In the run-up to SEIU’s largest and most disastrous local union take-over—involving United Healthcare Workers (UHW)—some of the first punches where thrown at a Labor Notes conference in Dearborn, Michigan ten years ago this month.
Thanks to grassroots organizing, the CLC, for the first time, took a clear position of solidarity with a Palestinian-led human rights campaign. The convention also showed progress on Indigenous rights, racism, queer or trans rights, mental health, and environmental justice. The potential of that progress, however, is limited by a "business-as-usual" approach by too many union leaders. What matters now is how union members act on the progress made.
A high-stakes fight between one of the nation's largest unions and an upstart, homegrown rival over which one should get to represent thousands of Kaiser Permanente workers in California entered Round 2 this month. NUHW-CNA face off against SEIU. Mail-in voting concludes Monday, and a final tally is expected by Friday.
The spread of "Right-to-work" legislation is damaging to union membership and especially dues collection, and therefore has long been a strategy of the bosses. However, some left union activists have argued that automatic dues collection and membership is anti-democratic and the unions would be stronger if dues were "hand collected." But is this the best way to communicate with workers? Or are there other ways to strengthen unions and union democracy?
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