Gannett News Service, April 9, 2008, Wednesday

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Gannett News Service

April 9, 2008 Wednesday

SECTION: Pg. ARC

HEADLINE: Union rift threatens to divide presidential support

BYLINE: BRIAN TUMULTY

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

BODY:

Democrats are expecting organized labor to help them elect Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama in November, but the nation's second-largest labor union wants affiliates to withhold payments to the state and local labor councils that will pay for much of the grass-roots effort to get out the vote.

The 1.9 million-member Service Employees International Union, which broke away from the AFL-CIO in 2005, sent out a letter April 1 asking affiliates to withhold those payments until its dispute with the AFL-CIO-affiliated California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee is resolved.

The two unions are engaged in an acrimonious battle over the right to represent nurses in Ohio and Nevada.

According to California Nurses Association spokesman Chuck Idelson, the threat by SEIU to withhold per capita dues to state and local labor councils is consistent with its history of being "arrogant and demanding." He said SEIU spearheaded the decision by seven unions to break away from the AFL-CIO because all of its demands for more change were not being met.

The California Nurses Association is challenging SEIU's attempt to represent nurses in Ohio and Nevada, Idelson said, because "their approach is to negotiate sweetheart agreements with the employers rather than representing first and foremost the interests of the registered nurses and other employees."

Anna Burger, SEIU's secretary treasurer, said she sent the letter to her union's local affiliates because the California Nurses Association stopped her union's effort to hold a organizing election for 8,000 hospital workers in Ohio.

"Their side of the story is outrageous," Burger said. "They came into a state where they had no membership, where they had never been part of the labor movement and ran a campaign to blow up a campaign on workers having an opportunity to be a member of a union. For us, this is a huge issue."

The dispute over organizing workers -- while not unusual historically -- underscores the split between unions that have endorsed Obama and those that have endorsed Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination.

SEIU is a member of the Change to Win federation, which endorsed Obama several days before the Ohio and Texas primaries.

Clinton has been endorsed by several of the largest unions in the AFL-CIO, including the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, the American Federation of Teachers and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

Many labor unions have chosen not to make an endorsement at this point in the election cycle, including the nation's largest -- the 3.2 million-member National Education Association.

Burger and Idelson both said they don't expect the dispute to affect organized labor's effort to elect a Democrat as president.

"It might change the way we do our financing," Burger said. "I don't think it will stop us in this election cycle in working together."

Cletus Daniel, a professor of labor history at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, said SEIU's threat to withhold dues "is a little bit unusual and provocative and does escalate things a bit," but he thinks labor unions won't lose sight of their goal of electing a labor-friendly candidate to the White House.

"I think the animosity that labor people feel toward (President) Bush and they are likely to feel toward John McCain is so strong it will overcome any short-term divisions they have," Daniel said. "It's too critically important to them."

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On the Web:

www.seiu.org, Service Employees International Union.

www.calnurses.org, California Nurses Association.

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Contact Brian Tumulty at btumulty@gns.gannett.com

LOAD-DATE: April 9, 2008