SEIU President Andy Stern Has Crossed the LineFred Ross, Jr.byline‚ May. 07‚ 2009For the past ten years I have worked for SEIU, most recently leading a campaign to organize 9,000 healthcare workers at St. Joseph Health System (SJHS) hospitals across California. I was drawn to SEIU because of its commitment to social justice, including its inspiring Justice for Janitors campaign, its successful work on behalf of homecare workers, its leadership on immigrant rights, and its innovative strategies to hold corporations accountable. I have been an organizer since 1970, when I first started organizing with Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers (UFW). I know a little bit about struggle and the terrible cost of internal union conflicts. I’ve been shot at by a supermarket security guard, knocked unconscious by a Coachella Valley grape grower, and survived a heated confrontation with the Salvadoran military. This is why SEIU’s recent attacks on UNITE HERE have come as such a shock. I am deeply disappointed that SEIU president Andy Stern is financing and helping staff a disruptive attack on the leaders and members at UNITE HERE around the country — the worst instance of a union undermining another union since the Teamsters sought to undermine Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers in the late 1960s and 1970s. Last month I decided to leave SEIU, in part because of these attacks. |