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Union Strategy, Union Democracy

Even if you don't know much about organized labor, you may have heard about Andy Stern and the SEIU. Stern has been profiled on 60 Minutes and in many other venues; he is without question the highest-profile labor leader in the country, frequently celebrated for his innovation and the energy he has brought to the SEIU. DHinMI interviewed him in 2005 for this site, suggesting -- less glowingly -- that "Andy Stern is on a quest for whatever he thinks is new."

And lately, even if you don't know much about organized labor, you may have noticed just a few SEIU-related ads on this and other blogs (where "just a few" = ironic understatement). So what's up?

These ads, coming from at least three separate groups, come out of issues far too complicated to fully explain here, but here goes a shot:

As Daily Kos diarist (and my father) Dan Clawson points out,

Any time an individual or organization gets held up as a model of success it invites others to launch criticisms, and that’s certainly been the case for SEIU, which may simultaneously be the most admired and the most criticized of all unions today.  Those criticisms focus above all on SEIU’s top-down staff-driven model, and the consequent lack of democracy, combined with the argument that this sometimes leads SEIU to collaborate with employers.

Recently, the SEIU is engaged in conflicts on two fronts. In March, ongoing competition between the union and the rival California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee escalated in Ohio, when the CNA/NNOC sent organizers to deter workers from joining the SEIU in a scheduled vote. The SEIU alleged union-busting; the CNA/NNOC alleged an unacceptable sweetheart deal with the employer. (And both took out a lot of BlogAds.)

The SEIU and CNA are expressing a major strategic difference. The SEIU is emphasizing union density -- to have as many workers as possible in the same industry or same area be unionized, because then non-union employers have to raise their wages to compete, rather than undercutting the wages paid by union employers. (For more on the importance of density, see NathanNewman's excellent 2006 diary.) To achieve this, the SEIU under Andy Stern has become known for reaching cooperative deals with employers in order to reach the greatest number of workers; the CNA argues that these deals go too far and eliminate many of the benefits of union membership, limiting the gains a union contract will make.

This, then, is not simply a turf war in Ohio, it's about the direction of the labor movement, not just about how best to serve union members but about how best to serve all workers, not just about how to gain strength but about the very definition of strength.

Dan Clawson:

The charge has been made that in order to get the Ohio fast-track to a union election, SEIU made a deal with the boss, Catholic Healthcare Partners.  My response is:  Of course they did, and so what?....For good or ill, these days ALL unions that I know of make a deal with the boss:  they sign a collective bargaining agreement and have a process for handling grievances.  

The question is not "did the union make a deal with the boss?" but rather "what kind of deal did it make?"  The deal that is made generally depends on power:  how many workers are committed to the cause, how militant are they willing to be, what strategic position do they have, what kinds of allies do the workers have among other unions, community groups, faith-based communities, and the general public?  It depends as well on the union’s militance, leadership, and willingness to take risks.  One of the best sessions at the Labor Notes conference focused on neutrality agreements:  in what circumstances do they make sense?  What sorts of conditions should unions resist no matter what, and what sorts of conditions are an acceptable compromise?  What sorts of leverage enable us to win better agreements?  SEIU’s seminal Los Angeles Justice for Janitors campaign involved not just a strike, but hundreds of people tying up traffic in downtown Los Angeles during rush hour, police beating workers, and the threat of re-doubled disruption.  Under that pressure the boss, that is, building owners, made a deal.

One crucial issue in evaluating any neutrality agreement, or any other agreement with an employer, is:  Does this build workers’ power, or undercut workers’ power?  What does it do in the short-run, and what does it do for the long-run?  An agreement can provide immediate benefits, but at the expense of undercutting workers’ long-run ability to build more power.  Alternatively, a deal can look bad for the short-run but position workers and the union to make major gains at a later time.  

And the thing is, we don't really know. We don't know the exact details of the SEIU deal with the employer in Ohio, but more, we don't know what would happen years down the road. When the first contract would be up for renegotiation, would having organized these workers have led to further organization and better wages and conditions in the area such that the next contract would be measurably better? Or would a poor contract have led to workers becoming frustrated with their union, to lowered incentive to join unions and lowered union power?

So it's entirely possible for this conflict to involve each union fighting for what it sees not only as its own best interest, but the interest of the workers and of the labor movement as a whole. The conflict has grown particularly bitter, though, with the SEIU aggressively disrupting a conference held by Labor Notes, an organization dedicated to union debate.

