to pay significantly more in the 1980’s.

Note A:
SMART understands that prior to collective bargaining, workers paid dues through check drafts, credit card drafts or direct payments to help fund their organization. SMART believes it is great when unorganized workers take ownership and fund their own organization, just as autoworkers, steelworkers and other industrial workers did prior to the Wagner Act. However, surely these workers deserve to earn more than $10 an hour after their extraordinary commitment to their union.

"When we think about auto, steel and rubber workers," Andy Stern says, "before the 1930s and 40s they didn't have high skilled, high wage jobs. But they got a union, and a union job turned out to be a good job, where you could raise a family and enter the middle class.” SMART’s point here is that unionizing into SEIU has not provided that traditional path to the middle class for Illinois homecare workers, who surely deserve it.

Note B:
SMART does not agree with AFSCME intervention in the very last stages of the campaign. AFSCME took advantage of years of hard work by these workers to win collective bargaining rights. SMART supports the decision that these workers made to join our union, SEIU.

The point SMART is raising is that SEIU’s failure to deliver high wage standards to all of our members leaves us more vulnerable to raids by other unions who can point to higher wage standards in their union contracts as an incentive for workers to abandon prior organizing efforts with SEIU. We want SEIU to set high contract standards, so that we are less vulnerable to raiding and attacks by rival unions. SMART also believes that high contract standards are the best incentive for new workers to join with us in SEIU, driving the much needed growth we all work hard to achieve as member organizers.

Using mergers to attack union staff and bust their unions:

In the 2006 California Local Union reorganization, some local staff were fired and forced to reapply for their jobs. Many Local 535 staffers were never re-hired.
In 2007, Local 721 staff filed a ULP against the union over a demand that staff waive their legal rights in contract negotiations. Staff at other merged Locals also encountered hostility during their negotiations with SEIU, which almost resulted in a walkout at one Northern California Local.

Even as aberrations, some of these actions would be unacceptable to most members. In fact, they are indicative of the direction of the International SEIU. SEIU has put growth ahead of our interests and those of future members. Short-term growth trumps contract standards, member democracy, and the public interest. SEIU is now the perfect labor-based counterpart to our corporate bosses, preferring short-term gain over long-term health, quantity over quality, and growth at any cost. SEIU is becoming akin to a Sierra Club for workers— little more than a non-accountable member association and a massive political lobbying arm. Members are on the verge of losing control at all levels over the direction of SEIU.

The power of unions has always been rooted in the power and participation of workers. Rank-and-file movements have been the power behind every major victory in labor’s history, from the right to organize, to the eight-hour day and our own contract victories. Stern has gradually weakened the power of rank-and-file members in the Union, accumulating it within the very top ranks of SEIU, giving the power of members to himself and his appointed patrons and staff. In doing so, the health and welfare of our Union is at risk, as is the future of the entire labor movement, which he is urging to follow in SEIU’s footsteps.

In four years, SEIU has doubled their funding for organizing and dramatically centralized control under the International union, with mixed results. The unions in Change to Win (CTW) have thus far failed to outpace their AFL-CIO counterparts in organizing. In fact, CTW membership has actually shrunk over the past three years despite the growth of SEIU. There have been numerous rifts between the unions composing CTW, particularly around the issue of healthcare. Other CTW unions opposed the healthcare reform supported by SEIU in California this year. The UFCW picketed a press conference at which Andy Stern stood embraced Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott to and supported some unexplained version healthcare reform. In a letter to other CTW unions, UFCW President Joe Hansen wrote that the unions need to "resolve issues that I see as a threat to the existence of Change to Win."

There is talk of a proposal from the SEIU International to increase the amount of money Locals must dedicate to organizing and to have these organizing resources go directly to, and be controlled by the International union in Washington D.C. For local unions that represent lower-wage workers, the share of dues money going directly to the International SEIU could reach as high as 75% of their entire local budget. These funds, at the sole direction of the International union, are increasingly going to the kind of “template” bargaining and sellout contracts that undermine our standards in order to gain new members.

SEIU is OUR Union
This is our union, and with the SEIU 2008 Convention fast approaching, it’s time to take it back! Growth must be based on the power of workers, the success of our victories, and NOT at their expense!

By SMART member Zev Kvitky, SEIU Local 2007

For workers considering joining our union...

2008-01-05T21:42:00.000-08:00

We at SMART strongly encourage you to join our union. The viewpoints expressed on this website, while at times contentious, are an important and healthy part of a democratic labor movement that functions of, by and for the members. We hope you will join us in building a union that gives you a voice on the job, and one in which rank-and-file workers are raising our voices over how our union can best grow and advance the rights of all working people.

SEIU has helped improve the wages, benefits and working conditions of so many workers who have made the decision to join our Union. Many of us have worked as member organizers and volunteered time to share our stories with workers just like you about the many ways that unionization has improved our lives and the lives of our co-workers. SMART believes all workers deserve a union and a real voice on the job.

