Our fantastic partner KALW interviewed reporter Christopher Cook about his recent story on the SEIU which was published in the SF Bay Guardian and The Public Press (links below). Listen to the interview and get the scoop.
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There was big news in the labor world this week: the head of the nation’s largest union -- the Service Employees International – is reportedly planning to step down. Andy Stern was elected President to SEIU in 1996 and he had a bold vision for change, but he was extremely controversial. Stern broke from the AFL-CIO in 2005, saying that the organization was too slow and bureaucratic:
CHRISTOPHER COOK: There was a significant power struggle and a struggle over ideas about how labor should proceed and organize. What comes clear over time is that Andy Stern’s leadership becomes more controversial, is the politest way to put it, and centralized and more and more of a contentious fight within labor and SEIU over the leadership of Andy Stern -- regardless of what side you take there is clearly this rift going on.
Journalist Christopher Cook says that power struggle was playing out right here in the Bay Area. At the national level, the SEIU was trying to re-organize local unions, like the United Health Care Workers West, headed by Sal Roselli. Roselli spoke out against the proposed changes to his union. Here’s Roselli in 2008:
SAL ROSELLI: We discovered some top-down deals made between SEIU DC leaders and staff with our nursing home employers that exchanged the right to organize un-union homes with template agreements that severely limit the collective bargaining rights of workers, limit their voice to speak up for them and their patients. We, constructively, internally blew the whistle on this and criticized these agreements. In response to that, Andy Stern ended bargaining with these employers and had the constitutional authority to appoint the bargaining committee to talk with these workers’ bosses.
This local battle became a national battle when Stern’s SEIU decided to take over the United Health Care Workers West in 2009, after a long fight over directions in union leadership and worker voice.
COOK: And on January 27, 2009 they take over the old union, put it into trusteeship. You’ve got security guards, you’ve got locked doors and people camping out, all sorts of allegations -- it gets really tense and really ugly and intense.
In response, Roselli and other labor leaders created a competing new union called the National Union of Healthcare Workers.
That prompted the national SEIU to take Roselli and company to court, slapping them with a $25 million civil suit. The trial took place over the past few weeks and ended last Friday.
Christopher Cook was there to witness the entire court case, and speaks to KALW’s Holly Kernan about what that was like.
Christopher Cook is an award-winning journalist and author who has covered labor issues for Mother Jones, The Economist, Harper's and The Nation. He also works as a reporter and editor with the SF Public Press and the Bay Guardian.
Click to read Christopher Cook’s articles on this issue published in the SF Bay Guardian and SF Public Press, and you can choose to fund more of his work at spot.us.
