Remember Andy Stern?

Former President of the SEIU and bad boy poster child (and pinata) of the anti union crowd, now works for Big Pharma. He's profiled in this piece at BeyondChron, which portrays him as a big fan of China's explosive state driven growth there, a blamer who notes the time of free markets is over, and by implication a tacit supporter of repressive working conditions. Go figure.

The SEIU's poor choice

Randy Shaw takes on the SEIU and its strategy of non-workplace organizing.

A new approach

Here is a good piece from a pro-labor perspective on unions taking different approaches to address declining membership and clout.

SEIU wins Kaiser showdown with 67% of vote

As always Randy Shaw has an informative piece on the NUHW loss to SEIU in the Kaiser election.

SEIU-UNITE HERE settle

The war between the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and its one time close ally UNITE HERE has been settled. Randy Shaw explains all here. While the terms of the settlement are heavily in favor of UNITE HERE ( SEIU returns $75 Million dollars and an $85 Million Dollar office building) the accord is a big win for new SEIU President Mary K. Henry, and overall a boost to labor.

Top lobbyists

The Hill identifies 2010's top lobbyists. Of the list of 32, only three are connected to labor unions. (Henry-SEIU, Loveless-AFSCME and Trumka-AFL-CIO).

Dues and politics

Ohio Governor Ted Strickland signed Executive Orders permitting independent home health providers and self-employed child care workers to unionize, the SEIU and AFSCME benefited with thousands of new dues paying members. Strickland has directly benefited from the labor organizations political contributions.

NUHW bests SEIU, employer

NUHW has again bested SEIU and the employer with an impressive representation election victory (393-122). Randy Shaw's BeyondChron article has the details. The SEIU blamed management intimidation for its withdrawal from a 3 way election. Not only did NUHW win a lopsided victory, it was able to point to the fact it overcame the very employer hostility SEIU ran away from.

Workers win?

On the surface this article describes the joy and payout received by strikers ten years after the company unlawfully refused to return them to work. In reality the real story is these employees endured a job loss 10 years ago, and waited this long through uncertainty and 6 appeals to get what they would have earned, plus a little interest. The SEIU Blog attempts a little better spin on it, but that's still a long time to wait for a victory and some backpay.

Sodexo and the universities

Yesterday was another gorgeous spring day, and late in the afternoon my daughter and I walked through the Tulane campus, and as the glory of spring was overcoming me, I heard in the distance a speaker demanding economic justice and the right to organize. Seems Sodexo workers at Tulane and Loyola need street demonstrations to pump support for their agenda. While I could only hear bits of the appeal as I walked, CLEAN UP SODEXO has a post about it. The part where the guy making $8.12 an hour says he's had only a 24¢ and 12¢ raise in five years seems a little odd. In 2005, the minimum wage was $5.15/hr. I guess the real dollars received as a result of the minimum wage rising to its current level ($7.25) are not real raises. Thats not to say that $8.12 an hour is a living wage, but my bet is that the complaining worker has seen a lot more than 36¢ in raises in the last five years.

EFCA's political death

Jane Hampsher at Firedoglake has a good post on the politics of EFCA, starring Harry, Arlen and Rahm.

SEIU v. NUHW

A federal court jury has ruled in favor of the SEIU and against 16 former officials who bolted from the SEIU and formed the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW). The verdict awards a money judgment totaling almost $1.6 million dollars. Randy Shaw has a good analysis at BeyondChron.

HCR timeline

The SEIU Blog has a timeline for when provisions of HCR take effect.

Demons of stupidity are winning

I have been increasingly troubled by the unreasoned discourse which has politicized so many issues. Nowhere is that process more evident that in matters relating to organized labor. This point is underscored in Kevin Williamson's NRO piece about ACORN, the SEIU, and the Republican oversight report released last week which does a fine job of detailing certain abuses before, as Williamson writes, "the authors slopped the report up with tangential complaints and grossly exaggerated claims about ACORN’s role in the housing bubble." More after the jump:

Shame!

Sometimes hypocrisy smacks down the hypocrite. By flaming a "pile on" the SEIU mentality, this blogger cannot see she is engaging in the very shameless exploitation that she claims the SEIU is doing. More after the jump

52-33 no cloture on Becker

Senate refuses to invoke cloture on the nomination of Craig Becker to the NLRB, 52-33. Fifteen no voters including Saints fans Vitter and Landrieu.

Becker cloture vote today

A cloture vote on the nomination of SEIU attorney Craig Becker is set for today. Congressional Quarterly has details.

Labor advocate says 2010 or never on EFCA

UPDATE: Trumka calls for spring passage of EFCA. Inevitable loss of the Democrats' 60 seat senate majority makes 2010 a "do or die" year for EFCA. AFL-CIO legislative director Bill Samuel puts forth a pragmatic assessment in this Workday Minnesota piece. Samuel admits the votes were not there in 2009 - Kennedy, Byrd Franken, issues meant no 60 votes. Thats not news, but Samuel's acknowledgment that any bill that passes will be a compromised one is. It signals labor's willingness to address reality. Card check is dead. Has been for some time. Opponents of the bill need to delay a vote on the issue until the public sees past the secret ballot non-issue. As it stands now, largely because opponents of the bill continue to rail against card check and for secret ballots elections, the opportunity exists for labor to seek quick passage of a watered down bill which preserves some form of secret ballot election. Its an opportunity with a closing window, but still an opportunity.

SEIU President Andy Stern gets this. He's already pushing for a spring vote as evidenced in this Financial Times piece. (free registration). The FT piece also evidences the beating of the card check dead horse.

Ouch! Union jobs eliminated

Unionized clothing manufacturer Hugo Boss is closing its Cleveland, Ohio plant. The move will put 300+ Workers United/SEIU workers on the street.

NUHW wins Santa Rosa election

In a tight vote, Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital healthcare workers have apparently chosen the National Union of Health Workers (NUHW) as their representative for collective bargaining. The vote was NUHW 283, 263 for No Union, 13 for SEIU. There were 17 challenged ballots. The linked article provides significant detail about the contentious fight between SEIU and NUHW, as well as the roller coaster election tallying of ballots. We have previously blogged about this here and here. The SEIU is being accused of stonewalling the certification by not cooperating in the resolution of the 17 challenged ballots. If the challenges are not resolved there will be a runoff election without SEIU on the ballot, In a close election the outcome of a runoff is not guaranteed.