New Orleans

Here’s why I believe they will win:

• Delays Always Favor the Company: This decertification election has been on and off too long to allow the challenger to maintain the momentum against the incumbent.  In regular organizing that means the company wins more than 2/3rds of the time that the election is over 60 days from the filing.  In this case the “company” is SEIU, and its ability to tie up the challenger means just on the numbers, before any work was done, if normal odds prevailed their chances of winning were at 2/3rds.
• Change the Boss: One of the standard pages in any law firm or company side labor relations manual holds that when you are caught behind, it’s best to change the boss or whomever the workers see as responsible for the problem.  SEIU’s boss has changed.  In this very personal struggle between Sal Rosselli from Oakland and SEIU’s Andy Stern from DC, too much of the dissident’s campaign always presumed it was safe to individualize the attack and target Stern as the problem.  When Rosselli saw me in the Detroit hotel hallway and told me he had heard that Mary Kay Henry had the votes to become SEIU’s president, he chortled that it was “good news for the union, but bad news for me.”  Had Anna Burger, Andy’s longtime leadership partner prevailed in the board election, the dissidents would have easily just said “same ol’ same ol’” but in Henry the workers would see a new leader from California harder to brand with the problems in Stern’s legacy, yet someone who had fought Rosselli for 20 years and had been the losing candidate as Secretary-Treasurer to Rosselli’s winning slate when he took over Local 250 after that trusteeship.  I’m not saying that Stern left SEIU because of this election, but I will say that SEIU’s organizing expert, Tom Woodruff, has been in too many hard fought company/union elections, not to have calculated the impact on this election.

• The New Kaiser Contract Helps: The other thing that SEIU’s legal team bought the International and their folks in the bunkers of Northern California was enough time to negotiate a new contract with the employer, Kaiser Permanent, and its chain of hospitals and clinics in the state.  NLRB lawyers are maddening to union organizers and have driven many to drink and screaming as they argue from their training manuals that the contract ratification vote is a bellwether for a decertification vote, so “why do you care if there’s a decert; you ratified the contract?”  The dissidents needed to bleed the new contract, make the ratification close, or block the ratification entirely and for whatever and a number of reasons, they were unable to do this.  In fact the published reports indicate that the new contract was wildly popular with the Kaiser members and approved by 80%+, as I recall.  The tactical advantage lay heavily with the incumbent, and SEIU seized the advantage and powered it home, but this also hurt the dissident campaign, since much of Rosselli’s framing has been that SEIU’s merger-mania in California would “reduce standards.”  People like Dave Reagan (originally from SEIU Local 1199 WV/OH/KY, Woodruff’s old local) and Hal Ruddick (who worked at my SEIU Local 100 for 10 years) know how to negotiate a contract and made the most out of it.
• Majority Signs SEIU Election Support Petition: Another classic tactic that all of us have used in elections with the company focuses on rebuilding the majority during the election campaign.  This is a huge barometer and seeks to restore the momentum that usually falls off at the point of filing for the election, which is usually the union’s strongest moment against the company.  The 30%+ showing of interest that Rosselli’s forces mustered both before and during the original chaos and rage at the SEIU trusteeship has long dissipated, and the ability of the current SEIU ground forces to produce and show a “public” majority that workers at the hospitals and centers will see sends a huge blinking message to the full Kaiser workforce that SEIU has the majority and is going to win.  Workers like it or not, vote overwhelmingly with whichever side they believe is going to win.  That’s why companies are willing to break the law, coerce, intimidate, and fire leaders to send a message of power to back off workers and convince them that struggle is futile and victory impossible.  Workers have to survive.  Individual bosses and union leaders come and go.  A majority on a petition within 2 months of the vote count should make SEIU the heavy voting favorite.
• SEIU Ready for the Ground War on GOTV: In the last huge test in this blood battle SEIU proved it was willing to do what was necessary in the Fresno home health care challenge and eked out a narrow victory after pouring in millions and moving thousands of people into the Fresno get out the vote effort.  The dissidents and their supporters took some comfort and counted some coup, because they were able to keep the margin down with SEIU only narrowly holding the unit.  That was then, and this is now.  Time has traveled and other benchmarks have been set, but SEIU will spend millions again and every indication is that they will once again put a thousand or more people on the streets in the GOTV effort.  The dissidents are in less of position to match this effort now than they were.
• SEIU Has Crippled the Dissidents Financially: One thing I have learned as a union organizer over the last 30 years is that when the company really wants to beat you, they can absolutely beat you:  it comes down to will.  The real story financially in the SEIU battle is their willingness to barter their future and “play for anything” stakes in this internal fight.  They isolated the dissidents financially by cutting off the critical outside sources of money and organizing talent.  Stern did this first by making peace with what used to be called the California Nurses Association, now an AFL affiliate, and essentially giving up the fight that SEIU had made for nurses jurisdiction for years, helping his cause first within Kaiser where they would have been a formidable problem and inside the workplace voice against SEIU had he not neutralized them.  The price was high and included walking away from thousands of workers that SEIU had everything but won in Ohio and elsewhere, but this is part of the “below the line” calculus on this deal.  Mary Kay Henry finished the job with Stern’s departure by making peace, also at a huge price, with John Wilhelm of  Unite HERE and his former co-president Bruce Raynor, now an SEIU VP with Workers United.  A couple of months ago when I was in northern California briefly it was clear that HERE’s interjection of money and organizers into this family feud was effective and was hurting SEIU.  This was not a deal that Stern turned out to have been able to make, but Henry made it job #1 and got it done, and done in time to impact this election.  Wilhelm didn’t have many cards but he played what he had, particularly his strength in Local 2 with Mike Casey and his ability to leverage Maria Elena Durazo in Los Angeles with the county federation, perfectly.  Oh, yeah, they lost a lawsuit, too, but who cares that was just garnish and no money has changed hands.  With these two deals, SEIU cut off the outside bankers and made the fight totally uneven in terms of resources.
• Mail Ballots Favor GOTV Outside the Workplace: We love mail ballots.  We never lose them.  We’ll do almost anything to get one in an election.  Clearly, a unit of 40,000+ had to have a mail ballot, and with such a ballot the odds roll over to whichever side can get to the voters where they are voting and in this case that means at home, not at work.  The dissidents can’t match the home field advantage here.  What they have is at the workplaces where they still have committed workers in place.  I don’t need to talk to anybody to know that SEIU’s willingness to gear up a huge GOTV operation means that their assessments and polling indicate that the more that people vote; the more likely they are to win.  They obviously feel now that their real campaign is against apathy and not Rosselli, and that they can only lose if they get a light turnout and the diehards are both sides are left to decide.

