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Purple is the color of Andrew Stern's life. He wears, almost exclusively, purple shirts, purple jackets and purple caps. He carries a purple duffel bag and drinks bottled water with a purple label, emblazoned with the purple logo of the Service Employees International Union, of which Stern is president. There are union halls in America where a man could get himself hurt wearing a lilac shirt, but the S.E.I.U. is a different kind of union, rooted in the new service economy. Its members aren't truck drivers or assembly-line workers but janitors and nurses and home health care aides, roughly a third of whom are black, Asian or Latino. While the old-line industrial unions have been shrinking every year, Stern's union has been organizing low-wage workers, many of whom have never belonged to a union, at a torrid pace, to the point where the S.E.I.U. is now the largest and fastest-growing trade union in North America. Once a movement of rust brown and steel gray, Big Labor is increasingly represented, at rallies and political conventions, by a rising sea of purple.

All of this makes Andy Stern -- a charismatic 54-year-old former social-service worker -- a very powerful man in labor, and also in Democratic politics. The job of running a union in America, even the biggest union around, isn't what it once was. The age of automation and globalization, with its ''race to the bottom'' among companies searching for lower wages overseas, has savaged organized labor. Fifty years ago, a third of workers in the United States carried union cards in their wallets; now it's barely one in 10. An estimated 21 million service-industry workers have never belonged to a union, and between most employers' antipathy to unions and federal laws that discourage workers from demanding one, chances are that the vast majority of them never will.

Over the years, union bosses have grown comfortable blaming everyone else -- timid politicians, corrupt C.E.O.'s, greedy shareholders -- for their inexorable decline. But last year, Andy Stern did something heretical: he started pointing the finger back at his fellow union leaders. Of course workers had been punished by forces outside their control, Stern said. But what had big labor done to adapt? Union bosses, Stern scolded, had been too busy flying around with senators and riding around in chauffeur-driven cars to figure out how to counter the effects of globalization, which have cost millions of Americans their jobs and their pensions. Faced with declining union rolls, the bosses made things worse by raiding one another's industries, which only diluted the power of their workers. The nation's flight attendants, for instance, are now divided among several different unions, making it difficult, if not impossible, for them to wield any leverage over an entire industry.

Stern put the union movement's eroding stature in business terms: if any other $6.5 billion corporation had insisted on clinging to the same decades-old business plan despite losing customers every year, its executives would have been fired long ago.

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Full Story

This is a long article, but it is worth the read for a good profile of the man and a summary of the issues he has so aggressively brought forth.

Stern himself was apologetic for the "celebrity treatment" he has received in this and other articles. He emphasized in his most recent entry on the SEIU Unite to Win Blog that:

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It takes a team to build a union, and the leaders of SEIU, from our stewards, local union leaders, and full-time international officers are the best and most inspiring group of people I have ever had a chance to work with.

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Click here to read Stern's blog entry and user comments in response

In my opinion, I think that the current debate going on in the U.S. labour movement is probably as much about Stern as it is about the issues he has put forward. But the issues are important, too, and while I don't always agree with the solutions he has proposed I appreciate his willingness to be a catalyst for change. Frankly I think its admirable the mere fact that he has put so many of his ideas forward through the blog format, and exposed himself to ensuing criticism from all comers in response. Many other union leaders won't even touch a computer, and criticism from outsiders is seen as nothing more than a threat, rather than a potential opportunity for dialogue.

[ 30 January 2005: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

Changes are desperately and immidiately has to take palce however for chagnes to be effective and for it to work, it has to happen with full and meaningfull participation by all including but not limited to people of colour, women, queer folks, disabled,..

If you want to see the fur fly, try this one: Why the SEIU's Andy Stern is Full of Shit.

I think there is a lot of politics behind the criticisms of Stern. Although I think there is a fair bit of truth to what they say. Actually in my opinion I think you nailed the truest criticism already, in your first post. Andy Stern is a white guy and a union bureaucrat. Among white union bureaucrats, I believe he is one of the better ones. I think he really is committed to trying to do something for the members, rather than just for himself. But he still looks like, talks like and thinks in the bureaucratic language. And much of the controversy he has attempted to create has remained confined to rattling the other bureaucrats cages. Like you said in your post, the real prospect for change isn't going to come from the bureaucracy it is going to have to be based in the grassroots. And I think it is going to have to be a movement for change that gives voice to the most marginalized.

