SEIU « Wade Rathke: Chief Organizer Blog

Union Density Continues Slip and Fall

New Orleans I went by the gala reception on St. Charles Avenue last night to celebrate the fact that the SEIU International Executive Board was in town to see old friends and comrades. Past the music, food and short speeches, it was hard to find much evidence of good news for unions and organizing even from [...]

Taking Back the Capitol

New Orleans There are few organizations anywhere that are better at pure and simple communications than MoveOn.org and the Service Employees International Union, but they just about met their match in trying to turn up the heat with a demonstration culminating SEIU’s Fight for a Fair Economy campaign in DC. To the media this was [...]

A New Wal-Mart Workers Association

Belva Whitt from the original Wal-Mart Workers Association in Tampa, FL

Ottawa The UFCW’s effort to assist the development of a workers’ association for the so-called “associates” of Wal-Mart finally has made its debut after a long period of work, claiming thousands of members and organization on the ground in California, [...]

Labor’s Uncivil Civil Wars

New Orleans Steve Early is a organizer, lawyer, journalist, and without question longtime labor activist in the best, classic sense of the word, which also means he can be a royal pain in the butt to bosses and colleagues alike, a tireless advocate, and one-man jihadist on something he feels strongly about like SEIU and Andy [...]

Stephen Lerner, the Banks, and the Right-wing Scare Machine

New Orleans The right blogosphere and websites were all heavy breathing about another “secret” tape claiming longtime SEIU organizer and strategist, Stephen Lerner, was an “economic terrorist” advocating that the masses should bring the banks and Wall Street to its knees. At one level it is hard to suppress a yawn. Anger [...]

Are we Hearing the Death Knell for Unions?

New Orleans The backdrop to the great excitement and fight back in Wisconsin, Ohio, and India for the labor movement seems to be a very black curtain that some are trying to pull across the stage. The evidence seems everywhere. Steven Greenhouse, one of the last labor reporters, sounded the death knell in the [...]

Politicians Slip and Fall: Oliver Thomas’ “Reflections”

New Orleans Contrary to popular opinion, it is actually a very, very rare event for a New Orleans city politician to go to jail for some kind of corruption, regardless of our reputation. The hometown paper, The Times Picayune, campaigned mercilessly for investigations and convictions of Mayor Marc Morial and his troops, largely to no [...]

Bullseye on Public Sector Workers and Unions

New Orleans For all the talk about the U.S. Congress and what it might do at the hands of the new majority, there’s still a couple of circuit breakers handling too much power surge when business has to go to the Senate or even face a Presidential veto. In the states rouge legislators could be [...]

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