FindLaw |

Legal News & Information

SEIU Local Leaders to UHW-W Election Committee: ´Democracy Begins at Home´

WASHINGTON, Apr. 18 /PRNewswire/ --

WASHINGTON, April 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Leaders of three SEIU local unions called for a committee from SEIU local union United Health Care Workers-West (UHW-W) to apologize to UHW-W members for a deliberate and undemocratic effort to exclude the rank and file from participation in delegate elections for the SEIU International Convention. The UHW-W Delegate Election Committee is led by UHW-W senior staffperson Dan Martin.

The letter, sent today by Kristi Sermersheim, President of SEIU Local 521 in California, Rickman Jackson, President SEIU Healthcare Michigan, and Keith Kelleher, President of SEIU Local 880 in Illinois, reads in part:

"It has become clear it was not a mistake to deny UHW-W members the ability to run for delegate and participate in our union's convention. UHW-W's response to members' complaints about rank-and-file disenfranchisement speaks volumes about the value UHW-W places on union democracy and the respect it has for members' opinions. A letter to one of these members explains why you excluded rank and file members from running for the local's convention delegation, stating" ... UHW specifically did this to insure that the people who know the most about the Union and are most actively involved in it would be delegates ...

"What's worse is the contempt you express for your own rank-and-file membership. According to committee member [Michael] Rivera, "We had several meetings to establish guidelines for eligibility and one of the questions raised was how, once the membership was informed that the convention was being held in Puerto Rico, do we conduct an election that best served the members while avoiding a run of hopefuls in search only of a free vacation to Puerto Rico?" These hardly sound like the deliberations of a "bottom-up" organization ...

"We welcome healthy debate about SEIU and the future of the labor movement, but your hypocrisy undermines principled discussions. Democracy begins at home."

Full text of the letter is at www.SEIUFactchecker.org