Per reports from Randy Shaw from the UNITE-HERE convention in Chicago, the entire labor movement has allied with UNITE-HERE in opposition to SEIU’s raids into UNITE-HERE’s jurisdictions.

Here’s the key graf:

Laborers President Terrence O’Sullivan described SEIU’s conduct as “deplorable,” and said “we didn’t join Change to Win to raid and hijack another union’s members.” Change to Win leaders James Hoffa of the Teamsters and Joe Hansen of the United Food and Commercial Workers also pledged support, while Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers (one of the only two international presidents that SEIU claimed back its position) now supports UNITE HERE. UNITE HERE President John Wilhelm defiantly castigated SEIU as “the bosses union,” and said that his workers are now in a “two headed fight: a fight with the boss and a fight with the boss’s lackey union.” Wilhelm said there has been “real widespread revulsion” throughout the labor movement against SEIU’s conduct, and the UNITE HERE convention has announced a new labor movement unity, with SEIU alone on its own.

And here’s the key graf from Randy Shaw’s 2nd article:

One day after 15 international union leaders vowed to provide “material and moral” support to UNITE HERE’s defense against SEIU raids, the AFL-CIO sent a letter to the UNITE HERE convention condemning “all raiding of organized workers by any union.” This letter represents a dramatic shift in position for the labor federation, which previously had been advised by its general counsel to stay out of the fight between SEIU and UNITE HERE. Adding to building momentum against SEIU’s conduct were scathing words from Operating and Engineers President Vincent J. Giblin, who described SEIU President Andy Stern as the “Darth Vader of the labor movement” and who vowed to provide “every resource” of his union, including strike benefits, to help UNITE HERE in its struggle. It was also revealed on the Convention’s second day that former UNITE HERE President and now SEIU Executive Vice-President Bruce Raynor had shifted $23 million in cash from UNITE HERE to his new union prior to his departure; this prompted UNITE HERE’s Jim Dupont to lead the crowd in a roaring chant “They say arbitrate, we say incarcerate.”

This is a significant moment for labor. The time for progressives not taking sides in an “internal labor dispute” is over. This is a fundamental disagreement between “bottom up” and “top down” unionism. This is a disagreement between those who would organize workers at the grassroots level and those, like SEIU, who would hire consultants to raid jurisdictions organized through the hard-fought efforts of workers over decades.

The AFL-CIO, AFSCME, the Teamsters, and Randi Weingarten of the AFT (just one week ago a purported firm Andy Stern ally) are just a few of the organizations that have signed on to a statement opposing SEIU’s raiding tactics against UNITE-HERE and pledging support and resources to defend UNITE-HERE from SEIU and any employer intending to take advantage of SEIU’s attacks on UNITE-HERE.

Why is this important?

It’s important for two reasons.

For one, most significantly, this shows that the entire labor movement has stepped up and said to Andy Stern, “Enough!”  Stern, under the guise of unifying the labor movement actually used his powerful position as the head of SEIU to destabilize the movement and aggregate power to himself. Stern threatened to raid UNITE-HERE’s core jurisdictions if UNITE-HERE did not accept his terms regarding Workers United. Stern’s threats to raid UNITE-HERE’s gaming and hotel jurisdictions, however, proved to be a bridge too far. When labor leaders like Randi Weingarten, Thomas Buffenbarger, Gerald McEntee, James Hoffa and Terrence O’Sullivan come together in opposing Andy Stern, folks should take heed. That’s a big deal.

What this development points up is a unity movement within labor. That unity is arising, however, in opposition to Andy Stern, not under him.

Further, what the UNITE-HERE convention shows the netroots is something simple. We’ve been lied to. SEIU has consistently implied that Andy Stern and SEIU spoke for the US labor movement as a whole. That is simply not true and has never been true. We were invited to fall in line behind Stern and SEIU without ever asking questions about SEIU’s conduct with regard to UNITE-HERE or, here in California, SEIU’s trusteeship of the reform movement coming out of SEIU-UHW West. Most significantly, we were never given the truth about Stern’s top down model regarding organizing and bargaining, an approach that locked workers out of the bargaining process.

Today, neutrality regarding SEIU is no longer possible.

SEIU has systematically lied to the netroots about their raiding into UNITE-HERE, about SEIU’s attempt to thwart a reform movement coming out of SEIU-UHW and Andy Stern’s agenda in favor of top-down, predatory unionism.

What Randy Shaw documents from Chicago is a sea change within the labor movement. Labor is uniting in opposition to Andy Stern. Even within SEIU, there are powerful voices arising in opposition to Stern’s tactics. The 100,000 California healthcare workers committed to building NUHW and leaving SEIU are just the tip of the iceberg.

The question for the progressives, then, is whether and for how long to continue to embrace neutrality in a labor dispute that the labor movement as a whole has now spoken to with unanimity.

::

Please support NUHW, JOIN our growing FACEBOOK Solidarity Page!