Anyway you look at it, this is life or death for both sides, and SEIU knew it and has taken advantage of it powerfully to paint the dissidents into an impossible tactical bind, regardless of the support and sympathy they have in California and in much of what passes for a chattering class in the rickety house of labor.  I’m not saying that Stern’s sudden and still largely inexplicable resignation from SEIU was motivated by this election, since by all accounts much credibility should be given to the fact that he was “tired” as he’s said publically, and winning the health care vote at least left the rationalization of leaving well, but no one will ever convince me that all of these factors didn’t come to play in the decision and all of its aftermaths.  If he was going to leave mid-term anyway, then the spring was the perfect time so that all of this business could get done the way SEIU needed it to be done.

SEIU will retain its support among Kaiser workers and keep this unit.  I would bet they will get more than 65% support when all the votes are tallied.

I could be wrong, but I sure would be surprised if it turned out any differently than all of these signs are pointing.

Canyon

Like how important pickups and suburbans are to working stiffs.  Pulling into the lot outside of Shreveport in a motel filled with Anglo and Latino oil field hands, a car was a surprise among that long beds and tall racks of the trucks.  Equally common in these motels is the small smoker or grill perched on the motel railing or the pickup flap next to a couple of six packs.  These have now become the standard carry-on’s for fence minding just as wireless, cable-TV, and coffee and juice has become the fare even at $50 buck motels.  Filled parking lots at midnight are empty before 8AM.  One of our caravan commented after a mandatory stop at Southern Maid Hot Donuts, which Orell and I will argue is simply the best donut spot in all of north Louisiana, that she had never had a hot donut, and thanks.   I’m 100% for healthy, but can you  believe that that is possible without a benchmark for comparison?

North of Dallas and Fort Worth once past the sprawling D/FW airport, I was still surprised in the depths of the recession to uncover the planted ½ acre mini-mansion suburbs that had been planted in the plains and rolling scrub oak literally in the middle of nowhere, and were still standing somehow.  The Texas Speedway incidentally is so big that as we approached from a distance one passenger thought that might be the new Cowboys’ billion dollar stadium on the horizon.

The small towns along the trail continue their slow deaths.  The Wal-Mart had actually closed in Bunkie, Louisiana, which shocked me since I could remember when it opened 25 years ago as I would drive by on the way to Shreveport to negotiate nursing home contracts, sometimes 3 in one day.  In many there are more antique stores than most anything else.  Fast food outlets are more of the same and equal in number to boarded up restaurants with nothing but signs on the windows.  Just the way of these things, I guess.

On the other hand there are three Thai restaurants in small Canyon alone and twice as many or more locally owned and run Mexican places giving a run to the last couple of steakhouses that are still mandatory in this town.  Fence riders still need a chicken fried steak sooner or later, but I would probably have to draw a picture of that for you to get the full sense of it.  For the record, I always hold the gravy.  Just never have been a gravy man or liked sugar in my coffee.  Just keeping it real on the road.

