Unplugged: The SEIU chief on the labor movement and the card check

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/may/10/stern-unplugged-seiu-chief-labor-movement-and-card/

He’s signaling a truce with Culinary but has harsh words for its parent, Unite Here

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Tiffany Brown

Andy Stern, Service Employees International Union president, poses for pictures with organizer Melissa Brown from the local SEIU offices on Thursday, May 7, 2009.

By Michael Mishak

Sun, May 10, 2009 (2 a.m.)

In Andy Stern’s world view, bigger is better.

And better still if the center of that world is his 2-million-member Service Employees International Union.

To hear him tell it, two of the nation’s most progressive unions would not now be at war had they only listened to his advice five years ago. Back then, as Unite, the garment and apparel workers union, and Here, the hotel and casino workers union, considered merging, Stern suggested an alternative: join SEIU, which was surging forward as the country’s largest and fastest-growing union.

Unite President Bruce Raynor and Here leader John Wilhelm declined.

Instead they formed Unite Here, parent of the Culinary Union, promising to organize large numbers of workers nationally. The honeymoon was short-lived, and long-simmering tensions between the two leaders erupted into public view this year, with Raynor calling for a divorce and Wilhelm struggling to keep the merger intact.

Enter Stern. The SEIU president revived his old proposal that they join him. Raynor has accepted, effectively leading a secession. His former Unite allies took 150,000 members and formed a new SEIU affiliate, Workers United. The move outraged Wilhelm, who accused Stern of raiding Unite Here and engineering a hostile takeover of the union’s hotel and casino jurisdictions.

By now, Stern is accustomed to criticism.

Under his leadership SEIU became one of the country’s most dynamic unions. Over the past year, however, Stern has attracted criticism for taking over locals, ousting elected leaders and making contract concessions with employers in return for organizing rights.

FULL story at link.