The SEIU has made some great strides in organizing women and workers of colour, particularly Latino janitors and Latino and African American health care workers. But workers of colour are still underrepresented at senior leadership levels. And I think this organizing effort has always had within it a tension between the militancy of the workers and the bureaucracy's need to retain control. I am not sure how this tension is going to be resolved. I do think it is one of the more promising things we've got going on right now, though, so I remain cautiously optimistic.

[ 01 February 2005: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

I have been trying to find out a bit more about the strategies that Stern adopted for changes that he is proposing.

Is he actively attempting to remove barriers that cause for the workers to stay out of union business?
In my view some of the barriers that workers are facing in terms of involvement in union activities is caused by “union activists”. Unfortunately a good number of “activists” view union as a place that they can use to fulfill their personal and political aspirations and it is not really about rights of workers so much as it is about union being a body that they can have power over, be a leader and be in spot light.

This kind of attitude makes them to view worker empowerment as a threat to their status as elites and to their power. These kinds of “leaders” would do anything to hold on to their power. True workers solidarity and workers close involvement is as much threat to these bosses as it is to government and corporatism.

In my view stern would have to use his power to remove these barriers. Average workers that are at a work place because they have to survive can not effort to piss off the power seeking bosses. Status seeking, union bosses wouldn’t hesitate to make the lives of workers miserable in order to hold on to their power. The workers that are in it because they have to work can not effort to have union bosses and employer against them all at once. Unfortunately workers are being exploited by these power seeking “unionists” for their personal gain.

Reading about locals that left SEIU, I really like to know what exactly happened: was stern’s strategy empowering the true workers and local bosses felt threatened and skewed things that the local move to another union or was there a real misconduct and lack of proper representation of workers by SEIU and they chose to leave, hoping for better representation?

I think what you'll notice quickly, and where I am guessing you and I will probably agree, is that the SEIU's plan says a lot about changing the way unions are structured in their relationship with other unions, and in their relationship with employers. What the plan doesn't talk much about is the relationship between the union organization and its members.

Stern himself has been somewhat dismissive of "union democracy" issues in the past, arguing that what he is really interested in is "workplace democracy." And as long as unions in the United States only represent 8% or less of private sector workers, there can be no real "workplace democracy" because the other 92% of workers are under the total dictatorship of management without even the imperfect opportunity for voice and participation that existing unions provide to their members. So he basically says he wants to find a way to make existing unions more powerful first, and get more workers to join them. Internal democratic reforms within unions can wait until later.

I think this approach is a huge mistake. I think the best people to recruit new union members are current union members. And I think that current union members will only do this if the union offers the members a chance to empower themselves and believe that the union belongs to them, not to the staff. This is basically my big point of disagreement with Stern. I appreciate that he is trying to do something and has actually started a discussion about change rather than just sitting on his thumb or throwing blame around at everyone but himself. But I think his ideas are too narrow. Indeed I think they put the cart before the horse: empowering the existing members is a precondition to massive recruitment of new members. Andy Zipster wrote an excellent article on this line of thought, which I agree with. His article is posted on the International Labor Communications Association website: Let's Depose the One-Eyed King: It's Time We Reclaimed Labor's Vision.

If I may say one more thing in SEIU's favor, although they established their website to promote their specific plan, and I believe that their plan has flaws, the union has welcomed a dialogue and invited other groups to submit their own ideas. They've also convinced the AFL-CIO to endorse this dialogue and invite proposals as well. All the proposals the SEIU and AFL-CIO have received are available on the Unite To Win website here: Proposals for New Strength. They've also all been discussed on the blog.