New Orleans

It was painful for me to report that in the US after many years of employment increases and rising protections brought by unionization in many states, these same critical, yet low status health care workers, are facing a crisis in state after state.  Announcement curtailments of workers has already expanded waiting lists in many states, and California where there may be close to as a many workers as exist in Korea faces drastic budget proposals by the governor.  If all the proposals being discussed were realized my guess is that 200,000 home health care workers could see their jobs disappear with cutbacks in state subsidies.  The loss of 200,000 union dues payers would also be critical for SEIU, AFSCME, and other unions representing home health workers.

The IMF crisis a little more than a decade ago in Korea finds its lingering wake in the severe cutback of labor protections.  The Great Recession in the US may end up leaving a similar tsunami for many public – and private – employees as well.

Bob Hebert in the New York Times woefully reminded today that many are averaging a 25% cutback in income in the recession and that it may take 6 to 10 years to make up the ground to move back from income insecurity to any semblance of citizen wealth.

Discussions with my Korean friends was a painful reminder of the long tail of economic crises with no end in sight.

San Pedro Sula

God knows they probably deserve it on this score and so many others, but the Democrats have hardly showered themselves with praise from the President through the Congress for the ways they have equally pandered to the worst impulses around immigration fears and in some cases xenophobia and old school racism in the shallow debates thus far about immigration reform.

Talking to people knowledgeable about the meeting, most of the participants seemed to feel that they had been brought in to the White House by the President for a close inspection of the woodshed.  Seems that for an hour he read the “reformers” the riot act about how they needed to stop pushing the Democrats and start bashing the Republicans because they had not carried their weight at all in the President’s view and the Democrats were heads taller than the Republicans in their steadfastness for reform.  Implicit in the President’s sudden affection for bringing forward the immigration issue now though has to be his belief, and the Party’s, that it is a good wedge issue for the Democrats in the mid-term election, especially with close contests at stake in the southwest like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s rough race in Nevada.

Admittedly, the reformers strategy has been weak and beltway-centric and all admonitions to bring the fight into home turf and vulnerable, battleground districts where a movement could build and we could prove that we could punish and win, have been rejected, and too often even obvious engagements like Arizona, first with Arpaio and now with SB 1070, have seemed to win support from funders and national efforts weakly and almost with fingers holding noses near the ground.  But, even saying that, it hardly justifies a free ride for the Democrats who have run from the issue as well and under Obama and Secretary Napolitano have been enforcement firsters, reformers whenever folk.

The midterm elections are important in keeping reform efforts alive in many areas, granted Mr. President, but for immigration reform to become a reality it has to win as a moral issue, not simply a matter of party politics.  All of these efforts are going to be setback if the Democrats from the top on down simply try to insert the issue as a wedge with or without the help of the reformers, and still have no plan for how to make reform a reality.

New Orleans

The first paragraph of the decision was chilling:

“This appeal raises a First Amendment challenge to

Redondo Beach Municipal Code § 3-7.1601, which prohibits

the act of standing on a street or highway and soliciting

employment, business, or contributions from the occupants of

an automobile. We have previously upheld a virtually identical

ordinance against a constitutional challenge. See ACORN

v. City of Phoenix, 798 F.2d 1260, 1273 (9th Cir. 1986). We

reach the same result here and hold that the Redondo Beach

ordinance is a valid time, place, or manner restriction.

Accordingly, we reverse the contrary decision of the district

court.”

Fred Brooks, one of the legendary ACORN canvass directors during the early and mid-1980’s, and now a professor of social work at Georgia State University in Atlanta, when running a program for us in Columbus, Ohio, introduced a brilliant piece of low technology, but stunningly effective grassroots fundraising methodology called “tagging.”  Based on annual fundraisers by firefighters (who used their boots) and other groups, with a recycled tennis ball can and masking tape with a slit on the top, an armada of “taggers” including members, organizers, and street kids would collect at busy traffic intersections and ask for contributions to support either ACORN or Local 100, and in return for a donation would hand the driver a “tag” thanking them and describing the organization’s work.  The money raised was serious.  Danny Cantor (now head of the NY Working Families Party), Cecile Richards, an outstanding class A tagger (and now head of Planned Parenthood), Kirk Adams (now chief of staff of SEIU), Beth Butler (executive director of A Community Voice in Louisiana), and their teams would often net over a $1000 back then on a Saturday tag even after paying 40% of the can to their taggers and discounting leakage (theft) of some cans which was common on the streets.  But, as good as tagging was, the pushback was as fierce in various communities.

