The Wall Street Journal reports that the officials of two of the largest private-sector unions in North America have entered into secret agreements with employers (notorious food service ‘outsource’ corporations Sodexho and Aramark), which “give the companies the right to designate which of their locations, and how many workers, the unions can seek to organize” (Wall Street Journal, 10 May 2008). The two unions involved are SEIU (the Service Employees International Union) and UNITE-HERE (formed by the 2004 merger of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union). According to report, “a summary document put together by the unions says it is critical to the success of the partnership ‘that we honor the confidentiality and not publicly disclose the existence of these agreements.’ That includes not disclosing them to union members.” The secret deals directly affect 1.7 million workers who provide outsourced food, laundry and housekeeping services. More broadly, this union-official/employer alliance to thwart grassroots organizing efforts by service-sector workers adversely affects all workers, and all advocates of social justice and economic democracy. All advocates of workers rights should do whatever they can to support any effort to drive the current ‘leadership’ of these unions out of office, and to return these unions to control from below by their rank and file members. Such an effort is already underway in SEIU, and some work has been done on fighting to take back UNITE-HERE from its boss-friendly officials. (Link to news article)
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