$150 million is a lot of money...

[Alyssa]

Which is why it's strange that almost three weeks after the Service Employees International Union announced that they'd spend precisely that amount both to swing the elections they're targeting and to support a massive mobilization to push for health care reform and the Employee Free Choice Act in the first 100 days of the new administration, not a single major news organization has written about that decision. In fact, nobody's really written about it all, unless Lab Law Weekly's decision to reprint the press release counts.

I'm not entirely shocked that such a big number has slipped between the waves. As David Simon and others have pointed out, the labor beat frequent falls on the non-essential list, unless you live in a city like New Haven, where labor is still an essential element of the political system. I do some labor reporting, and can testify to the fact that even in Washington, it's not a crowded beat. And in an election where even vaster fundraising numbers are getting tossed around on a daily basis, I can see a lot of scenarios where a lot of folks decided this particular $150 million wasn't newsworthy.

But it matters not least because SEIU is one of the first organizations to explicitly lay out a post-election plan. I've written elsewhere that this election is one to watch because many unions, not just SEIU, are trying to develop strategies that will keep their members mobilized, and will help boost organizing drives and win contract fights.

Two elements of SEIU's plan caught my eye: the commitment to involve a million members, 200,000 of whom would have leadership positions, and the development of round-the-clock activism centers, operating in multiple languages, to serve those members. Those centers, if they're advertised effectively, and depending on what resources they have, could play a huge role in activating communities of folks who rely on public libraries for internet access, and who may not have access to good non-English language newspapers. And the commitment to engage that many members speaks to an ambitious internal organizing plan. It's worth watching--and writing about.

Comments

You'll soon enough get your wish when a bunch of articles come out focusing on labor and progressive group campaigning and how awful, just awful it is that these rogue independent groups dare mess up our beautiful electoral system.

Posted by El Cid | May 27, 2008 8:01 AM

I love the way the left calls non-secret ballot elections "free choice". How about this: should we run elections for the Senate and the House the way that act proposes? If not, why not?

Posted by James Robertson | May 27, 2008 8:23 AM

James Robertson is right. From now on, any decision which is made anywhere, from the grocery store to the NFL, must be made by secret ballot. If teh leff don't support this, they's liberal fatcysts.

Posted by El Cid | May 27, 2008 8:41 AM

So you don't see any chance of force (real or implied) being used in a public election? Certainly companies have used such force to prevent unionization; do you seriously believe that unions are as pure as the driven snow, and thus won't do such things? There's a history of such coercion from both sides here.

Posted by James Robertson | May 27, 2008 8:53 AM

Unions would make a lot more headway politically if they argued positions from the viewpoint of what's good for the average citizen --vice framing everything in terms of the union's self-interest.

I've worked alongside some unions in congressional elections here in Philly. Although I went to college, I grew up in a blue collar family and I'm comfortable with the guys.

But it's hilarious sometimes watching the Democratic Party's various groups try to mix. Kinda like throwing cats in among a group of strange dogs -- you just know that one spark and the fur's going to fly.

Posted by Don Williams | May 27, 2008 10:29 AM

"Activism centers" - that's SEIU PR department spin for replacing elected workplace leadership with an 800 number. This is part of Andy Stern's plan to centralize power, consolidate SEIU into giant mega-locals with Stern-appointed leaders, and crush membership dissent in his union over his pro-corporate sell-outs. You need to actually learn something about the labor movement, rather swallow whole the crap spewed by SEIU.

Go to
www.seiuvoice.org
and
www.reformseiu.org

to learn whats really going on in SEIU.

Posted by aenglish | May 27, 2008 12:33 PM

The employee free choice act, what a bunch of cr*p!. Even the union will recognize that during a union campaign they need to get 75% of the bargaining unit to sign cards. It seems that after signing a card many people have second thoughts and don’t vote for the union after all in a secret ballot election.

And what’s wrong with secret ballot election? Nothing. It’s not the election, it’s the cause.

Please remember the old adage “Those companies that deserve a union will usually find one knocking at their door, sooner than later.”

Posted by Roger Ram | May 27, 2008 3:02 PM

The reason that the NLRB election process needs to be tossed is that bosses have proven themselves utterly unwilling and unable to avoid the temptation to abuse employees systematically in an effort to destroy the election process. There's an entire union-busting, worker-hating industry based on this, James, which I'm sure you're already aware of.

Elections are a tool for figuring out what a group of individuals want to do collectively. There are lots of advantages to a secret ballot election. But given how the NLRB runs things, there are too many inherent disadvantages, and the election no longer works. The disadvantages are: 1) the election is held at the worksite 2) bosses can easily drag the process out to last for months while the Board dithers about all the details of the election 3) during that period, employees are pretty much entirely at the mercy of the boss 4) Board protections for employees are weak, all post facto, and carry virtually no penalties for the boss: e.g., if the boss illegally switches you to graveyard shift to punish a union activist and to keep him away from other workers, it may take the Board months to call the boss on it, during which time the worker's life is screwed up; and afterwards the boss pays no fine or penalty, they just put the worker back on their shift and post a letter promising not to do it again.

Bosses have enormous leverage over workers in this country -- controlling someone's paycheck, health care, and schedule means you basically control their life. A boss can easily pull any of those levers to manipulate and attack his workers. A union organizer can...what, exactly? Threaten to house-visit again tomorrow? There's just no comparison whatsoever in terms of the possibility of abuse.

Look in particular at the penalties. Pearl-clutchers about the Board process always toss out speculation about the Mob, or physical threats and intimidation. Well, guess what? Those are crimes. If an organizer beats someone up, or threatens to, they will go to jail. But the penalties for the abuse a boss foists on an employee are virtually non-existent, and never apply to the individual boss, only to the company.

If breaking someone's kneecaps is changed from being a felony to an unfair labor practice, or if violating people's rights to self-organization becomes a felony, then there's a valid comparison.

Posted by Pesto | May 27, 2008 3:16 PM