In the New Orleans area restrictions became onerous and expensive even though often honored in the breach.  In Denver an organizer running a successful tag program was arrested and convicted of “public begging,” and in places like Phoenix ordinances were crafted to try and prevent or curtail any tagging that could arguably interfere with traffic in the name of public safety.  ACORN’s defense, led by our attorney Steve Bachmann at the time, was straight up first amendment freedom of speech, which of course it was.  With such arguments we prevailed in places like University City, a suburb outside of St. Louis, and other venues.  We expected to prevail in Phoenix, but it didn’t happen.  We elected not to appeal to the Supreme Court so that we could leave as much confusion as possible between various decisions in different appeals districts and keep more “bad law” from being made by the courts.

Now my friends at NDLON (the National Day Laborers Organizing Network) and their chief lawyer, Chris Newman, are caught in the same dilemma as various California cities copied the original Phoenix ordinances protected by the 9^th circuit.  It’s hard to be optimistic about courts anywhere around California not deciding that traffic comes first with livelihoods very distant on the list.

It’s hard to believe that we will end up with many choices other than to craft political decisions because I’m no more optimistic of a fair shot in the courts on these issue now than I was more than 20 years ago.  Maybe the answer is in set aside jornaleros areas like the ones maintained by the City of San Antonio?  Maybe the answer is to not ruffle the feathers and to make it work on the streets wherever it is possible and make some other deals in these smaller uptight California communities?

Anyway you look at it, we’ve drawn a tough hand.

As for tagging, I think about it all the time, and mark my words, I’m going to bring it back to support ACORN International in streets and cities near you.  I’m just not telling when and where!

Quepos

The official explanation was given by SEIU’s razorsharp political director, Jon Youngdahl, a couple of jumps over relative of the late and wildly great Arkansas labor lawyer, Jim Youngdahl:

“SEIU has met with Bill Halter, and finds him to be a great voice for working families with an extremely bright political future,” said Jon Youngdahl, the union’s national political director. “That’s why we’ve solicited contributions to retire his campaign debt and support his re-election campaign.”

Hmmmm…..Bill Halter has quite a lot of work to do before he quite qualifies as a “great voice for working families,” so that’s not the real answer though SEIU supporting “his re-election campaign” might just be closer to reality.

A few weeks ago when I speculated that I  thought we could bank on Senator Blanche Lincoln as a sure vote in the 60 for health care passage by throwing a sop to her Democratic base despite her only real concern with her seven (7) Republican primary opponents, I also guessed that it was unlikely that Halter would agree to challenge Lincoln given what I was hearing from friends and relatives in the Wonder State.  I would have to guess that SEIU’s sudden interest in Halter’s debt and anything in Arkansas at all, given that at this point they have no significant membership in the state anymore that could be helped by a Lt. Gov, must have come from some high level backroom discussions not with Halter, but probably with Lincoln and her campaign that dollars to donuts ended up with SEIU promising to support Lincoln aggressively if she slipped over and gave a needed vote on healthcare in the Senate.

For Halter this probably feels like Christmas, but in real terms this was just a consolation prize for him running in place and staying put for the future.

Union says it will help Ark. Lt. Gov. retire debt

(AP) — LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – A major labor union said Friday it will help retire the 2006 campaign debt of Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, a Democrat who’s been touted as a potential primary challenger to U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln next year.

The Service Employees International Union said it is soliciting contributions to retire the debt along with the help of other labor unions. Halter reported in October that his campaign still owed him more than $444,000 that he had loaned it.

“SEIU has met with Bill Halter, and finds him to be a great voice for working families with an extremely bright political future,” said Jon Youngdahl, the union’s national political director. “That’s why we’ve solicited contributions to retire his campaign debt and support his re-election campaign.”

[1]

The move may help remove a barrier for Halter, who’s been mentioned as a potential rival to fellow Democrat Lincoln in next year’s primary. Halter has said he is focused on his re-election campaign, and has not said whether he is considering running against Lincoln.

Lincoln, who is seeking a third term, has more than $4.1 million in the bank for her re-election bid.

“The lieutenant governor continues to raise money to retire his debt and he’s thankful for anyone who offers their help, whether it’s SEIU or any Arkansan or union or person who believes Halter is doing a great job as lieutenant governor as he prepares to run for re-election,” Halter spokesman Bud Jackson said Friday.

Steve Patterson, Lincoln’s campaign manager, said he didn’t see any indication that the union was backing Halter as a potential primary challenger.

“I accept their statement on its face,” Patterson said.

A spokeswoman for the union, which represents 2.1 million members, said union officials had not decided whether to endorse Lincoln in her re-election bid.

Lincoln has been targeted by liberals and conservatives, particularly on health care legislation. The state GOP has criticized Lincoln for voting to open debate on Democratic-led health care legislation, while the liberal organization MoveOn.Org has aired ads pressuring her for opposing a government-run insurance option.

Labor unions have expressed disappointment with health care legislation in the Senate for not including the so-called public option.

Seven Republicans have announced they’re seeking the party’s nomination to challenge Lincoln next year.