Fireworks on the Floor: UHW Members Stage Walkout at Convention

Posted on June 4, 2008

-By Warner Todd Huston

SEIU President Andy Stern got an earful from the insurgent members of the UHW at the San Juan convention today. It got so heated that the UHW members staged a walkout in protest of Stern’s re-election.

UHW member Michael Rivera, reporting from the convention floor reports that at about 6:00 PM, “We walked out to boycott Andy Stern’s re-election because we don’t agree with the direction he’s taking the union.”

Rivera also reports that there was quite a bit of debate and dissension in the ranks during the convention.

Local 1000 member moves to extend debate 40 minutes. Motion is defeated but locals are divided within their ranks as members from 503, 1000, 521, 49 and 1199 and several others rose to extend the debate. Michael Fennison, UHW delegate, rises to ask that the debate be extended 15 minutes and the motion divides the delegates almost evenly; so much so that members from almost every local are represented in favor of continuing the debate. There is so much commotion around the motion and the call for a role call vote that Andy Stern cedes and extends debate 15 minutes.

But it seems that President Stern really has no interest in what the UHW folks have to say about their union being dismantled and folded in with a new local. Even as Rivera reports one member’s passionate plea for the assembled delegates to “put themselves in our place. We chose our union. We chose where we wanted to be.”

It looks like the dissenters might be doomed, though. As the day came to a close, the “‘Stern team’ was nominated, ran unopposed and were elected,” as Rivera reports.

Looks like Stern’s ruthless consolidation of the various locals into one, monolithic organization controlled by the main office in Washington is proceeding apace. So much for democracy, eh?