June 26, 2009 09:36 PM UTC

SEIUs' anti-union tactics fend off competition

• 2 Comments
• by: Libertad

As a friend of mine said “Frickin hilarious!”  Get ready because your about to see some union boss thuggary in action

http://www.latimes.com/busines…

The SEIU is now alleging that an upstart competitive union “is intimidating and misleading workers” in its efforts to represent them.  Further the SEIU is advocating with federal officials to throw out various petitions and votes authorized by the very workers themselves.

For years, the powerful Service Employees International Union has played a lead role in the campaign for a landmark federal law that would allow workers to join a labor organization simply by signing petitions.

Now, as part of a high-stakes battle in California, the union is urging federal officials to throw out petitions signed by tens of thousands of its own members who have asked to be represented by a rival upstart group.

The SEIU is employing the very same tactics is claims to encounter from business owners … just who invented these tactics might be a question you should ponder.

The David-vs.-Goliath face-off pits the SEIU, its $300-million annual budget and its legions of staffers, lobbyists and lawyers against a band of about 150 insurgents who are either volunteers or being paid from donations. Most have defected from the SEIU’s 2-million-strong ranks.

In lodging legal challenges to the roughly 80 petitions filed by its fledgling competitor, the SEIU has moved to block organizing elections at hospitals, clinics and nursing homes up and down the state. And it has used some of the same tactics that employers often use to thwart union drives.

Will the SEIU controlled ColoradoWINS use these same tactics if a competitive union (say AFL-CIO) were to offer representation to state workers?  

What prevents the SEIU backed monopoly union from offerring these same tactics to state employees who choose to engage their Right-to-Work option and not join the SEIU affiliate?  Or who set up a competitive union?

Will this SEIU affiliate challenge the Right-to-Work right that Governor Ritter provided to all state employees?  Will they use similar tactics on the Governor?

One of the SEIU’s allegations in the petitions dispute has raised eyebrows in labor and Democratic Party circles. The SEIU contends that the new union is “dominated by employers,” and thus illegal, because former Bay Area political consultant Clint Reilly, who employs janitors as a commercial landlord, had helped its organizers raise money before they formed the group.