Chicago Tribune, September 20, 2005, Tuesday

Copyright 2005 Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Copyright 2005 Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune

September 20, 2005, Tuesday

KR-ACC-NO: TB-UNIONS-20050920

HEADLINE: Rival unions end California war

BYLINE: By Barbara Rose

BODY:

CHICAGO -- Two big unions have ended their bitter war in California by agreeing not to raid each other's members and to work together around the country.
The two-year pact announced Monday between the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees allays fears that labor was headed down a destructive path after its historic split at the AFL-CIO convention in Chicago in July.
SEIU led renegade unions who broke away from the 50-year-old national federation, arguing they could do a better job of organizing. AFSCME, meanwhile, remained an AFL-CIO stalwart.
"AFSCME is one of the leading unions that has argued all unions should stay together," said Cornell University labor expert Richard Hurd. "The fact they are now sitting down with SEIU is encouraging."
The agreement establishes a legally binding procedure for resolving disputes without resorting to costly organizing battles such as the bitter fight that heated up in July over more than 200,000 home health care workers in California.
Equally important, it provides for talks that could lead to swapping members in markets where one union is stronger than the other, with the aim of giving members greater clout by concentrating workers in a similar industry in a single union.
"There were efforts prior to the AFL-CIO convention to promote this kind of dialogue, but it was rejected" by the renegades, Hurd said. "This indicates they are willing to work with unions that have not seen fit to join the exodus but are interested in addressing longer term structural change."
SEIU Secretary Treasurer Anna Burger said the agreement demonstrates the breakaway coalition's commitment to growing rather than dividing the labor movement.
"I hope that now that we've done this there will be more discussions about how we can all work together," she said.
AFSCME spokeswoman Jodi Sakol said, "We see this as paving the way for similar agreements with other unions who have departed from the AFL-CIO."
In California, word of the agreement had not yet reached many of the home health care workers who were the focus of SEIU's campaign to raid a troubled AFSCME affiliate.
"I'm still getting bombarded by the mailings," Pretti Hilton, a home care worker in Riverside, Calif., said Monday.
The agreement establishes a new joint union to represent home care workers who have not won contracts. SEIU will drop its efforts to recruit Hilton and others in Riverside County, where AFSCME/United Domestic Workers recently won a new contract.
The two unions will continue to represent their respective members elsewhere in California while cooperating on lobbying and other activities.
"It looks like they've patched things up in a way that could solve one of the biggest problems that emerged in July," said UCLA labor expert Ruth Milkman. "The Riverside battle was an incredibly disturbing development."
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