Here in Los Angeles, the SEIU (Service Employees International Union) has been going through some challenges, as the LA Times did what it sometimes does well, and launched an investigation into self-dealing and – in a word, corruption – among the local leadership.
The national union responded by placing the locals in trusteeship, and retaining former California AG John Van de Kamp (disclaimer: a friend of my wife’s) in charge of an investigation.
Good for the Times and good for SEIU.
Here’s an oped in today’s Times from Andy Stern, president of the SEIU:
Recent reports in The Times have raised serious questions about how money from a local chapter may have been misused. The stories accuse Tyrone Freeman, president of Local 6434, of steering payments and contracts to companies owned by his relatives and other financial improprieties.
The SEIU, deeply troubled by these allegations, immediately launched its own investigation, and, within two weeks, Freeman and his field director had gone on leave and the SEIU had taken over running the local union.
At the SEIU, we understand that reform, like charity, must begin at home.
Our unions represent some of the hardest-working men and women in America, workers who sweep floors and empty bedpans for a living wage. The first responsibility of every union official is to do what is right by those who pay dues out of their paychecks every week. When we fail in that obligation, our union loses its moral center and its soul.
Any misuse of member dues calls into question the hard work and reputations of thousands of honest and committed rank-and-file members, stewards, local union leaders and staff. What’s more, it hands anti-worker corporations and reform opponents the ammunition they need to defeat workers trying to organize and win fair contracts.
I’m at the head of the line when it comes to kicking the Times for its failings, let me be similarly aggressive about cheering them for a success.
this is a nitpick, but … the former AG’s name is
erg.
There was a link there, which I failed to close. 🙁
Anyhow, his last name is “van de Kamp”, not “van de Camp”.
Ack – TG will kill me…corrected.
A.L.
Now if they would only take on the CTA and the Prison Guards unions, the state might actually get somewhere when it comes to budget negotiations.
I always pity unions.
They don’t work under a capitalism style control system, because in order to work, they have to be a monopoly, but, well, monopolies don’t work in capitalism. First they get fat, then they get stupid, then they commit suicide.
The democracy control model doesn’t work either, too much lag between decision/result, it’s all but impossible for the rank and file to get a feel for whether the leadership is being too greedy or too generous, and the results may not show up for years and years.
And that’s assuming it actually is a democracy instead of a pseudo-democratic veneer papering over corruption.
They’re priceless in the early run to correct out of control corporate ‘management’ (or quasi-organized stupidity as it usually is), but I’m not sure how you keep one around for more than 15-20 years before it starts to become the problem.
treetoad;
Golly-gorsh, I guess unions and monopolies would only work under a command system run by paragons such as yore own self, huh?
Where do I sign up? Not.
Brian: I think you might be missing treefrog’s point(s).
I know you’re not winning any favor with Marshals with your clever renaming. Try to keep that to a minimum, won’t you? It’s not substantive, it’s juvenile at best. Thanks.
Brian, you mistake my point. I don’t believe command systems run anything well, for reasons I got into once in a post elsewhere – they become expert run and suffer from either one-size-fits-all-itis or alternatively cripplingly complex rule sets. Without a level of AI support we don’t posses yet they cannot function without massive levels of inefficiency.
Unions are an important check and balance on employers. They offset the externalities that prevent employees from hopping from job to job with the fluidity that would be needed to really get a true job market.
The problem, as pretty clearly shown in the history of unions over the last 50 years, is how do you control them? The three known control systems in human history are command, democracy, and capitalism. Command I threw out without consideration. Capitalism requires a market for competitive forces, which is inherently incompatible with the nature of a union. That leaves just democracy, which is how all current unions are theoretically run, but it doesn’t seem to work well.
I think the problem there is two-fold, the lag between decision-result is too slow for the democratic process to correctly judge leadership effects. Second, democracy is always at its worse when people are voting money into their pockets, endemic corruption always follows.
I don’t have a solution, I’m not sure there is one. If someone could come up with a way to run a union such that it kept pressure on management to do right by their employees, without torpedoing their own industries in the process, our economy would be much stronger.
Clearer?
“The national union responded by placing the locals in trusteeship”. Read: they did not share the spoils with the National leadership so they are getting slapped.
“Without a level of AI support we don’t posses yet they cannot function without massive levels of inefficiency.”
I think it is NP-complete or even worse actually: No fast solution exists *and* no solution can be easily checked.
No amount of AI will ever be enough.