#SEIU has a stroke of union genius: look for #GOP candidates

The Service Employees International Union, or SEIU as it is commonly known, has taken organized labor's formal and informal pledges to separate themselves from close connection to the Democratic Party one step further.

SEIU's California branch has now created a Republican-specific PAC to try to get more moderate-conservative GOPers, rather than wingnuts, elected to state offices there.

Given that, under Andy Stern, the SEIU was more "cozy" with big biz than any other major union, this should NOT be dismissed by wingnuts, Faux News and others as merely a publicity stunt. This alone should make that clear:

"Our legislators are harangued by radio talk show hosts like John and Ken and D.C. ideologues like Grover Norquist," said Bob Schoonover, president of SEIU Local 721 in Southern California.

Schoonover, a registered Republican, said lawmakers are afraid to do the right thing.

"We've lost the art of compromise that allows us to make deals in tough times," he said.

Note that second graf: A registered Republican. The story notes that the union claims 87,000 of its 700,000 members are registered Republicans.

Big biz, in general, has little use for tea party types and likes "stability" rather than confrontation in most levels of government. (The U.S. Chamber of Commerce could be called the exception to the rule.)

Some GOPers are already trying just that, though:

Republican strategist Kevin Spillane said the union wouldn't have a significant effect--no matter how much money the union spends.

"This is just sound and fury," he said. "It's political posturing to influence and intimidate some of the current Republican legislators. The reality is that we're not talking a real widespread impact in next year's elections."

I disagree. With Gov. Jerry Brown needing just four GOP votes, as the state legislature now stands, to achieve a long-term solution for California budget woes, this could be very serious.

I don't know enough about the Cal GOP to know where Spillane butters his bread, but, from what little I have Googled, he seems to NOT be a wingnut type. So, he may be puffing smoke out of real fear about this move.

That said, big biz has no problem with trying to push the "stability meter" ever further rightward, so, SEIU might not, given that history, be the best union to do this, at least not alone.

Tear down the stock market, former SEIU official said

Former SEIU official Stephen Lerner wants to pull a Samson on Wall Street. Per the link, the union apparently canned him over his first raising this as a serious idea.

To be honest, the monkey-wrenching itself, I'm not sure how much that would upset me, or make me worry. The idea that the government wouldn't act swiftly, and with more power, at least at the end, than the monkey-wrenchers, is the issue.

SEIU neoliberal unionism gets RICO-ed

SEIU has a long history of playing nice with businesses in exchange for getting favors in return, even if those favors are more illusory than real. I don't think it's as bad as that, post-Andy Stern. Maybe that fact is why Sodexo has filed a RICO lawsuit against it.

Sodexo accuses SEIU of the following, among other things:

• throwing plastic roaches onto food being served by Sodexo USA at a high profile event;
• scaring hospital patients by insinuating that Sodexo USA food contained bugs, rat droppings, mold and flies;
• lying to interfere with Sodexo USA business and sneaking into elementary schools to avoid security;
• violating lobbying laws to steer business away from Sodexo USA, even at the risk of costing Sodexo USA employees their jobs; and
• harassing Sodexo USA employees by threatening to accuse them of wrongdoing.

Certainly, if Stern were still in charge, this would be a full-fledged schadenfreude alert post. But, it wouldn't be because of any praise or love for Sodexo, which has connections to military privatization, prison privatization and more, both in the U.S. and abroad. But, Google and Blogger, whether for reelz for cuz national security state, claim my original link was malware, so you google.

Starbucks OK with EFCA alternative; SEIU involved?

In fact, the Seattle coffee giant is actively exploring a legislative option to the Employee Free Choice Act, thereby drawing the fire of pro-business groups like the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. Vice President Stefan H. Gleason called Starbucks' position “totally unacceptable.”

The story says Starbucks is “engaged in dialogue” on the possible alternative, but doesn’t say with whom.

Off the top of my head, I guess Andy Stern and his Service Employees International Union. Given that he has a history of being employer-friendly, and a parallel history in being aggressive in seeking out new union turf, this would be his type of move.

Update: It turns out the Starbucks option ain’t much of an option, from a labor POV. Even Andy Stern can’t be short-sighted enough to sign off on something like this, either.

Andy Stern extends SEIU heavyhandedness

I didn’t really even have to click on the headline link to know what union it was that Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern had placed into trusteeship.

Unable to control, intimidate or beat down United Healthcare Workers-West, he got former Labor Secretary Ray Marshall to be his toady to force the trusteeship issue.

Big corporation suckup Stern is going to wind up destroying the labor reform movement that he spearheaded a decade ago; he moves further down that road all the tiem.

SEIU buys ads tells lies

The Service Employees International Union is now claiming the California Nurses Association is antiprogressive.

If ANYBODY is antiprogressive, it’s SEIU, as exemplified by his head, Andy Stern. Stern reminds me of Jimmy Hoffa, cutting backroom deals with right-wing corporations while pretending to be a real labor leader.

Instead of signing the lying petition, contact SEIU and tell the union Stern is full of shit.

Andy Stern: Union browbeater, when not a squish

It seems that the Service Employees International Union head, far from being a brave new post-AFL-CIO union head, is actually a squish when he’s not being a union politics nutcutter.

More on Stern’s union political hackery here.

So, basically, at least in this case, the “New Unionist” movement is as much a crock as the “New Democrat” one.