Blowing a Whistle on Negative Campaigning

Although I am nobody’s referee, I know a foul when I see one. Some time ago I called one on national SEIU’s disruption of the Labor Notes Conference. Now I’ve detected another one in one piece of UHW’s negative campaign against Andy Stern.

The violation consists of what I consider an imbalanced criticism of an agreement between SEIU and UniteHere on the one hand and global service TNCs Sodexho and Compass on the other.

The UHW’s SEIUVoice site is carrying a front-page Wall Street Journal article of 10 May. The WSJ article “reveals” the existence of a three-year-old “secret pact” that allegedly raises substantial questions about union transparency and workers’ rights.

The “spin” that UHW is putting on this “revelation” can be seen in a Open Left blog article by UHW Online Communications Specialist Noel Rabinowitz entitled SEIU’s Substandard Secret Deal.
According to Rabinowitz, the deal locks workers into a low level of union density, scattered membership and powerlessness. It is a “bad deal that keeps workers in the dark with their hands tied” and fundamentally undercuts workers’ rights to a strong union and a real voice at work.

This is a legitimate expression of opinion. There is a genuine widespread debate about the extent to which agreements with employers that remove some obstacles to organizing new members may place too many limitations on what improvements might be achieved in collective bargaining. Limitations on the right to strike and on the union’s ability to campaign might be too high a price to trade off for the ability to increase union density and membership.

But I was troubled by several things. Why was UHW running an article from the Wall Street Journal on its web-site without comment? Why did the blog article criticize only Andy Stern and SEIU and not Bruce Raynor and UniteHere (equal partner in the venture)? Why was the WSJ suddenly interested in “disclosing” a three-year-old pact whose existence, if not precise terms, had long been known in union circles? Then, from a comment on Rabinowitz’s blog he made himself, I learned something new, that on 11 May the Chicago Tribune ran a similar story by Stephen Franklin entitled: “”Eager to recruit, unions make deals: Groups work with companies, keep quiet.”

Uh,oh! One story could just mean a slow news weekend - but two stories in papers seldom noted for their deep and abiding interest in labor unions means a negative campaigning strategy at work!

I do not want to delve into all the arguments for or against the agreement between SEIU/UniteHere and Sodexho/Compass (Disclosure: At the time I was employed by the IUF. the IUF helped facilitate the contacts between the European-based Sodexho and Compass corporations on the one hand and SEIU and UniteHere on the other that led to the negotiated agreements. I was not directly involved, nor was the IUF a party to the agreements that were reached). But from my own thirty years of organizing experience both in the USA and at the global level, I cannot be too quick to criticize any arrangements that facilitate the progressive deepening of union density in any global company. It is my understanding that under these agreements UniteHere and SEIU have organized several thousand new workers at U.S. institutions where Sodexho and Compass have operations, that these workers have better wages and conditions as a result, and that there is a reasonable prospect that these advances will continue. These workers are currently members of a joint Service Workers United (UniteHere/SEIU Local 2552), which has a web-site I was able to visit on 11 May, but which at last search was “temporarily closed for updating.” No doubt the site will eventually reopen to present its response.

Nadia on the SEIU staff commented on Rabinowitz’s blog this morning (13 May),and you can read her comment at the end of his blog article. I don’t know her, but because what she said rings true to my own experience as an organizer and I could not say it better, I will let her speak:

We organize in the global economy we have, not the economy we wish we had. There are a few crucial points that this post misses or misconstrues that need to be clarified: These agreements and the victories workers have achieved since they were negotiated were and are by no means secret within our unions, nor was the existence of Service Workers United. Workers employed by these companies learn about the agreements before anyone signs a union card. Knowing their employer has agreed not to interfere with their right to form a union allows workers to join together with their co-workers without the fear and employer pressure that typically stand in the way of workers’ organizing efforts.

No one is arguing these agreements are perfect. The only way to raise standards in the facilities services industry-without putting any individual company at a competitive disadvantage-is to unite workers throughout the country and across the largest employers. The companies requested that the agreements be kept confidential to ensure they had the flexibility to serve the interests of their clients.
And to be clear: these agreements do not ensure that workers have a union-only that workers have a fair process to freely choose whether to form a union. The vast majority of service workers in particular do choose to form a union once a majority sign-up process is established at their workplace. Workers then negotiate and ratify their own union contracts at each worksite.

Sure, this response represents another organizational spin, but it can be factually confirmed or rebuted. Why can’t we conduct debate over these important strategic issues in an atmosphere of civility and courtesy, and lay off ad hominem arguments and Gotchas! Leave them to the politicians and their spin doctors!