for Junge Welt, Summer 2008
Roots of Conflict:
The Service Employees Union Attack on the California Nurses Association
Men and women who mop the floors or clean the bed pans—those who do the dirty, unpleasant work that enables other workers to do their jobs—are workers whose conditions of employment put them in a weak bargaining position. Often working more than one part-time or temporary job, often employed by subcontractors in intense competition with each other, holding job skills that can be learned relatively quickly; service industry workers have faced enormous obstacles in the path of obtaining decent wages, benefits, working conditions. A further obstacle lies in management’s willingness to use the weapon of fear to stifle a workforce disproportionately immigrant and subject to police harassment or deportation.
Responding to these realities the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has developed a strategy ...
Nurses Unionism: Defending Privilege or Defending the Public
“We are a genuine social union. We believe the interests of our members and the public interest are identical. Nurses have a legal obligation to advocate for their patients; they function outside of the profit motive,” is how Rose Ann DeMoro, California Nurses Association (CNA) executive director, explains her union’s outlook. Giving content to these words, CNA has become an unwavering advocate of single-payer health care (government-funded universal health insurance that eliminates private insurers) – and has formed the National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC) to unionize nurses throughout the country. The linkage between public and workplace advocacy is rooted in CNA’s history. Originally part of the American Nurses Association, a conservative professional group dominated by supervisors, ...
Just Us vs. Justice For All: A False Choice
“Organize the unorganized”—a slogan and a necessity, as the gains made by any group of workers are always in jeopardy unless they become gains for all. Over the past dozen years, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has attempted to put this slogan into practice, restructuring and centralizing to give organizing a much higher priority than servicing current members. An approach ...