Unison has made an agreement with a predatory US union over recruiting members in three companies in Britain. It should tell the US union to go home…
The US Central Intelligence Agency must be splitting their sides with laughter as Unison enters into working agreements with the US “trade union” Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to recruit members in three private companies in Britain.
Non-union members in Aramak, Sodexo and Compass are to be targeted but with Unison staff being “retrained” in SEIU happy clappy mantra-chanting mindless rabble-rousing techniques. The totally different contractual arrangements, industrial relations legislation, representational structures, labour traditions, working class history and generic development between the US and British unions are ignored. The SEIU is invited into Unison as displacement activity by a directionless, squabbling and indecisive Unison leadership.
The SEIU is viewed in the US as a predator, employer collaborationist, corporatist, undemocratic organisation sponsoring “business unionism” in the interests of anyone but their members. They haven’t always been seen that way but this has been the model since 2005. In 2005 the SEIU’s claim to fame was in splitting the US Trade Union Congress – the AFL-CIO.
Splitting
Though the AFL-CIO has long been viewed by many as Mafia and infiltrated by US security services, splitting US trade union density of roughly 10 per cent down the middle contributed nothing to advancing trade unionism or working class interests.
The SEIU claims to be organising their way to huge growth in recent years. But that growth has only come from raiding other trade unions, mergers bordering on shotgun weddings and sweetheart deals with the employers. It’s a similar growth strategy to that pursued, but in a very British way, by ASTMS, MSF, the EETPU in the past and now by Unite.
The SEIU had a similar working arrangement with the Transport and General Workers Union before that union merged with Amicus to become Unite. The SEIU was shown the door when its real takeover strategy became apparent. The SEIU is referred to as a “colonialist trade union” by opponents in the States or even better the “Ryanair” of the trade union movement by wags in Britain.
Unite Here, a US competitor trade union to SEIU, entered into a similar arrangement with SEIU to recruit the same three companies’ staff in the US only to find the SEIU was not trying to recruit but to poach its members. Unite Here has written to Unison’s national executive council warning of the dangers epitomised by the SEIU. They also highlight that every US trade union that left the AFL-CIO (the US’s TUC) in the SEIU-orchestrated sectarian split has now returned to the AFL-CIO. Watch out Unison – ignore this warning at your peril!
There has always been a need for international trade union solidarity, as capital is international. But it has also always been available as a handy diversion. For some, any excuse will do for being somewhere else rather than delivering the business at home. For others, solidarity is corrupted into an excuse to stick your oar in other people’s business, to patronise and proffer pearls of wisdom.
When the SEIU set out to undermine the national strike of teachers in Puerto Rico, a US colony, it created a totally artificial organisation with the aim of representing teachers’ interests. It was sent scurrying home by the victorious teachers’ action, exposing its collaborationist and corporatist behaviour.
The SEIU is doing the same across the States to unions with hundreds of thousands of members, business unionism undermining generic, indigenous local and state organisation, which has questioned or challenged SEIU corporatism. Sections of the SEIU are being closed down using anti-union US labour legislation, fraternal unions with contractual rights being undermined by similar use of National Labour Relations Boards decisions. In California the reaction to the undemocratic practices of the SEIU has seen the defection of the SEIU’s flagship branch, United Healthcare Workers-West, with 80,000 workers petitioning to be allowed to join the new National Union of Healthcare Workers – a petition drawn up, signed and delivered in less than one month.
Pack your bags
Those who want exchange trips to the USA and import US “organisers” and gurus over here, parrot US organising techniques and psycho-babble, should pack their bags and move to the States. We do not need the SEIU in Britain.
The reasons for the continuing decline of trade union membership, relevance, influence and purpose will not be found in some quick fix from abroad, in a tick box exercise wheeze or a buzz word. They lie in the undermining of our industries, in our offices, in our workplaces. They lie in the destruction of industry and work, in fragmentation of class and identity. The answers lie in our own heads and hands and in building a new class unity.
We do not need a turf war fought across the British trade unions by competing US trade unions with their “attack” websites, disinformation, cold calling of members with pre-recorded campaign messages, raiding of fraternal unions, collaboration with the employers to sack trade union activists and so forth. The message is very simple: Yankee go home and take your “trade unionism” with you!