Redstate

By Erick Posted in Liberals — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

I've been meaning to write about this all week, but haven't had the time. Today, though, the pending SEIU crackup has made the New York Times, which forces me to engage.

If you haven't heard, and you probably haven't, the SEIU is cracking up, and that is a good thing.

Here it is a nutshell: Andy Stern is willing to sell out union members to grow the union, the growth of which funds a political war chest to make the union more influential. In the process, though, he has to make so many concessions to businesses that the left union activists who put the workers ahead of the Democratic party are getting the shaft.

The SanFran Weekly has this:

I've written before about these SEIU deals (see "Partners in Slime," June 30, 2004, and "Union Disunity," April 11, 2007), where the union agrees to prohibit workers from complaining about conditions in exchange for being able to recruit more members in nursing-home chains. I've also described how this strategy privately angered workers and organizers in California, the union's greatest stronghold.

As the Union News puts it:

According to an inside source, this “strategy” would gain for the union 300,000 members, but under the condition of template contracts, and in exchange for continued support of a bad-for-workers national health care bill that could provide a windfall for the hospitals. Plus, though the members would receive representation form the locals, they would be directly signed up to the International to avoid future jurisdictional problems.

This is the direction that the SEIU is headed: a streamlined, top-down, lobbying machine with many members with few rights.

So here you have it: Andy Stern and the SEIU are not really interested in workers. They've decided to be open about it. They are, instead, interested in political power. In accumulating that power, they get to grow their membership, take their dues, and fund a political machine. The workers give up their dues and get very little in return.

Now, however, the SEIU base is starting to revolt. They want the political clout, but they don't want to screw union negotiated worker benefits in the process.

We should just sit back and enjoy this.