Meanwhile, the SEIU is in a dispute with one of its own largest locals, United Healthcare Workers-West (UHW), led by local president Sal Rosselli, whose criticisms of Stern's SEIU leadership echo those of the CNA:

Rosselli has launched a war against Stern that has spilled out into the open in recent months. His complaints--that Stern has made the union too undemocratic, that he has cut secret deals with employers, that he cares more about enlarging the union than serving its existing members--are resonating with at least some of SEIU's rank and file. And they raise difficult questions, not just about Stern's particular ideas but about what a union in twenty-first-century America ought to be. Can a union be too large for its own good? How closely should a union cooperate with employers? Does a union exist primarily for the benefit of its members--or to serve the interests of American labor as a whole? And who, in the end, gets to make these decisions? How much power belongs to a union's members? And how much should rest with leaders like Stern?

Andy Stern's internal critics in the SEIU point to his practice of trusteeing locals that aren't on board with his plans, replacing their elected leadership with control from the top (in fact, many people believe that Rosselli's rebellion will lead to the UHW being trusteed despite its successes), and merging locals:

While mergers are often a useful tool for reform, some critics worry the power can be abused, not least because, under labor law, Stern is allowed to appoint the president of a newly merged local for up to three years before elections are held. Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University, points out that the process can sometimes "be used to stifle dissent"--if, say, an unruly local is thrown into a much larger one.

Though the UHW has denounced the CNA's actions in Ohio, and has had its own problems with CNA raiding, several of its allegations against the SEIU -- of deals cut with employers against worker interests, for instance -- echo those of the CNA.

If the SEIU trustees the UHW, it will have cast serious doubt on its commitment to democracy -- which should be at the heart of representing workers. If, however, they embrace the debate, we might find in this moment of conflict a possibility for real advances, for a robust debate about how to take advantage of the opportunities unions might gain from a Democratic president, for involving workers in a debate about what direction unions should take, for producing healthy competition between different models of unionism as exemplars of each try to demonstrate their advantages to prospective members.

Flashback: What Do Red State Office-Seekers Want?

Every time the topic comes up as to which of our presidential candidates would do a better job in helping Democrats in down-ticket races, I turn to a May 29, 2006 article in The New Yorker by Jeffrey Goldberg.

Goldberg focused on Missouri, where a August 2004 visit by running mates Kerry and Edwards turned sour when Teresa Heinz Kerry started preaching the virtues of organic farming to the local hog farmers.  Claire McCaskill was running for governor then and barely lost; in 2006, she was in the midst of her successful run for the Senate, and spoke about what it's like campaigning in a purple state like Missouri:

In many ways, McCaskill sounds like any traditional Democrat. She speaks out against oil companies and pharmaceutical companies—she usually gets her biggest applause when she condemns Bush’s prescription-drug plan—and she is in favor of abortion rights, although she doesn’t make it a central issue. "If people ask, I tell them I’m pro-choice," she said. "That doesn’t mean I can’t understand the other side of the debate, though." She went on, "Being a Democrat is about balance. It’s about being moderate and truthful and strong. Harry Truman, leaders like that, they were strong enough to take on foreign enemies when they needed to, but they were also strong enough to know when not to fight, when to use other weapons besides military force. That’s the message the Democratic Party should be sending. We should let the American people know we want to work with allies, work with the U.N., and that we don’t like war, but that we’ll defend this country’s interests with everything we’ve got."

Referring to the Kerry-Edwards campaign stop, she said, "I’m sure Teresa’s motives were fine. But I think it’s a tone thing. It’s the ‘We know better’ thing. Some of it is completely unfair, but there’s a critical number of Missourians who believe that people from the East Coast or West Coast don’t think that people in the heartland are smart."

Goldberg goes on to talk to Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emanuel and others about what they believed in 2006 it would take for Democrats to win again, returning to McCaskill and others when the subject of 2008 came up:

Hillary Clinton is a sensitive subject for McCaskill. After the governor’s race two years ago, many Missouri Democrats assumed that in 2008 McCaskill would make another run against Matt Blunt, the Republican who defeated her. But she has told people in Missouri and in Washington that a ticket led by Clinton would be fatal for many Democrats on the ballot, and that a Clinton candidacy would rule out her chance to win the governorship. "The Democratic Party has to look at candidates who can be competitive in all fifty states," she said. A few days later, at the annual Jackson Day dinner of the Greene County Democrats, in Springfield, Republican protesters held signs labelling her "New York’s third senator."

