The Fight for Control of the SEIU

Sidestepping democracy is no path to building SEIU or the movement.
by: barbara.lewis
Wed Apr 09, 2008

Unnoticed by most mainstream media, a crisis is unfolding over the direction of America's largest union, Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The president of SEIU, Andy Stern, is on a drive to centralize power in Washington DC and put control over the union's resources and decisions into the hands of a small number of leaders. We believe SEIU may be moving into position to impose an illegal takeover on my union local, United Healthcare Workers - West (UHW), to silence the voice of our members, who have been vocal critics of the compromised direction that SEIU is heading.

We have to ask: how can SEIU play an important part in a progressive movement if they respond to internal criticism and honest debate with attacks intended to intimidate or possibly crush the loyal opposition?

SEIU leaders have a strong tradition of speaking out when they believe something is seriously wrong. Four years ago, at the SEIU national convention, Andy Stern spoke out. Stern spoke about how the AFL-CIO was an ineffective organization for workers, and that the leadership had been unable to turn around the stagnation of the labor movement. And then Stern led our union and others out of the AFL-CIO to create the Change to Win coalition.

Our members believe that something is wrong within SEIU, but our leadership would never contemplate leaving. Instead we worked from within to try to get our issues and concerns addressed. UHW is a union local that has an active, committed membership and has always been on the "program" -- whether it's COPE goals, political activism goals or organizing contributions and goals, we have been one of the leading locals in all categories. Instead of recognizing that the second largest local in this country had concerns that should be taken seriously it became clear that a systematic assault was launched to dismantle our union by pulling out 65,000 homecare and nursing home members without an open, democratic vote and placing them into another union local.

UHW members have shown time and again they're ready to raise their dues to increase the organizing budget, or be selfless by holding off on short-term gains in order to get organizing rights for others in order to build union density. But in UHW it's always our members themselves who weigh the options. Full participation of the members is what makes UHW one of the country's most successful and progressive union locals.

For years, we worked side-by-side with Andy Stern in developing a strategy of union growth through strength, member participation and coordinated bargaining. But in the past few years, Stern has veered off course by putting employer interests first in a failed growth strategy that undermines workers rights and hasn't produced substantial numbers.

I ask my comrades in the labor movement to once again imagine the dream of workers truly taking power over their lives and believing that they can achieve everything that we inspired them to believe when we were organizing them to join the union.

We tell workers that they will have a voice, a seat at the bargaining table, deal with their employers as an equal; be part of national union committed to organizing and raising standards, elect their own leaders, have the ability to speak out without retaliation.

When you develop good, strong leaders who not only believe in the leadership but, more importantly, believe in themselves the sky's the limit on what can be achieved.

However, when these same leaders see a conflict with what you say and what you do at some point, no amount of "sugar coating," "vision," "analysis" or "leadership" will prevent them from realizing that something is very wrong and that this is not the kind of union they dreamed about, believed in or joined.

That's exactly what happened when 6,000 members who work for Tenet Healthcare bargained their contract in 2006-07. That experience radicalized the leadership and the membership, and they will never forget the disconnect between what we said and what they experienced.

I'm a former 18-year SEIU staff member, assigned from '98 to '05 as an SEIU staff person in Southern California. My job was to help lead healthcare organizing, along with leaders from Local 399 and Local 250, prior to the merger that created UHW. In early 2005, I left the international union to join the staff of UHW; I led our Tenet work in California, helping to organize Tenet workers in Florida and leading the Tenet Rank-and-File Unity Council.

Our UHW elected bargaining team entered into the Tenet negotiations in 2006 in what would become a key example of the turn SEIU was taking towards sidestepping the will of the membership for the sake of growth at all costs.

A year and half before our 2006 Tenet negotiations, we began educating our members on the need to prioritize organizing rights in the next contract fight, as well as improving standards. (See the Unity Council Platform April 2005 and 2006)

In August 2006, our members were asked to give up the right to bargain over pension and retiree health benefits -- standards we had won with almost every other major hospital system in California -- in exchange for expansive organizing rights in other parts of the country.

Our leaders, after much discussion and debate, voted yes. Despite our members having voted to prioritize organizing rights in exchange for other standards -- in agreement with the plan laid out by national SEIU leadership -- the negotiations turned out to be a total disaster. Some examples:

* Rank-and-file bargaining team members and the local's lead negotiator were barred from negotiations with the employer.
* The SEIU national staff people assigned to help with the negotiations mocked the contract demands of the membership as "petty."
* Tentative agreements were reached behind closed doors -- without any member involvement -- that completely contradicted the clear priorities of the membership.

Members were asked to give up on more issues, and at one point SEIU tried to thwart our democratic Unity Council procedures and cast votes on behalf of the "unorganized Tenet workers" to rig the outcome of the contract ratification.

Rank-and-file leaders wrote several letters to President Stern expressing their frustration and met with SEIU Vice President Mary Kay Henry in Los Angeles. Members were promised by Henry and Stern that there would be a third-party analysis of the negotiations to ensure that this experience would not be repeated. Despite multiply requests, our members are still waiting for this evaluation.

Ultimately the negotiations were resolved. Thanks to the leadership of our members, we won organizing rights and a good contract in California. However the Tenet story is one example of the troubling and disturbing path that SEIU is going down.

Member leaders made the right decision from the beginning; members were willing to give up retirement benefits and other standards in order to organize healthcare workers from around the country. SEIU's pattern of centralizing control and eliminating members from decision-making about their lives is not only unprincipled, but also shows a lack of faith in the ability of members to make hard decisions. Our Tenet bargaining experience shows exactly the opposite.

There is something seriously wrong when the international appears determined to tear apart one of the strongest links in a fragile chain of the progressive movement for being critical of these practices. We are trying to advance a reform agenda to make sure that members' voices are heard and experiences like the Tenet negotiations are not repeated. Resolution of these issues will require tremendous leadership and hard work, but it is the only viable option that responsible leaders can take.

It is with deep hope that saner minds will prevail and that we can utilize the collective strength, skills and commitment we all share to get on with the work of winning for workers.