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Sternway

By Owen Paine on Tuesday March 11, 2008 10:28 PM

Noting the obvious -- amazing how seldom people bother to do that:

At left is Andy Stern, prez of the Service Employees International Union, and he's a menace to America's entire underpaid wage force.

Despite his multimillion-dollar self-promotion campaign, everyone inside the labor movement knows Mr Purple Wave -- even on his best day of the month -- is an egomaniac and slippery power freak.

And summed up as a wage-class leader -- well, ask Sal Rosselli, president of United Healthcare Workers West, a 65-000-member, California-dreamin' chunk of Stern's outfit:

"If SEIU goes in the direction that Stern is currently leading it, it will become a business union movement, a service-type organization, as opposed to where were coming from. We want to build a real movement of workers, a real social movement union, for workers, by workers, where workers are encouraged and trained to be decision-making leaders."
More: http://labornotes.org/node/1547

So is Sal fightin' back? You bet. First he resigned from Andy's national "executive committee," and now "meetings of rank-and-file leaders... are starting to happen." At the union's national convention this May, Rosselli plans on "checking the authority of the president with member democracy."

Comments (9)

John D. Bartram:

Thanks for extending your view to people like union leader Stern. I could say similar things about the leadership of the union I belonged to (IBEW). They are mostly bootlickers for the Democrat party as well as believing that the best way to protect their members (and their own) jobs is to help the corporations we work for. Unfortunately, the local union leaders and even the rank and file are not very aware. They are so focused on immediate (and very pressing) issues that they seldom make any attempt to see the big picture. It seems capitalism has made us all isolated individuals to whom the idea of solidarity appears foolish and useless.

Good for Sal Rosselli, I wish him luck.

op:

" It seems capitalism has made us all isolated individuals to whom the idea of solidarity appears foolish and useless."

ahhhh but mate
before the dawn....

the craving for united action
is there
building in each anomic soul
ready to emerge
set the whole jobbled hive
in motion
one big over soul roaring
thru a million job sites

we don't need no stinky
half off sale job market depression

even as it is today
the tinder is dry
in a flash
it could get like '37 baby.... like '37

op:


i agree
the " shit no ass hole
we are not the sum of our jobs " type
"what exploit me ??"
world cope
is common among
spirited wage wranglers

contemporary
big wild and free corporatism
does make us ".. all isolated individuals "
and certainly lives on the toxic by product of this serialization

the pit at the bottom of the bowl view
is
"... solidarity ,,"
is " foolish and useless"

op:


and unions like to play racket ball too
fuck class wide action

as you suggest
what's best for the dues hounds
is whats best for
"the corporations .."
their R and F " work for"

often
scratchin the bosses back
gets a piece ...

prevailing wage scams

import quotas

the whole policy hall
full of open and closed doors
works best
by keepin most wagelings OUT

If the SEIU is structured like the rest of the AFL-Lack, rotsa ruck on changing anything at "the convention," which is where the hand-picked "delegates" are coached, while sleeping in a resort hotel, to block even the mere discussion of anything and everything that does not emanate from the six-figured goombahs who run the show.

op:

md

you are of course correct


but the r and f struggle
must operate
on many fronts
to demo the need for rebellion
the ranks need to see
any from bellow opposition
face oligarchic el squelcho issmo

brother sal seems intent
on a org within an org set up
like the teamster's system oligarchs
live with thru
and possibly by

hey ...the trip they're on
we're on as eliot might say
anyone's on
has many li left to go
before it really stands up

Yes, op-san
wise sensei

the old Tony Gram-ski
the p-of-the-i
with
the o-of-the-w
always the o-of-the-w

that is commandment-level stuff

good fights never die
but they sure do lie a-moldering...

funny those Teamsters come up, too
as their own dashed small-d democratic moment
was Fed-forced
contra AFL-Lack norms
ere twas pissed upon and lost

op:

md

the unit of struggle inside a union
is often penetrated by ....."the state "

duantless we row on against
the hegemonic tide
in our class tri-reme
i take great encouragement from
hezzy wezzy resilience

such ideologically bound catalytic entities
once embedded in a "objectively allied" community
are un extinguishable

He was a
one-eyed,
one-horned,
flyin' purple worker-eater!

Sorry, Smiff; couldn't resist.

Yer pal, mf (rock'n'roll pig)

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