Posted on 09/04/2008 7:06:05 PM PDT by Mobile Vulgus
The more we learn of the management style of President Andy Stern of the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) the more we see that he is an authoritarian as bad as any top-down led corporation that he and his union might criticize. And this newest abuse of office that his protege in California, Tyrone Freeman, has been embroiled in is yet another window into Stern's undemocratic ways.
As Freeman was wildly spending union members' dues to float little companies run by his relatives, and as Freeman's associate Rickman Jackson went to a Michigan union to try his own hand at such abuse of office, what was Andy Stern doing while all this was going on under his nose? Instead of cleaning up his own pals, Stern was attacking another union local that was challenging his iron-fisted and unprincipled leadership.
As union member Dan Mariscal of S.M.A.R.T. says:
It is interesting to note that Mr. Stern's "modern approach" to local union governance is not consistent with the traditional "democratic practices", that have worked to avoid the past abuses, or appearance of abuses, by directly involving the rank and file members in important decision making, elections and checks and balances within their own locals. Mr. Stern's loyalty-based leadership practices, although procedurally streamlining, does not leave room for the normal checks and balances usually handled by the rank and file and/or rank and file elected officers.
With regards to the first point, there appears to be evidence that someone high level, in SEIU, was aware that there may have been improprieties "involving Freeman's finances and personal relationships" as far back as six years ago. If there is anything resembling truth to this statement, it does not bode well for the SEIU administration as a whole. It would represent a disconnect with reality and the inability to lead with integrity. The whole "Labor Movement" could be dealt quite a blow.
Stern has been engaged in an effort to lead the SEIU strictly from the main office in Washington D.C., cutting out the locals from any important decision making. He has negotiated contracts and shut down locals as well as consolidated some locals with others all without the input of the membership of the local unions involved. His has been entirely a top-down style of leadership brooking no lip from the membership....
Read the rest at Publiusforum.com...
Who cares if corporations are managed top-down; they own the machines. And you don’t have to work for them.
In the name of domocracy, all unions stand against it.
Who cares if corporations are managed top-down; they own the machines. And you don’t have to work for them.Maybe you missed the point? Unions claim it is bad to be "top down" and rant all the time about "the little guy having no say." Yet THEY are running their union from the top down and the little guys have no say. It is an illustration of their hypocrisy. No one here or in the linked piece is saying that unions are right that top down is bad.
“Maybe you missed the point”
No, got the point. I was addressing myself, hypothetically, to unionists.
For the record, I have no problem with businesses being run top-down because that is their perogative (because it is their capital at stake). Unions, on the other hand, are a legally sanctioned monopoly who live off exploiting workers who don’t necessarily agree with them and barring non-union wokers from the labor market.
Gotcha. I wasn’t clear on that.
Thanks
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