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Friends, please post and circulate. If you find this material useful, please contribute to AUD.
Thanks, Matt Noyes
1. Welcome Lorissa Rinehart
2. New Articles: Jane LaTour on her Sisters in the Brotherhoods; New democracy battles in Musicians Union; Can staff unionism advance the cause of union democracy?; From now on SEIU = Stern Employees International Union, Relentless attack on democracy in the Machinists Union, and more.
3. Letter from Attorney and AUD Advisor Leon Rosenblatt.
4. New on Benson's Union Democracy Blog: Change to Win is losing it
5. Thanks to George L Bickel.
6. In memoriam. Ron Carey.
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1. Welcome Lorissa Rinehart!
We are happy to report that AUD has a new staff person, Lorissa Rinehart. Lorissa will be our administrative assistant, helping AUD with everything from filling book orders, generating mailings to our supporters, helping out with the bookkeeping, laying out publications, answering phones, and more. An aspiring writer, Lorissa has just been published in Poemmemoirstory, a literary journal. She comes to us from PEN, the writer's human rights/civil liberties group. Lorissa is earning a masters degree in library science, and will be helping AUD digitize its many publications and documents. Welcome Lorissa!
2. New Articles:
Jane LaTour on her Sisters in the Brotherhoods. --Interview.
"...sadly, it seems that most unions have a hard time delivering support for women in nontraditional, blue-collar jobs. ... But the point of all the stories is to show that the women themselves became a force for democracy within their unions. Every woman featured in the book was an organizer-trying to change conditions for themselves and their co-workers/fellow union members."
http://uniondemocracy.org/UDR/187-Jane_LaTour_on_her_Sisters_in_the_Brotherhoods.htm
New democracy battles in Musicians Union. By Robert Levine. "The most transformative event in the history of the American Federation of Musicians was a revolt in the 1950s by musicians against an autocratic AFM administration... It is ironic, then, that the achievements of that rank-and-file revolt are at risk because of a conflict between a new generation of recording musicians and what they believe to be another autocratic AFM administration..."
http://uniondemocracy.org/UDR/186-New_democracy_battles_in_Musicians_Union.htm
Can staff unionism advance the cause of union democracy? Guillermo Perez interviews Herman Benson. "Any union leadership is entitled to hire the necessary staff to carry on the legitimate business of the union in representing members and organizing the unorganized. The problem is that, almost everywhere, the leaders also use the staff to cut down possible rivals inside the union. By affording staff members some measure of protection against arbitrary dictation, staff unionism can safeguard, to some degree, the misuse of the staff for the narrow political purposes of the leaders above..."
http://uniondemocracy.org/UDR/182-Can_Staff_Unionism_Advance_the_Cause_of_Union_Democracy.htm
From now on SEIU = Stern Employees International Union. "...To anyone who has followed recent events in the SEIU with an unprejudiced eye, what obsesses Stern should be obvious: come what may, in one way or
another, any stick to beat a foe, he is determined to crush the one inside the SEIU who has been his only effective critic: Sal Rosselli. Stern's road may be paved with good intentions, but he has been thrown off balance by a craving for unchallenged power. But this time, he confronts not a humble leaderless mass of members
passively submitting to manipulation but a movement determined to fight to control their own union..."
http://uniondemocracy.org/UDR/185-Stern_Employees_International_Union.htm
Three major nurses unions unite in AFL-CIO. "...the state of nurses’ unionism remains wrapped in confusion. However, the formation of the new 150,000-member AFL-CIO union may help bring it into focus."
http://uniondemocracy.org/UDR/183-Three_major_nurses_unions_unite_in_AFLCIO.htm
Rail Workers United off to a highballing start. "Railroad workers in the United States are scattered among many unions. Railroad Workers United, an alliance of rail workers, reaches across unions, craft lines, and employing rail lines to introduce the spirit of unity. It is not still another union but a movement which advocates common action by those unions that already bargain for rail workers..."
http://uniondemocracy.org/UDR/184-Rail_Workers_United_off_to_a_highballing_start.htm
Relentless attack on democracy in the Machinists Union. By Judith Schneider. "In its Local S6, the 3,400-member shipbuilders local in Bath, Maine now under trusteeship, the International Association of Machinists faces increasing rank and file opposition, a federal lawsuit, and embarrassing press coverage, but it remains unmoved in its efforts to make sure that a local leadership it favors runs the local..."
http://uniondemocracy.org/UDR/181a-Relentless_attack_on_democracy_in_the_Machinists_Union.htm
Free Speech in the SEIU and MEBA? "...To be fair, we can understand why SEIU Local 521 incumbents might need reassurance and gentle treatment. They all originally got their posts by appointment when the local was created by merger, and so they are not accustomed to vigorous election challenge. But the officers of a seafarers' union, the Marine Engineers Beneficial Association, have no such excuse. They emerged out of a robust union democracy..."
http://uniondemocracy.org/UDR/181b-Free_Speech_in_the_SEIU_and_MEBA.htm
IAM Local 2339N: Nasty aftermath to a Trusteeship. "If you have confidence in the report of an investigating committee assigned by the international office of the Machinists union, and there are people with that kind of confidence, you would agree that there were substantial grounds for imposing an international trusteeship over Local 2339N, the union which represents airline stewards in Newark, NJ. However, what followed thereafter is another story: the heavy hand of the IAM overlords at work..."
http://uniondemocracy.org/UDR/181c-Nasty_aftermath_to_Trusteeship_in_IAM_Local_2339N.htm
3. Letter from Leon Rosenblatt, AUD advisor and attorney for the officers of IAM Local S6 in Bath, Maine. "You asked me to describe what it has been like representing IAM Local Lodge S/6’s officers in our LMRDA case. My wife thinks I am a bit nuts, so thank you for asking. It is nice to be able to explain my life, lo these past twelve months, to someone who doesn’t know me intimately enough to call me nuts...There is a Shakespearian quality to this case, though it remains to be seen whether this is a tragedy or a comedy. (“Comedy” in the sense of the good guys win.)... http://uniondemocracy.org/UDR/181a-Relentless_attack_on_democracy_in_the_Machinists_Union.htm#rosenblattletter
4. New on Benson's Union Democracy Blog: Change to Win is losing it.
"Andy Stern's dream house is collapsing; but he hopes to pick up the pieces. Such is the implication of reports in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal."
http://bensonsudblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/change-to-win-is-losing-it.html
5. Thanks to George L Bickel for his contribution to AUD in memory of John Harold, an AUD director and attorney who helped so many union reformers. Help the work of union democracy activists live on by supporting the work of the Association for Union Democracy.
6. In memoriam. Ron Carey, who died on December 11 of cancer at the ageof 72, was international president of the Teamsters Union from 1992 to1997. He will be remembered and honored as the man who ran for president in 1991 against the union leadership, then heavily infiltrated by organized crime, an act that required courage in this union where murders and beatings of insurgents had almost been commonplace. A full account of his career, written by Steve Early and Rand Wilson, can be found in The Nation, December 18. See also, on the AUD website, Ken Crowe's "The Vindication of Ron Carey", and, on the 804 Members United website, video clips of the memorial service for Ron Carey.
(An RSS feed is available on the AUD homepage. These updates are also posted on our Yahoo Groups page http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/audupdates/?yguid=182316330)
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Tue Apr 21, 2009 12:33 am
"Matt Noyes" <mnoyes@...>
mnaudbklyn
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