Labor Relationships
Hear What Others Have to Say
Although SEIU claimed that more than a dozen rallies it staged across the U.S. and overseas were aimed at pushing Congress “to close tax loopholes. . . while funding national health care and middle class tax cuts…that’s a sideshow.” SEIU’s “real targets” were specific private equity firms “which own companies that have resisted SEIU attempts to organize their workers… (SEIU President Andy) Stern wants to pound these firms with bad publicity and political retribution until they break… As always with these political campaigns, it pays to look behind the union label.” -- The Wall Street Journal, July 16, 2008
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The motives behind SEIU’s corporate campaign strategy were further exposed and criticized in an April 2008 editorial in the Wall Street Journal. According to the Journal, “Ever since the SEIU broke from the AFL-CIO, its ability to prosper has depended on growing the union. Sometimes the union’s efforts to expand have even led it afoul of the law.”
The Journal described how SEIU’s President Andy Stern championed California state legislation that would have cut off important sources of capital to the Manor Care nursing home chain, where the union is trying to organize employees. Although the legislation’s "ostensible purpose was to target sovereign wealth funds in countries with spotty human rights records. . . the real impetus for the bill was to help the SEIU organize employees of Manor Care,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
Interestingly, the SEIU’s selective list of human rights violators did not include China because that country’s sovereign wealth fund invests with a private equity firm friendly to the union. According to the editorial, “Mr. Stern’s campaign is typically expressed in moral terms on behalf of ‘working families,’ but in Mr. Stern’s moral universe all is forgiven if you play ball with his union.”
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San Francisco’s “progressive politicians tend to act as (SEIU’S) faithful and obedient lapdogs” that “can usually be counted on to roll over to SEIU demands…Don’t let them. After all, supervisors were elected to represent us, not the SEIU.” -- San Francisco Business Times, March 30, 2007, on a Board of Supervisors’ decision to delay permits needed to rebuild California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco so that it is seismically compliant.
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"The Service Employees International Union wants to organize Sutter Health. . . So the labor union has persuaded friends on the Sacramento City Council to push for a new layer of city regulation to retard Sutter's expansion plans in its headquarters city, giving the union another tool to use against Sutter. . . It's plainly a grab for power." -- Sacramento Business Journal Editorial, Oct. 14, 2005
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"Sal Rosselli is not one to mince words. President of SEIU's new statewide bargaining unit, he beats the bushes for dirt… Rhetoric aside, the fight is over union organizing -- or lack thereof. SEIU has tried unsuccessfully to organize Sutter workers." -- Sacramento Business Journal, May 13, 2005
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"The pattern is easy to identify. When labor unions or other interest groups dislike a particular industry, they mount a shrill public relations campaign to demonize that industry. That's followed by questionable studies that provide the 'evidence' of the evils of that industry, and then the legislators start writing laws to punish said industry. . .” -- Orange County Register, August 2004
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"It's important for labor unions to take on a particular industry and organize it market-wide. For us to change the downslide in the percentage of workers we represent, we have to think differently. Corporate campaigns make sense." -- Sal Rosselli, President, United Healthcare Workers West; Sacramento Business Journal; June 4, 2004
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". . .pressure on corporations, building alliances with religious and community groups, prodding political allies to take strong positions, and creating a sense of crisis and urgency are all part of the bag of tricks unions are pulling from. . ." -- Los Angeles Times, Oct. 13, 2000
Labor Relationships | SEIU United Healthcare Workers West’s misinformation campaign | What others have to say | The truth vs. SEIU United Healthcare Workers West’s allegations
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