A few of these proposals you might be particularly interested in are the ones which have come from the AFL-CIO's "constituency groups." The first is a Statement of Unity adopted by the A. Phillip Randolph Institute, the Asia Pacific American Labor Alliance, the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, and Pride At Work. Pride At Work has also submitted a separate proposal: Moving Forward in Solidarity and the AFL-CIO Committee on Working Women has submitted a proposal on Overcoming Barriers to Women.

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Originally posted by robbie_dee:

Stern himself has been somewhat dismissive of "union democracy" issues in the past, arguing that what he is really interested in is "workplace democracy." And as long as unions in the United States only represent 8% or less of private sector workers, there can be no real "workplace democracy" because the other 92% of workers are under the total dictatorship of management without even the imperfect opportunity for voice and participation that existing unions provide to their members. So he basically says he wants to find a way to make existing unions more powerful first, and get more workers to join them. Internal democratic reforms within unions can wait until later.

I think this approach is a huge mistake.

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People of colour contribute to organization of union and try to take part in all aspects of it after the union is formed as well, however that is when their rights start to seem as s threat to the privilages of the elites. They get boood out by the elite "unionists" as soon as they start talking about their struggles at work place and in the soicety and wanting to integrate their struggles and protection of their rights in the agenda of unions.
Those marginalized are viewed just as a tool that elites can use to fulfill their ambitions to be a leader and gain power.
God forbid if those marginalized show any sign of empowerment then what is going to happen to the political and personal ambitions of those elites who are in it just for a pedestal?

Building on what we already have is not going to change any of these issues. Big Big mistakeThe statement of unity has to be integrated in the structure of union before it can move forward.
this appraoch is not just a mistake it is fundementaly wrong.

[ 04 February 2005: Message edited by: Negad ]

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The push to “streamline” and consolidate the structures of the AFL-CIO threatens to diminish the influence of Blacks in the labor movement. “They want bigger unions,” said Bill Lucy, head of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU), referring to leaders of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Teamsters, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and others. “They want power players, big unions in charge. The end result is diminution of community power.”

Blacks make up about 30 percent of organized labor, concentrated in the urban centers, says Lucy, who is also Secretary-Treasurer of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). However, the proposed AFL-CIO restructuring would concentrate power and resources in the headquarters of a few large union chiefs, and away from the metropolitan area Central Labor Councils. “Our fortunes lie at the local level. Most of the national leaders are talking about getting a bigger ‘bang for the buck.’ We lose out on this.”

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For quite some time now, the labor union movement in America has been on a steady decline, in terms of its membership. Where once about a third of America’s workers belonged to a union, today the number is hovering around 10 percent. But the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) — which has janitors, home healthcare aides, nurses, immigrant workers — has broken the mold and become the fastest-gowing union in the nation, with 1.8 million members. Much of that growth has been attributed to its president, Andy Stern, the 54-year-old dynamo who has begun to reshape not just the image of the union boss, but the reality.

Stern, who took over as president of SEIU in 1996, has begun to question whether union leadership in America shares some of the blame for the declining union movement. As Matt Bai pointed out in a Jan. 30 profile of Stern in The New York Times Magazine: “Last year, Andy Stern did something heretical: he started pointing the finger back at his fellow union leaders. Of course workers had been punished by forces outside their control, Stern said. But what had big labor done to adapt?”

Stern isn’t just concerned about the union movement, but about the larger progressive movement in America, and more specifically, about the Democratic Party and its inability to relate to working class Americans. Stern recently talked with AlterNet by phone.

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It is interesting that he says:

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Because there are different issues in every single industry, there are differences between workers who take care of your children and workers that fix your television set. Unions need a focus and a concentration that matches up with the employers' focus and concentration or else we'll never have the attention or the consistency of effort. Or there will be internal competition amongst the unions and the employers will never have to build any relationship with the union. "

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However I haven't seen anywhere that he acknowledge the difference between challenges of workers of colour and white workers nor that he offered any strategy which would address this.

Empowerment and Diversity.

Obviously employers try to exploit differences between white workers and workers of colour so that they can profit by keeping people divided. White union leaders may well go along with this, they certainly have in the past. What do you think is the solution to this, though?

Stern appears to believe that the solution is to make existing unions more representative of people of colour by increasing the number of people of colour who hold decision-making positions in the union.