We strongly urge you to become a part of SEIU, one of the largest and the fastest growing unions in North America. Be heartened that within SEIU, rank-and-file leaders are committed to keeping our union member-driven and democratic, and are always striving to build a strong and growing union that can really win big improvements for working families.

If you would like more information about how union membership can make a real difference for you and your co-workers we suggest that you visit SEIU’s web page on how a union can help.

In Unity,

Roy Chaffee
Founding Member SMART
Kaiser Permanente

Who's Who at SEIU?

2008-01-05T21:37:00.000-08:00

SEIU is a huge organization, with hundreds of staff and officers. With mergers, trusteeships, and the international's greater involvement in locals, Washington DC based staff often make decisions in our organizations (or even run them) without so much as an introduction. International staff are appointed as local officers, local officers go to DC as international officers or staff. There are also some names that seem to come up over and over in the debate over the direction of our union.

Here in alphabetical order is a brief guide to some of SEIU's appointed local leaders and international union staff. While the problems with SEIU are systemic and structural, here are some of the key people we believe are responsible for making and supporting undemocratic decisions and appointments, and for denying members a real voice in their union. We believe that these are the people who should be in control of our union!

Click their names for all related info and articles on the SMART website.

This page is a permanent work in progress, and we will update with as much information as possible. Please let us know if there's something or someone we should include.

