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From the September-October 2004 issue of UDR #152
Service
Employees:
MASS merger in Local 888
The following
is based on accounts from several Local 888 members who prefer to remain
anonymous.
In August,
2003 the Service Employees International Union merged several locals in
Massachusetts to form a 12,000-member, mostly state and municipal sector,
Local 888. Included in the new statewide local is a 1,500-member unit
of professional staff at UMass Amherst and Boston that used to belong
to Local 509, a union with a strong democratic tradition.
The merger is part of a larger and troubling trend towards consolidation,
centralization of authority, and reduction in membership control over
union affairs.
Consolidation
is necessary, argue its supporters, to create larger, more powerful unions
that can exercise leverage against increasingly powerful and centralized
employers, some of them multinational. The economy and world have changed,
unions must change too.
It is true
that mergers and consolidation are sometimes necessary to avoid the danger
of locals in the same industry undercutting one another or failing to
coordinate in bargaining. Perhaps Massachusetts public employees will
fare better in one big local. But proponents of these larger structures
never explain why, in their new expansive unions, it is necessary to hamstring
union democracy.
Broken
promises
Leaders
of the UMASS units were persuaded to throw their support behind the merger
- approved in a membership referendum - by appeals to unity: a powerful
local, they believed, would be created by combining all SEIU's higher
education units. They were promised that two of their representatives
would be hired as staff, that a constitution would be adopted soon after
the merger, and that elections for officers would be held.
But, according
to reports, the appointed president, Susana Segat, a staffer for SEIU
state council, reneged on the promises to appoint the UMASS leaders to
staff positions, hiring only one, who later resigned. A year into the
merger the local has yet to announce a schedule for elections or adopt
permanent bylaws; members complain that they were not informed of the
existence of interim bylaws until six months after they were adopted.
(Federal law permits an international union to appoint the officers of
a newly created local for the first three-year term).
Nevertheless,
a letter from Segat currently on the
union's web site pledges to "insure that all our members, from
large to small units, have an effective voice in the governance of the
union," and " to make sure that our process is open, democratic,
and accessible to our members." Segat did not return AUD's call seeking
comment for this article.
If the experience
of other locals is any guide, SEIU will adopt a local constitution designed
to make real democracy difficult. Members will have a direct say in selecting
chapter officers, but those officers will have no paid post and no funds
to control. Staffing decisions will all be determined by local officials
operating out of the statewide office. Local officers will be elected
directly as required by law, but candidates will be barred from collecting
funds from non-SEIU members - a restriction that greatly favors well-paid
incumbent officers able to raise a campaign war chest from themselves
and staff. Two years of continuous good standing will be required to run
for office; it will be waived for staff brought in from outside the local,
but vigorously enforced against any challenger whose dues have lapsed
for a moment. Hundreds of signatures will be required for nomination.
"Incidental campaigning" - a loophole in federal law that allows
some campaigning by staff and officers on union time - will be exploited
fully.
The overall
effect of the merger, at least on the UMASS chapter, has been the opposite
of what was expected. The union is weaker, not stronger. Members are demoralized,
angry that they can no longer directly elect the officials who represent
them. Some are contemplating decertification of SEIU and then forming
or joining an independent union.
None of these restrictions on democracy are insurmountable. For example, a grassroots insurgent group in Philadelphia Local 36, a large building services local, recently overcame similar obstacles to win top spots on the local executive board. If members are alert and organized, these limitations can be defeated.
For more on
SEIU Local 888:
Official Local 888 website http://www.seiu888.org/
Website
of Local 888 Members Democracy Campaign http://www.888democracy.org/
More resources
on the New Unity Partnership of SEIU, UNITE-HERE, LIUNA and the UBCJA:
Local
509 asks questions about democracy in the SEIU
New
Unity Partnership:Sweeney Critics would bureaucratize to organize.
Service Employees: Mass. merger
in Local 888.
Benson's Union
Democracy blog.
Student
Labor Activists support union democracy.
SEIU's Unite
to Win blog promotes discussion of their Proposals for New Strength, and
related issues and plans.
Articles
on the Labor Notes site on NUP from various sources.
See
UDR articles on the Carpenters (UBCJA) for case
studies in merger and bureaucratization.
Several articles on the New Unity Partnership are available on the BC
Carpenters website.
Find articles on the consolidation
of power in the Carpenters union on the main UDR page.
An exchange
on union democracy between Herman Benson and Steve Fraser, on the Laborers.org
website (click on Fraser's name for a link to his article)
Links to rank-and-file websites in the NUP unions: Carpenters,
Hotel and Restaurant Employees,
Laborers, Needle
Trades (UNITE), Service Employees (building
services, public employees).
Father
Haggerty's "Wheel of Fortune" -- the original grand sectoral plan
for the IWW.
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