SEIU, UNITE-HERE Say Secret Deals With Companies Benefit Workers

http://www.laborradio.org/node/8532

By Doug Cunningham

Are secret agreements on union organizing between union leaders and companies good or bad for workers? That’s a central question being raised by SEIU and UNITE-HERE’s secret deals with employers that designate which workers in a company can be organized while giving up the union right to strike. UNITE-HERE President, Bruce Raynor told the Wall Street Journal that these deals are a major advancement for the labor movement that have brought tens of thousands of workers into unions. But dissidents within organized labor say they are top-down deals that exclude rank and file workers and that too much often can be sacrificed in return for simply increasing union member numbers. SEIU and UNITE-HERE have such secret deals with Sodhexo and Compass and possibly other companies. The Wall Street Journal says the agreements give these companies the right to pick which of their facilities can be organized and which can’t. SEIU’s Andy Stern says these deals were crafted because the old ways of organizing weren’t working and under these deals workers are guaranteed a union voice.