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Unite To Win says that changes in the union movement must make clear that regardless of the color of your skin, the language that you speak, or your age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, or immigration status, you are empowered to play an active role as a member or leader. And why we call not just for vague goals but for real standards that will lead to change. It’s also why we call for revamping local labor councils to make them more accountable and more focused on building diverse and lasting community alliances.

When I became SEIU president, our union made a conscious decision to make our leadership team more diverse, and today our Board is 40 percent female and 33 percent people of color – still not good enough, but real progress.

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This sounds good to me, but I would be interested in what you think.

[ 12 February 2005: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

When a union takes pride in the fact that they have “representative of visible minorities” “rep of women” … who elects these representatives? Who elects these reps and who has the power to unseat them?

As a person who has worked in a unionized work place I have never been aware of or ever been involved in choosing a rep for visible minorities, woman or… at the rank and file level.

If these reps are chosen from the group that are elected by the general membership then the whole formula has to change. In this case this group would need the approval of the general membership (meaning the other elected members) in order to be able to raise the issues of those marginalized. This would unable them from working for the causes of those marginalized.

Lets say if the establishment (employers, governments, economists,..) were to be part of election of unions and by number they would be in majority who would they vote for and who would be elected? They would choose someone who would work within their agenda and the moment they (the elected party)do otherwise they will be at risk of loosing that seat or never get elected.

If majority can unseat the rep of those marginalized then that is not really an equitable system and doesn’t include the marginalized in a meaningful way.

Lets say that I was to be a woman of colour working in an organization, no matter how much credit they want to take for being diverse for having a woman of colour working there I still would have to work within the agenda of white middle class and uphold the rules of white middle class in order to remain employed. This would make me another agent of system who happens to be a woman of colour. I may even otherwise be an outspoken and assertive person and knowledge of struggles of women of colour.

In this example; I can only work on agenda of those marginalized if my accountability is towards them and only them. If I can be fired or unseated by the dominate group then I won’t be able to represent women of colour.

Working on the base of majority or minority is not going to be equitable. Let say in a work environment majority vote to hang porn on the wall, then would that be ok to hang it?

There should be measures in place to make the system equitable in order to ensure that struggles of all people is included in the agenda of unions.

(edited to add space for easier reading)

[ 13 February 2005: Message edited by: Negad ]

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Five labor unions that are highly critical of John J. Sweeney, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., are planning to announce this week that they are forming a coalition aimed at unionizing large numbers of workers, several union officials said yesterday.

Labor leaders said they were planning this move because they want to form an aggressively pro-growth coalition and because they believe the A.F.L.-C.I.O. is doing too little to organize nonunion workers.

This new coalition will be formed by the Service Employees International Union, the Teamsters, the laborers, the food and commercial workers and Unite Here, which represents hotel, restaurant and apparel workers. The five unions represent more than one-third of the membership of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., an umbrella federation of 57 unions and 13 million workers.

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Calling themselves the Change to Win Coalition, five AFL-CIO member unions (SEIU, UNITE HERE, the Laborers, the Teamsters and the United Food and Commercial Workers) are pushing for a near-total redefinition of the AFL-CIO's role, which, they argue, is necessary to stimulate a return to large-scale worker organizing. Established through the merger of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1955, the AFL-CIO was set up as a voluntary coalition with little formal power over its affiliated unions. Change to Win proposes to streamline the federation while also giving it substantial power over member unions, with particular emphasis on the need for each union to focus its organizing efforts on a strategic economic sector--its "core industry."

The proposed reforms mirror restructuring measures that in recent years have been taken by some unions, like the SEIU and the Carpenters Union (which left the AFL-CIO in 2001 and joined Change to Win in June). They have consolidated local unions into regional bodies they believe map more logically onto the contours of emergent economic structures. The transitions have not been easy, and many worry that the restructuring has taken power away from local unions and the rank and file. Critics of the SEIU and Carpenters approach believe that it underestimates the centrality of rank-and-file participation and deliberation to nurturing working-class consciousness--the real key to labor's revival.

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