Union Stands Against Democracy and Local Participation

September 4, 2008 | Filed Under Business, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Media Bias, News, Publius Contributor, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston |

-By Warner Todd Huston

The more we learn of the management style of President Andy Stern of the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) the more we see that he is an authoritarian as bad as any top-down led corporation that he and his union might criticize. And this newest abuse of office that his protege in California, Tyrone Freeman, has been embroiled in is yet another window into Stern’s undemocratic ways.

As Freeman was wildly spending union members’ dues to float little companies run by his relatives, and as Freeman’s associate Rickman Jackson went to a Michigan union to try his own hand at such abuse of office, what was Andy Stern doing while all this was going on under his nose? Instead of cleaning up his own pals, Stern was attacking another union local that was challenging his iron-fisted and unprincipled leadership.

As union member Dan Mariscal of S.M.A.R.T. says:

It is interesting to note that Mr. Stern’s “modern approach” to local union governance is not consistent with the traditional “democratic practices”, that have worked to avoid the past abuses, or appearance of abuses, by directly involving the rank and file members in important decision making, elections and checks and balances within their own locals. Mr. Stern’s loyalty-based leadership practices, although procedurally streamlining, does not leave room for the normal checks and balances usually handled by the rank and file and/or rank and file elected officers.

With regards to the first point, there appears to be evidence that someone high level, in SEIU, was aware that there may have been improprieties “involving Freeman’s finances and personal relationships” as far back as six years ago. If there is anything resembling truth to this statement, it does not bode well for the SEIU administration as a whole. It would represent a disconnect with reality and the inability to lead with integrity. The whole “Labor Movement” could be dealt quite a blow.

Stern has been engaged in an effort to lead the SEIU strictly from the main office in Washington D.C., cutting out the locals from any important decision making. He has negotiated contracts and shut down locals as well as consolidated some locals with others all without the input of the membership of the local unions involved. His has been entirely a top-down style of leadership brooking no lip from the membership.

Now, couple these concerns of Stern’s unprincipled tenure as head of the most powerful union in the country with the large canvass upon which Stern wants to work: the entire nation.

The SEIU is spending $85 million dollars to get Barack Obama elected and they fully expect for Obama to give them everything they want in payback. And there is little reason to believe he won’t because Obama comes from the old corrupt Richard Daley Democratic Party Machine of Chicago — if Obama knows anything he knows how to pay back supporters. He’s been hip deep in corrupt pay back schemes for over a decade. If the unions fully support him and pump him big infusions of cash, he WILL bend over backwards to give them anything in repayment despite what is good for the people or the country. After all, he’s done it before.

Just another reason to oppose the unions and Obama.

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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston