Seems the good ol’ boys and girls at the Service Employees International Union of Communism and Illegal Immigration gave the finger to it’s labor force recently: Did a Union Doublecross Its College Activists?

“It is becoming increasingly clear that SEIU leaders often see students and campus workers as little more than pawns to use as they see fit,” the letter states. “SEIU has sought to maneuver these pawns in a way that brings new members and dues into the union in the short term but keeps workers in poverty and actually hurts our collective efforts to help unions grow at a massive scale.”

Who says college activists are stupid? They’ve figured out the SEIU’s game plan is just a particularly vile and obnoxiously obvious version of the AFL-CIO’s: act like you’re helping labor, but in reality keep the workers oppressed and poor, in order to exploit them. Capitalists have got nothing on these guys.

The letter alleges that SEIU officials encouraged students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to help organize food services workers, while at the same time entering into a deal with the workers’ employer that would insure there would never be a union at North Carolina.

The SEIU agreement, first reported upon in May by the Wall Street Journal, grants the so-called “Big 3” service employers the right to determine where SEIU will organize workers. Aramark Corp., which provides food services to North Carolina’s campus, was among those included in the agreement, the Journal reported.

“The deal ensured UNC workers could not join SEIU by letting Aramark decide which workers could join the union,” the letter states. “Not surprisingly, UNC workers didn’t make Aramark’s list.”

Local Angle

If the name Aramark sounds familiar, it’s because they have the franchises to most, if not all, of the sports temples here in Houston. And in case anyone has forgotten, it was the SEIU’s challenge through efforts to organize city of Houston employees that resulted in the formation of HOPE, a merger of the SEIU and AFCSME locals, and a first-ever labor agreement between civilian city employees and the city.

A summary of the “Big 3” agreement, which was provided to Inside Higher Ed, details how SEIU allowed employers – not workers – to dictate where unionization would take place. The agreement, forged by SEIU and another union known as Unite Here, cedes the power to declare union sites to two major food service providers, Compass Group USA and Sodexho Inc. Along with Aramark, which had a similar agreement according to the Journal, Compass and Sodexho are the major food service providers on college campuses across the country.

In addition to empowering the companies to determine where workers can organize, the agreement insures that unionized workers won’t strike or even make derogatory remarks about the companies.

Union members were not informed of the deal, which specifically stipulates that secrecy is “critical to the success” of the agreement.

The rationalization of this unprecedented agreement is the current “anti-labor” legal environment. Yeah, right.

According to the letter, North Carolina students began organizing workers – at the behest of SEIU – in 2005. They were joined in these efforts by workers from the Southwest Workers Union, a joint labor venture of SEIU and Unite Here. But after working side-by-side with the students, who said they were subjected to Aramark executives’ intimidation, the union leaders abandoned the cause, the letter states.

Doesn’t play nice with others:

And then there’s SEIU’s practice of undercutting other unions. Apparently it also undercuts the student activists that work on behalf of the workers:

Student criticism of SEIU is not limited to the events that unfolded in North Carolina. As the letter notes, University of California at Irvine students had their own frustrations about SEIU’s interference.

According to the letter, SEIU nearly stymied an effort by the local union to have Aramark employees hired by the university, thereby granting the workers the same benefits as Irvine staff. At the height of the local union’s campaign in 2006, SEIU organizers – in apparent collusion with Aramark – tried to get the workers to join SEIU and abandon their local union, students said.

“We already had a relationship [with the workers],” recalled Carla Osorio, a former student who aided the local union. “We already had our campaign going on, and then this other union comes in that was shady.”

A local student activist group wrote an open letter critical of the SEIU, although the national chapter (which gets its funding from unions, of course) disavowed the action.

“This blatant effort by Aramark to undermine the workers [sic] efforts is not surprising, but SEIU’s complicity is appalling,” the letter states.

Elsewhere in California, students have also complained about SEIU’s treatment of union members at Stanford University and Santa Clara University. Since unionized workers on those campuses were transferred into Service Workers United – part of SEIU and Unite Here — they’ve “received little to no support,” according to the letter.

The unionized workers at Santa Clara and Stanford were employees of Bon Appétit, a company owned by Compass Group. Compass Group is one of the “Big 3” employers covered under SEIU’s controversial agreement.

SEIU has been criticized in the past (on this blog and others) for supporting illegal immigration, which helps to keep the cost of labor low, thereby assuring that it will continue to have fertile ground for recruiting.

Just another day in the labor movement, where it’s all about the top dogs, not the little guys.

h/t to Instapundit.

HOPE, the combined organization formed by the SEIU and AFSCME Now unions has had so little luck getting people to sign up (I’ve mentioned in comments over at bH that the rep got no respect here) that they came by this week to offer pizza just to listen to their pitch. Employees were encouraged to sign statements supporting the union’s attempt to bargain collectively for employees–without joining up. Methinks they’re not getting much support; perhaps petition fatigue has set in?

Still on hiatus (but this was fun)!

If you’ve been wondering where the Unions Due catagory has been, as well as scans of the propaganda they send me (and others), it’s not been neglect; it’s been a problem with my scanner. For some reason, it didn’t want to work with that computer any more, and no amount of un/re-installing drivers would fix it. I finally exchanged printers between two of my computers and voila’! It worked. I figure something’s gone haywire in the O/S, perhaps a bit of spyware or one of the more annoying viruses out there got it.

Anyway, my scanner is now operational again, and in fact, it’s in a better place than before; now it’s on my computer, whereas before it was on the family’s, which caused problems. So here’s the first of a very large backlog of stuff. Both sides have slowed down now that the SEIU has met its goal of obtaining enough signatures.

“And look, not only will your health benefits will be cheaper, your pay will be higher!”

Continue reading →

I might have to watch this just to see how much of a puff piece it is. I really don’t expect them to take the SEIU to task for its support of illegal immigration. That’s something you expect a union would oppose, wouldn’t you?

Recently, the City of Houston recognized that a majority of city employees want to form a union with SEIU to win better wages, better health care and a more secure retirement.

This week, the CBS national news program “60 Minutes” is expected to recognize the work SEIU members are doing to raise standards for working families everywhere.

The news program is scheduled to run a 13-minute profile of SEIU and its president, Andy Stern, this Sunday at 6 p.m. To learn more about SEIU, please visit www.seiutx.org

Personally, I don’t call supporting the import of cheap labor as raising standards for working families. Unless by “working families” you mean “familes of union bigwigs.” After all, you can’t obtain political patronage if you’ve got no votes to deliver. And gosh, we all know how honest union politics are south of the border, not to mention how separated from the PRI the unions are there.

Will the Democratic party become PRI-North? Only time will tell.

Two more unions have followed the SEIU’s lead in bolting from the AFL-CIO, citing its lack of focus on recruiting. More over at the Captain’s Quarters; original article at the NY Times. The impact on the Houston area will be negligible. Trying to unionize the construction industry here would be like trying to paint water; it’s just going to flow away from you.

Well, the AFSCME NOW folks decided to kick their dispute with the SEIU up a notch or three, finally remembering to talk to the employees themselves. Yes, somehow, they managed to notice that we still exist.

What I consider interesting is that while the AFSCME tosses around the word “illegal” a lot about the SEIU, they somehow forgot to mention that they are suing to stop the SEIU’s “illegal” petition. They also forgot to mention all the good things they’ve done for the city employees over the years. You know, like. . . .

Ummmm. . . .

Oh yeah. There aren’t any. Never mind.