Union Triage

Meanwhile, the intra-union war only escalates. The CNA has been sending out organizers of its own to Tenet facilities, in some cases asking workers to “Vote No” in union elections organized by the SEIU. The SEIU recently responded by leading a march of 75 workers on the CNA offices, demanding an end to what they called its obstructionist tactics.

And to some workers, predictably, the union infighting is a turnoff. A nurse on her way to work at Brotman where CNA was leafleting said, “To me, it’s just crazy stuff. Do they really care about the employees or is it just a competition between the two unions?”

 

Against the overwhelming power of the hospital giants, the unions’ disagreements may seem petty. But the SEIU’s attempt to organize an entire sector of the economy in one massive campaign is at the heart of the labor movement’s debate over its future and its survival.

And while some say this kind of large-scale industrywide organizing and willingness to forge agreements with the bosses is necessary to fight America’s progressive corporatization, others say the model may not apply so widely. Nelson Lichtenstein, labor historian at UC Santa Barbara, points to Detroit in 1937, where the famous sit-down strikes effectively shut down Chrysler and GM. As a result, he says, small-parts firms eager for stability and predictability were calling up the unions asking them to come in and organize their shops. “And you can call that making a deal,” Lichtenstein says, “but it was based on a kind of militancy that the union had demonstrated.” Maybe, he says, in places like hospitals where labor already has a certain momentum, unions like the SEIU can do the same sort of thing. But whether this applies beyond the quasi-public domain of health care, he’s unsure: “That makes it sound like you can do this anywhere, and you can’t,” he says. “In the real private sector — you know, some taco factory in South L.A. — you aren’t going to get an agreement with them.”

Yet, Lichtenstein concludes, with the “fantastically bitter management opposition to unions in every way, shape and form” found in today’s workplace, “almost anything you can do to get people together and organize is a good thing. And once people get organized, amazing things start happening beneath the radar screen.”