	Norma Amsterdam Executive Vice President of 1199's RN division. She was briefly one of SEIU's appointed "monitors" sent to UHW.
	Joe Buckley (right) Seen here just before rank and file UHW members expelled him from their bargaining session. Buckley was one of SEIU's appointed "monitors" at UHW. He is a long time SEIU staffer and serial trustee, who was also appointed to trustee Local 1985. Photo by CSEA member Dik Wood (www.dillingertoons.net).
	John Barton Senior SEIU staffer who has been assigned to assist Local 6434 (particularly with relationships with nursing home bosses) for several years. It is hard to believe Barton did not know about corruption at the local. He has also been spotted helping out at the UHW and 6434 trusteeship hearings.
	Anna Burger International Secretary - Treasurer, also Chair of Change to Win, Vice Chair of the Democracy Alliance (an organization of liberal millionaires) and a chair or board member of several other political organizations. Burger is married to Earl F. Gohl, Jr, Director of Legislative Affairs for the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration (PRFAA). Gohl is the commonwealth's top Washington based lobbyist.
	Damita Davis Howard (left) Stern appointed President of Local 1021, previously the Executive Director of Local 535. Reported to be responsible for the "Salsa Team" which worked to deny pro-reform members delegate positions before the 2008 convention.
	Tom DeBruin President of 1199P, International VP, and one of SEIU's appointed "monitors" to UHW. One of the main forces behind the international's campaign to maintain control and suppress member led reform, and reported head of the "Skunk Team".
	Amanda Figueroa Secretary Treasurer of Local 6434, was removed along with the other officers when corruption was uncovered, but is now apparently part of an "advisory committee" running the local with trustee John Ronches.
	Sharon Frances Moore Appointed by Andy Stern to head Local 221 in 2007, reportedly after he met her at a social event. Has no previous experience in the labor movement.
	Tyrone Freeman Former appointed President of Local 6434. Fired by SEIU and under federal investigation on corruption charges. After a series of reports by the LA Times Freeman is being investigated by Congress and the Department of Labor, and Local 6434 is under trusteeship. Freeman is accused of giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to companies owned by his wife and mother-in-law, living a lavish lifestyle (cigar clubs, steak houses) by spending members' money on top of the more than $200,000 a year he was paid. Stories are also now coming out about the culture of intimidation and harassment within Local 6434. 6434 is the third local Stern appointed Freeman to run; he was previously head of Local 434B, and before that Local 1985 in Atlanta.
	Annelle Grajeda The Stern appointed President of Local 721, Grajeda was forced to step down as corruption reports emerged after members raised concerns. Allegations surround payments by the local and California state council (of which Grajeda is also president) to her partner Alejandro Stephens, and payments to a charity he heads and which has spent only about 9% of its expenditures on charitable programs. Grajeda had also apparently stepped down from her position as an international executive vice president, but she is still listed on the SEIU website and it's unclear what her role is. She was previously vice president of the international executive board and a public services steering committee member. Before the merger which created Local 721, Grajeda was the General Manager of Local 660, where Stephens was President. She has never been elected to any SEIU office.
	Mary Kay Henry International Executive Vice President. Henry explained her plans for the trusteeship of UHW to SEIU staff before any decision had been made by the hearing officer, and bizarrely described the SEIU staff who would take part as "Warriors" who should be "Honored" by others.
	David Holway The President of top-down business-style SEIU affiliate NAGE (National Association of Government Employees). Holway is paid more than Andy Stern or Tyrone Freeman ($233,000 in 2006) and until two years ago held a second job earning over $100,000 a year as executive director of the Massachusetts Thoroughbred Breeders Association. Local 1985 was recently handed over to NAGE to run, despite member protests. He is married to Susana Segat of Local 888.
	Gerry Hudson International Executive Vice President.
	Rickman Jackson Stern appointed President of Michigan Healthcare who stepped down following reports that linked him to corruption at Local 6434 where he was previously Chief of Staff. Jackson's home address was listed as the address for the dubious LTC Housing Corporation, and he was on the payroll at 6434 until last year, despite moving to MI in 2005. Jackson is also considered to be largely responsible for the violence at the 2008 Labor Notes conference, during which one of the members of his local died. SEIU have now assigned Jackson to work in Canada.
	David Kieffer Former Director of Long Term Care, now heading Healthcare United. A driving force behind SEIU's attempts to move UHW members into Local 6434 without their consent. Kieffer is the leader of the SEIU nursing home alliance and advocates template contracts with poverty wages. He has also led efforts to exclude rank and file members from bargaining.
	Eric Lerner Stephen Lerner's little brother allegedly sent into Local 1021 by Andy Stern to "stabilize" the local because of Damita Davis-Howard's failed leadership. Rumors persist that the younger Lerner will run against Davis-Howard for the presidency of the local.
	Steven Lerner (left) Key Stern assistant and proponent of "restructuring". Central to SEIU leadership attempts to paint our reform movement as "Neo Business-Unionism". Was one of SEIU's failed "monitors" sent to UHW.
	Jane McAlevey Until recently the Executive Director of Local 1107. McAlevey resigned after months of clashes with members and the local's president over the direction and ethos of the local and unfair officer elections. Members filed complaints with the labor department alleging that McAlevey illegally overturned an election where rank and file members who did not support her were elected to the local's executive board and held a new election in which she and her staff campaigned (successfully) for their preferred slate. In November 2007 members demanded democracy and answers (YouTube) at a local executive board meeting. McAlevey is still on the international union's payroll, and at 1107 as a "consultant".
	Andy McDonald (right) International communications staffer and "Stern spokesman". Responsible for much of the smear campaign against reformers in the run-up to the 2008 convention.
	Eliseo Medina Trustee of UHW as of Jan 2009, International Executive Vice President.
	Josie Mooney (center) Special Assistant to Andy Stern and former Executive Director of Local 790. Reported head of the "Skunk Team", which worked to discredit SEIU reformers in the lead up to the 2008 convention. Seen here in Beijing with AmCham-China (American Chamber of Commerce) Chairman James Zimmerman and the US Embassy's Bruce Levine.
	Bill Ragen Director of the Property Services division. The author of a June 2008 email to Stern and other senior SEIU staff that outlined strategies for destroying UHW. In the email Ragen writes; "Trusteeship would be difficult – it’s like Iraq, easy and then to get in and then a slog. Implosion would be better outcome – but what will it take?"
	Dave Regan Trustee of UHW as of Jan 2009, International Executive Vice President since 2008, previously President of 1199 WOK. Central to trying to shut down the debate around SEIU's direction before the 2008 Convention, and to shifting the disagreement toward personal attacks.
	Michelle Ringuette International spokesperson. Often gives SEIU's responses to sticky situations. Called UHW members' charges against Stern and Burger "A Fantasy", and the trustee of Local 6434 "Heroic"!
	John Ronches SEIU staffer, Stern appointed trustee of Local 6434 and author of SEIU's charges against Tyrone Freeman.
	Susana Segat Stern appointed President of Local 888. Many members have complained about a lack of democracy and accountability at merged Local 888, union staff turnover, and disrespect. UMass members' complaints to Anna Burger went essentially unheeded, leading to the transfer of their unit to the MTA. She is married to David Holway of NAGE.
	Kristy Sermersheim Stern appointed President of Local 521. Sought to change the local's bylaws to limit the rights of members to speak out. Also sought to restrict 2008 convention delegate elections in order to promote her slate.
	Andy Stern International President and author of "A Country that Works".
	Alejandro Stephens Former President of Local 660 and partner of 721 president Annelle Grajeda. Has been ordered by SEIU to return tens of thousands of dollars paid to him. In 2007, Stephens was paid nearly $14,000 by 721 "for official business" and $75,000 in "consulting fees" by the state council. As an SEIU executive board member, he also received more than $104,000 last year from the international. He also ran a 721 affiliated non-profit organization which is now under investigation.
	Steve Trossman Former International Communications Director who is alleged to have helped Andy Stern cover up for corruption at Tyrone Freeman's local as early as 2002, but does not remember.
	Tom Woodruff International Executive Vice President.