May 17th, 2010
Washington Post: Union leader Stern leaves with questions over spending
By Alec MacGillis
In celebrating her election last weekend to head the Service Employees International Union — the nation’s fastest-growing and most politically active labor organization — Mary Kay Henry vowed to “build on the success” of Andrew L. Stern, the charismatic, ambitious labor leader who is taking his influence to new arenas, such as President Obama’s deficit commission.
But the state of the union Stern is leaving behind is more mixed than Henry let on. Even as Stern turns to the nation’s spending problem, his own union’s spending — notably the multimillion-dollar tab from internal battles he has waged — is drawing sharp criticism from within the labor movement. Stern has expanded his union, but his decisions have left it and the labor movement as a whole financially strapped, according to disclosure reports.
May 17th, 2010
In These Times: the new face of SEIU
By David Moberg
Ironically, though SEIU under Stern used growth—at almost any price—as justification for its strategies, the union did not make significant progress in increasing the share of union members in its core private industries. Compared to other unions it benefited from organizing industries like healthcare that have grown even in the recession. But last year it grew by only 50,000 members, or 2.8 percent.
Growth slowed partly because the union delayed organizing in anticipation of labor law reform. There were also deep cuts in organizing staff, although SEIU says some organizers moved to locals or political work. Stern critics say the 2009 cuts were needed to fix serious budget problems that emerged in 2008 when local union dues payments declined and the international union recorded tens of millions of dollars in debt owed by locals. Many of them, including several locals involved with scandals, may have difficulty paying.
May 12th, 2010
KPFK on NUHW election at USC University Hospital
KPFK’s Voices From the Frontlines interviews USC University Hospital respiratory therapist Alex Corea and USC Professor Laura Pulido about USC’s unionbusting campaign. Source: KPFK
May 10th, 2010
Video: NUHW members fight back at Kaiser
Kaiser pros and RNs in Southern California voted by a landslide to join NUHW in January, and have already won 171 new jobs at Kaiser’s flagship Los Angeles hospital. But last month, Kaiser broke the law and tried to take back their promised 2% raise. NUHW members are fighting back and telling Kaiser we won’t […]
May 10th, 2010
Beyond Chron: SEIU President Henry faces test over Raynor bombshell
By Randy Shaw
A three-member judicially-sanctioned panel has found that SEIU Executive Vice-President Bruce Raynor accepted a salary from UNITE HERE while working actively to deprive his union of bargaining rights – in favor of an Ontario affiliate that had seceded from UNITE HERE two months earlier. The finding poses an early test for new SEIU President Mary Kay Henry, who has vowed to repair SEIU’s relations with other unions. Since Raynor was paid by one union while working to benefit another, he engaged in the same type of conduct that SEIU found so wrongful that it spent over $10 million to punish NUHW in a lawsuit. Yet SEIU rewarded Raynor with a top union position for engaging in conduct it told their workers and the court that SEIU opposed.