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1. PRESS RELEASE -- AUD Proposes Democracy as a Weapon Against Corruption in SEIU

2. Andy Stern is slipping off the pedestal.

3. SEIU needs a Public Review Board.

4. AUD presente!

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1. PRESS RELEASE -- Association for Union Democracy, Inc.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- September 3, 2008
Media Contacts: Herman Benson, Kurt Richwerger (718) 564-1114 (AUD) info@...
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AUD Proposes Democracy as a Weapon Against Corruption

In today's New York Times, the Service Employees International Union announced plans for an internal ethics commission to address recent corruption charges facing several top union leaders. The union indicated that it would consult the Association for Union Democracy as part of its efforts.

The Association for Union Democracy is very willing to bring our forty years of experience to bear in assisting the SEIU, but what the SEIU faces is a moral crisis involving both democracy and corruption.

We believe it is essential to ensure protection for democracy and dissent within unions. Our experience shows that democracy is the linchpin for preventing corruption.

An internal panel of the kind proposed by SEIU President Andrew Stern would simply mull over the niceties of still another code and would be more than a waste of time; it would be an evasion. What the SEIU needs now is to establish a board composed of respected individuals, independent and completely outside the union power structure - a kind of supreme court endowed with the power, in defense of member rights, to overrule decisions of the international president and the international executive board in those circumstances in which members' democratic rights could be endangered.

The need is not to devise a code of ethics, the need is the genuine practice of democracy. The basic code of ethics was delivered on Mount Sinai in the commandment "Thou shall not steal." Everything else is a refinement. If the SEIU feels it needs an amplification of its own code to remind its officials of that commandment, it need only copy one of the many excellent codes already available. The problem in the SEIU is not that it lacks an ethical code, but that it has evolved a bureaucratic system of organization and, despite any code, has created an atmosphere of authoritarianism that obviously spawns corruption.

2. Andy Stern is slipping off the pedestal. "By imposing a trusteeship and a monitorship over two mega West Coast locals, Andy Stern, SEIU international president, subjects twenty percent of the entire international membership to his disciplinary domination. They make up almost half the union's membership in health care, the SEIU's most important area of concentration. Two locals, but how different their stories! In one, Stern initiates action against a rival and critic. In the other, he is forced to act against one of his own key supporters who stands accused of defrauding his local of around a million dollars. Disruption on this scale might normally reveal an international administration in disarray. Ironically, however, just three months before, Stern emerged from the union's convention with his program overwhelmingly endorsed and his presidential powers expanded..." Read more on Benson's Union Democracy Blog. (9/3/08)

3. SEIU needs a Public Review Board. "It was already clear before the recent SEIU convention. It obvious now...The SEIU does not have to invent the wheel. The United Auto Workers has had a public review board for fifty years. The board is a kind of Supreme Court within the union to guarantee due process. It has the authority to overturn disciplinary decisions of the union's top international executive board and president. Most important of all, it is composed of independent persons, pro-labor, civil libertarians, eminent in their own right in their own professions. And because they are independent and outside the union power structure, not beholden to the union establishment, the board and its members serve as an important deterrent to arbitrary authoritarianism..." Read more on Benson's Union Democracy Blog. (9/3/08)

4. AUD is there when you need it.  Recent news makes the point -- AUD is needed to help unionists protect and promote democratic unionism. With more than 40 years of campaigning for democratic rights, with our board members who are experts in union democracy, with our Union Democracy Review, with our website, with guidance we provide for unionists, AUD contributes to union democracy like no other organization. There is a lot more we would like to do: build a new, interactive, AUD website for example, or expand our minimal staff. To continue and to grow, we need you to contribute. Please give generously.