California Labor Wars

A rival union charges Andy Stern's SEIU with election fraud.

By MATTHEW KAMINSKI

Oakland, Calif.
Flexing his influence, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Andy Stern turned up at the White House 22 times in the first six months of the Obama administration, more than anyone else on the visitor logs released last month.
But the good vibes in Washington contrast with the troubles inside the house of labor itself. Unions are competing for shrinking turf and members, and the most ferocious intramural battle today involves Mr. Stern's union here in California.
For the past 10 months, the SEIU has fought to hold on to 150,000 members in its Union of Healthcare Workers affiliate, or UHW. The challenge comes from a group of former UHW leaders and Stern confidantes. Pushed out by Mr. Stern after a prolonged power struggle, they started a rival outfit, the National Union of Healthcare Workers, or NUHW, in January and immediately moved to build it up by wooing away members from the SEIU's local, UHW.
Now these upstarts charge that the UHW threatened workers with deportation and tampered with secret ballots to narrowly win a pivotal election last summer in Fresno, Calif. The NUHW allegations, contained in a complaint filed last Friday and previously not made public, take the battle to a new level.
The June vote was in a "decertification" election—in which some 10,000 home-care workers were asked to choose between the UHW that already represented them or the NUHW. Old labor hands say they've never seen a decertification vote like this.
The SEIU shipped in 950 or so staff and spent an estimated $10 million on mailings, advertising, phone banks, door-to-door canvassing and the like. The NUHW doesn't have this kind of firepower. At a rally for staff in late May, David Regan, an SEIU executive vice president who took over the UHW in January, roared that, "We gotta give a butt-whipping they will never forget." When the secret ballots were mailed in and counted, the SEIU won that vote by a sliver, 2,938 to 2,705.
The NUHW immediately called for a re-run of the election, challenging voting irregularities. The two unions have traded accusations since. But now, Carlos Martinez, an immigrant from El Salvador who was on the SEIU's staff during the campaign, has come forward—so he says—to blow the whistle on his employer. Mr. Martinez went door-to-door canvassing the home-care workers during the 15-day election. Like him, many of them are native Spanish speakers; some are illiterate.

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Associated Press

SEIU President Andy Stern

Speaking in an interview over a sandwich at a hotel in the Bay Area late last month, Mr. Martinez says he was instructed by superiors to tell the workers that if they voted against the SEIU, they could lose their medical benefits, see their green cards or citizenship revoked and possibly be deported. He says he and other staffers were also told to pressure voters to spoil ballots that had been filled out for the NUHW. In other instances he filled ballots out for them. He says he even took some to the post office, as did other SEIU campaign workers.

All of these actions, if true, are a violation of state or federal laws governing union elections. In all, he adds, he visited 550 homes. "We scared people. We took the secret ballot away from these people," he says. "It was wrong."
Mr. Martinez says he raised his concerns directly with Mr. Regan and other superiors. He also says he tried to submit a complaint with two state agencies but was ignored. He then repeated these charges under oath before an NUHW lawyer. Six other Fresno workers confirmed parts of his account in affidavits. For example, Adriana Gomez, a home-care worker, said that Mr. Martinez "took my ballot and made a mark for the SEIU team."
The NUHW last week filed a complaint with the Public Employment Relations Board, which has oversight over the workers in Fresno. The filing has been shared with the SEIU, but not released publicly. Describing himself as a medical case manager who is now in graduate school, Mr. Martinez, who says he fears for his safety, says he has gotten no money or other benefits from the NUHW.
Steve Trossman, a UHW spokesman, calls the allegations involving SEIU "absolutely, patently false." Though Mr. Trossman says he "can't speak to what [Mr. Martinez] says he did illegally," he says "this is a guy who turned on us when we did not give him a job" after the Fresno election ended. Mr. Martinez sent "threatening emails" to UHW officials asking for permanent work, Mr. Trossman adds. Mr. Martinez says he left the union of his own accord to continue his studies.
Considered the most powerful labor figure in the land, Mr. Stern is no stranger to controversy. Four years ago, he led the SEIU out of the AFL-CIO, taking three other unions with him to form a rival federation. In two interviews with me in the past year, Mr. Stern has called his strategy of building a large, integrated international union the path to revive organized labor in America. (Only 12% of the U.S. work force belongs to a union today.) Sal Rosselli, the head of the NUHW, retorts that "Stern's a Machiavellian."
For its part, the SEIU in March filed a civil complaint alleging that Mr. Rosselli and his aides stole member lists, cleaned out union computer files and sought to divert millions in dues in the days before they were ousted from the UHW. Mr. Rosselli says "it's all lies."
Whatever the truth, these scuffles eat up resources and deprive a divided labor movement of a strong leader to push its legislative priorities—most of all, the "card check" bill to ease unionization drives by eliminating secret ballot elections. Judging by the nasty fight in California, Congress might want to think instead how to better protect people from desperate unions and safeguard their right to choose which, if any, they might wish to join.
Mr. Kaminski is a member of the Journal's editorial board.