{Paul Delehanty works for the workers building NUHW}

UNITE-HERE and their allies in the race track community and others submitted what appears to be enough signatures to get four initiatives on the ballot to repeal the gaming compacts with four tribes that were approved by Arnold and the legislature.  However, the tribes under the auspices of their new coalition “Coalition to Protect California’s Budget and Economy” are challenging the signature submission process in court.  They are now trying to claim that they did not submit them in time and that the Secretary of State has been misinterpreting the state constitution for the past decade.  John Meyers:

The language at issue is found in Article II, Section 9: A referendum measure may be proposed by presenting to the Secretary of State, within 90 days after the enactment date of the statute, a petition certified to have been signed by electors equal in number to 5 percent of the votes for all candidates for Governor at the last gubernatorial election, asking that the statute or part of it be submitted to the electors.

With that in mind, did the 433,971 signatures have to be certified within 90 days? Or did they merely have to be gathered within 90 days?

Secretary Bowen, using guidelines established by her predecessors, said that it’s the latter, that the 90 days only refers to the gathering and submitting of signatures. And that’s consistent with a bench ruling by a state judge in 1998 about how the referendum process works (ironically, a case that also revolved around Indian gaming).

But the new legal challenge argues that the constitution intends for the entire process to be over in the 90 days. And if that’s true, then there will be no referendums on the ballot; local elections officials have not yet sent their final tabulations to Bowen’s office.

The tribes have hired Roger Salazar, spokesman for the CDP and co-founder of CMR as their press flack.  His quotes and their strategy on the flip.

Desert Sun:

“They had 90 days to collect, submit and have the signatures they paid for verified and certified by the secretary of state,” said Coalition spokesman Roger Salazar. “They did not, therefore the referenda are invalid.”

“Our message to the racetracks and the Nevada gambling interests that want to undo our compacts and take $9 billion away from the taxpayers of California is very simple,” said Morongo tribal Chairman Robert Martin. “The clock has run out.”

The tribes are clearly going to make the argument that the consequence of repealing these compacts is that state gets less revenue.  That is indeed correct, but I am sure the pro-side will argue that this was not a good deal for the state to begin with and that they need to go back to the drawing board to get the appropriate amount of revenue for the state.  The sides are testing their messages out now as this campaign gets off the ground.

And of course this story would not be complete without some serious hypocrisy, as Meyers alluded to above.

He also pointed to an irony in the action, noting absence on the part of the Agua Caliente to file a petition challenging the signature collection and certification timetable.

“It is the height of hypocrisy for the ‘Big 4’ to sue on this basis because the Agua Caliente filed a lawsuit years ago to establish that their tribe had 90 days to collect signatures on a referendum petition,” Macdonald said.

The Agua Caliente prevailed, Macdonald said, and that case provided the foundation for the secretary of state’s official signature collection calendar for the referenda.

Can’t have it both ways folks.  Either you get 90-days to collect your signatures, or you get 90-days to collect and have them approved.  To me this is a sign that the tribes really are reluctant to have this fight on the ballot.  Obviously they would save money by keeping it off, but you have to wonder about the polling, if they are taking this tact.  (No I have not seen any numbers on this issue.)

(cross-posted from my personal blog Ruck Pad)

I spoke with my contact at UNITE-HERE a few weeks ago and he indicated that signature gathering was on target.  That indeed appears to be the case.  They delivered over 700,000 signatures for 4 separate ballot initiatives today to the Secretary of State.  SacBee:

Backers of referendum drives to block casino expansions for four of California’s richest gambling tribes said Monday that they have delivered some 700,000 signatures for each of four proposed ballot measures.

Al Lundeen, a spokesman for the coalition seeking to repeal the gambling agreements, said the last signatures were submitted Monday to meet an Oct. 8 filing deadline for the Feb. 5 ballot. Some 433,971 valid signatures of registered voters are required to qualify each referendum.

Unless they have an unusually high number of bad signatures these four initiatives should make the Feb 5th ballot.  It will set up a massive fight between unions and the tribes.  Both have a lot of resources, though UNITE-HERE will need the help of the larger labor community in California to wage this battle.  Given the support they had during the legislative fight earlier this year from the State Labor Council, that seems likely.

There are all kinds of issues with the contracts, especially when it comes to union organizing.  The contracts are the only way that the state has legal oversight of the tribes.  UNITE-HERE wanted check card unionizing like the Employee Free Choice Act.  These compacts can easily be opposed on other grounds.  The state really did not strike a good deal with the tribes, earning less revenue for the slot expansion than similar compacts recently negotiated in other states.

This shall be an interesting battle.  Expect many ads on your airwaves.  In the most recent battle between labor and the tribes, during the special election to replace the late Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald labor won out.  However, boots on the ground matter a disproportionately more during special elections, with the low turnout rate.  Feb 5th should be a pretty high turnout election, depending on how the early primaries/caucuses go.