PrintRaiders of the SEIU
Barack Obama's favorite union, the Service Employees International (SEIU), has been on a roll. After boasting of spending tens of millions of its members' dues to elect Barack Obama (a fact that might account for union president Andy Stern's frequent visits to the Oval Office), the union seems all too eager to engage in the bullying tactics that, say, would make Saul Alinsky and his disciple in the White House beam with pride.
In the latest example of union extremism, the SEIU seems hungry to eat it s own, engaging in all sorts of brutal tricks to steal members from other unions. Is it any wonder that the SEIU and ACORN and the President seem like siblings? It is all about power, as the SEIU seeks to destroy anything that stands in its way.
In this case, a fellow union whose leader complains of efforts by the SEIU to "hijack its members, our jurisdiction and our assets".
Nothing like the brotherhood of labor. It is a civil war: pitting a relatively small union, Unite Here, against Workers United- a union affiliated with the behemoth and rampaging SEIU.
Patrick McDonnell of the Los Angeles Times continues its superb coverage of SEIU skullduggery:
"Unite Here's" Local 11 in Los Angeles has been at the front lines of the fight, dispatching organizers to Pennsylvania, Texas and Arizona to ward off what it calls incursions from Workers United.
Loyalists of "Unite Here," which claims some 260,000 members nationwide, call the split an illegal power grab orchestrated by the giant Service Employees International Union.
"This is a conscious effort by SEIU to hijack our members, our jurisdiction and our assets," said Unite Here's president, John W. Wilhelm, who is known for his organizing efforts among casino employees in Las Vegas. "They've launched an attack on our membership totally unprecedented in American labor history."
The war has featured a blitzkrieg of leafleting, prerecorded phone calls, direct mailers, home visits and, according to court papers, "coercive interrogation techniques" used to strong-arm members. Both sides have alleged threats, harassment, lockouts, misappropriated funds and back-room deals with employers.
The high-stakes battle generally centers on the right to represent service workers...
But a lot of assets are also in play.
Both sides claim a bevy of contested holdings, including prime Manhattan real estate, considerable cash reserves and a majority stake in Amalgamated Bank in New York, which has more than $4 billion in assets.
The Los Angeles Times article quotes an expert that point out that unions keep hearing from the Obama administration that it's easier to listen to one voice. Do we really want that one voice to be Andy Stern?
Perhaps, the SEIU feels a compelling need to grab the assets of the smaller union since it admittedly drained hundreds of millions of its union members savings to elect a Democratic Congress and Barack Obama. Also, its close ties to the radical ACORN group is not reflecting well on SEIU and has probably led to expensive legal and public relations efforts.
Why not take a page from the Wall Street raiders that Stern and company condemn and takeover a union rich with assets? Then use those savings of other union members to expand its political power. It is called asset stripping. Raiders were condemned by liberal activists when pension funds were stripped from corporations to fund either the original takeover of further takeovers. What is the difference to retirees when their retirement funds are stripped by union raiders to further their leaders' political play?
Does anyone think that either the Justice Department or the Labor Department will investigate SEIU and its outrageous and brutal destruction of another union and the exploitation of that union's assets - especially when Andy Stern and the SEIU are key allies of President Obama and the kingpins in Congress?
