NYT: Union Grows, but Leader (Andy Stern) Faces Criticism

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/29/us/29labor.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: February 29, 2008

Andy Stern has been hailed in some quarters as the nation’s top labor leader largely because his union, the Service Employees International Union, has added members faster than any other, 800,000 over the last decade.


Ann Johansson for The New York Times

Sal Rosselli, whose local represents health care workers in California, has concerns about how the national group is being run.


But the president of one of the union’s biggest locals has begun a public war with Mr. Stern, accusing him of having a “growth at any cost” mentality that has shortchanged union members.

That official, Sal Rosselli, whose local represents 140,000 health care workers in California, says Mr. Stern has made too many concessions on benefits and working conditions in persuading employers to agree not to fight unionization drives. The union has organized hundreds of facilities and grown membership to 1.9 million.

“An overly zealous focus on growth — growth at any cost, apparently — has eclipsed S.E.I.U.’s commitment to its members,” Mr. Rosselli wrote in a letter to Mr. Stern. Mr. Rosselli complained that Mr. Stern had had top officials negotiate deals with national health care corporations, depriving rank-and-file workers of adequate say in their contracts. In December, Mr. Rosselli quit as president of the union’s 600,000-member state council in California after he grew convinced that Mr. Stern wanted to push him out.

Mr. Rosselli is vowing a major fight at the union’s convention in June in Puerto Rico, saying he wants to end what he calls Mr. Stern’s top-down style. He resigned from the union’s executive board this month to protest what he said were Mr. Stern’s heavy-handed, undemocratic methods, including the merger of several union locals in California.

Mr. Stern’s allies argue that Mr. Rosselli, who heads United Healthcare Workers West, is betraying union solidarity at an inopportune time, when the union is seeking to rally members behind the nomination and election of Senator Barack Obama as president. They accuse Mr. Rosselli of seeking to win extra benefits for his local’s members while undercutting efforts to organize millions of lower-paid, nonunion workers.

FULL story at link.