The city’s local media have engaged in a fair amount of cheerleading over the fact that the Service Employee’s International Union will be moving into Houston in order to better the lives of janitors citywide through the power of the union.
KHOU-11’s Jason Whitely cuts through the proletarian celebration and reports on SEIU’s bigger goal:
SEIU said it’s already working to recruit thousands of other Houstonians. It has its sights set on the city next. SEIU told KHOU it is looking to recruit the 14,000 municipal employees.
“It’s a hope for all workers here that if the janitors can do it other workers can do it as well,” Weintraub said.
If you think the city is working well now, just wait until it’s an SEIU shop!
In an important column from a couple of weeks ago, the Chronicle‘s Kristen Mack reported that SEIU has taken a keen interest in the City Council At-Large Position 2 race, heavily (and possibly illegally) backing Sue Lovell, who faces Jay Aiyer in a runoff:
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) contributed $10,000 to Lovell’s campaign and sent three mailings on her behalf. Aiyer said the mailings and automated phone calls by SEIU violate a city ordinance prohibiting “coordinated campaign expenditures” — direct work on behalf of a candidate by an organization whose expenditures aren’t listed on the candidate’s campaign finance reports.
Lovell’s campaign didn’t send any direct mail and she said it was not expecting SEIU to send mailings on her behalf.
“We were just as surprised as anyone else,” she said. [Sure! -editor] “They wrote a check for $10,000 and that was the last communication we had.”
SEIU, the nation’s second-largest union, is battling the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees to organize city workers. Aiyer’s campaign says SEIU’s effort fits its national pattern of trying to gain a foothold in local government.
“No one entity should be able to influence the outcome of a race like that,” Aiyer said. “They effectively were trying to buy a council seat. It allowed her to use her resources in other places.”
It is rather surprising that the Chronicle editorial board, which has been highly vocal about money and politics when Republicans are involved, has had so little to say about SEIU’s apparent efforts to skirt the city’s campaign finance laws and swing a municipal election.
RELATED: ORGANIZED LABOR / Union has sights set on Houston / SEIU pumps resources, efforts into organizing (L.M. Sixel, Houston Chronicle)
UPDATE: L.M. Sixel notes the coming battle between unions over city employees in an article today:
The janitors need a union, said Richard Shaw, secretary-treasurer of the Harris County AFL-CIO. But he said SEIU, which left the federation in July along with three other unions, is betraying the labor federation in its efforts to recruit city government workers who have long been represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
