Thursday, November 26, 2009

Obama and SEIU: Parallel Paths

The author of this article, Randy Shaw, is described as 'very' progressive.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) held a boisterous picket line in San Francisco last night, but their chants targeted a surprising adversary: labor leaders and their political allies.

...SEIU’s threat to labor hero
[CA Sec'y Labor] Burton, and its reported statement to the United Teachers of Los Angeles (sponsor of tonight’s NUHW fundraiser) that it would seek to organize charter school teachers in retaliation for UTLA’s pro-NUHW stance, reflects a union increasingly at odds with the labor movement.

This split is not all that different from the one ongoing between Obama and the radical Left.  I'm not going to accuse Obama of becoming a moderate--but you get the idea.

And labor is increasingly going public with its criticisms of SEIU’s tactics. For example, on October 27 the 19,000 member IBEW Local 1245 joined UNITE HERE Local 2 in submitting court papers challenging SEIU’s blocking of over eighty NUHW petitions affecting over 27,000 California healthcare workers seeking to choose their union.

It is noteworthy that SEIU and ACORN are joined at the hip.  Thus the thuggery and pure dirtball power-grabbing tactics of SEIU are echoed in the slightly more 'white-bread' tactics of ACORN; but the objective is the same:  grabbing and keeping power by any means necessary.  It is also noteworthy that Andy Stern is one of the most-frequent White House visitors since Obama's election.

And once again "Big Labor"--the AFL-CIO, Carpenters/Joiners, Plumber's (etc.) are the 'conservatives', just as they were in the housecleaning of the old CIO when the Communists had gained control of that organization.  It's fair to guess that "Big Labor" is not all that enthralled with ACORN, either.

This will be interesting to watch.

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