The Stench of Scandal
In a new attempt to shape up the SEIU ship, president Andy Stern has requested the help of two labor reform groups, both of which are skeptical of Stern’s proposal.
The SEIU placed Tyrone Freeman, a senior manager at its biggest California local, on leave and two lower-ranking staffers lost their jobs, because of allegations that other employees were retaliated against in connection with a widening spending scandal. Disclosure of their conduct has launched a federal criminal investigation and a congressional inquiry.
Part of Stern's plan involves a new “ethics code” and an internal watchdog commission, but as Herman Benson, founder of the Association for Union Democracy said, "Why does he need a new code of ethics? People didn't know that what they were doing was wrong? It's preposterous." Ken Paff of the Teamsters for a Democratic Union chastised the SEIU for not taking action sooner on the misdeads of an LA-based local. "How could they not know?" Paff said of the SEIU's national leadership.
$100 Million Per Day Flushed
The 27,000 plus striking workers at Boeing will cost the company $100 Million of lost revenue for every day the strike lasts. It will also disrupt the already-behind-schedule of the new 787 Dreamliner, perhaps exposing the company to demands for compensation from airlines frustrated by further delays.
Scott Carson, Boeing's head of commercial aircraft, said: “Over the past two days, Boeing, the union [International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers] and the federal mediator worked hard in pursuing options that could lead to an agreement. Unfortunately, the differences were too great to close.”
In 2005, the Machinists struck for 24 days, and this is the second strike in as many contract negotiations with Boeing. The 2005 strike caused the delayed delivery of over two dozen airplanes.
Thirty-year Boeing employee Ed Zvonik, said of the expected length of the strike, “It could be a couple of days, or three months. It depends on whether the company wants them to go back to work,” he said.
As of July, Boeing reported a backlog of airplane orders totaling $346 billion.
Republicans Respond to EFCA Threat
The GOP is adding a plank to their policy platform that safeguards a workers right to unionize through secret-ballot elections and protects them from corruption and intimidation. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said of the move, "I think that it's just a principle of American democracy that you should be able to choose to be a member of a union or not be a member of a union, and you should be able to make that choice without anything rigged either way."