In states like Missouri, coolness toward Hillary Clinton puts many Democrats in an uncomfortable position. Harold Ford, Jr., is close to both Clintons. He is running a strong race in Tennessee -- if he wins, he would be the first popularly elected African-American senator from the South. When I asked Ford if Hillary Clinton would be campaigning with him, he said, "I’m not running away from her position on the war or her position on energy independence. I’m doing events with her." When I asked him where, he said, "In Washington."

Some Democrats fear any association with national Democrats, who are perceived to be too liberal. "I had this notion that I could convince people who were skeptical of national Democrats to vote for me because I could bring home the bacon, or because I could find some personal pitch to them," Brad Carson, the former Oklahoma congressman, said. "But it was very hard for people to separate me out from Hillary Clinton. All their ads were Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, and me. They said I was more liberal than these guys, and that if I went to Washington I’d be supporting their agenda. I found that extremely difficult to overcome."

Across Missouri, I heard similar fears. At a breakfast fund-raiser for McCaskill in Kansas City, Katheryn J. Shields, a Democrat who is the chief executive of Jackson County, which encompasses Kansas City, said of Hillary Clinton, "She’s great." But when asked if Clinton should be the Party’s nominee, Shields said, "That would be a hard one." The outgoing executive director of the Greene County Democrats, Nora Walcott, was more direct. Though she said she was to the left in the Party, she feared that Clinton’s liberal credentials would alienate Missouri voters. "You’ve got to tell the people in Washington not to nominate Hillary," she told me. "It would do so much damage to the Missouri Democratic Party."

So who did McCaskill want in Missouri?

Only a few nationally known Democrats have been invited to Missouri to speak on Claire McCaskill’s behalf; one was Obama, whom she described as "so popular that we have to get him back." Obama returns the compliment: McCaskill, he told me, "is a terrific candidate who is deeply rooted in Missouri and understands the people of Missouri." He added, "A successful swing-state candidate can and should stand for progressive values, but they’ve got to appeal to common sense and pragmatism as opposed to ideology. I think what doesn’t work in these places is a sense that you are ideologically liberal."

We can get up to 60 seats in the Senate, and we can keep electing more and better Democrats in the House, but we need a presidential candidate who wants to campaign in all 50 states, and who will be welcome in every single one of them.

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a really rich wife

The most difficult thing to do when writing about John McCain is keeping all of his Straight Talk^TM straight.  Here is Mr. Maverick, from the floor of the U.S. Senate in January, 2007:

We can begin to restore faith in this institution by divesting ourselves of some of the perks and privileges that have somehow crept into public service...Another critical aspect requiring reform is the ability of a Member to travel on a corporate jet and only pay the rate of a first class plane ticket...I have no doubt that the average American would love to fly around the country on very comfortable corporate owned aircraft and only be charged the cost of a first-class ticket. It is a pretty good deal we have got going here. We need to face the fact that the time has come to end this Congressional perk.

That was when he was leading the pack to become the Republican nominee for president and could afford to be concerned about ethics.  But seven months later, with his poll numbers dropping and his fundraising drying up, it was time to face a different fact:

...with his campaign in straitened financial circumstances [McCain] has decided it can no longer afford such scruples —

So, with restoring faith in Congress and his scruples put on the back-burner, McCain elected to do what the average American would love to do...if the average American happened to have a filthy rich wife...he went corporate plus:

...Mr. McCain’s cash-short campaign gave itself an advantage by using a corporate jet owned by a company headed by his wife, Cindy McCain, according to public records.

Now this was completely legal since the law exempted "aircraft owned by a candidate or his family or by a privately held company they control" (lucky break for the co-sponsor of the bill, eh?), and according to a campaign spokesman:

The campaign carefully followed all the relevant laws and F.E.C. regulations on air travel at all times, and paid for travel exactly as required by those rules.

So if not ethical, it was legal. Of course it's funny that the campaign was able to carefully follow the law because, shortly before McCain started flying around on his wife's dime, he said that he wouldn't use her money to keep his campaign going, and that:

I have never thought about it. I would never do such a thing, so I wouldn’t know what the legalities are.

Oh well.  That was then and the decision to use her jet to keep his cash-strapped campaign alive was...well, it was a few days later.  

So, no harm, no foul, right?  And besides, when you're a straight talking maverick, why worry about shelving your scruples for money and going back on your word?  After all, the press rarely notices.

Read more entries at Daily Kos: State of the Nation »