More than 700 city workers in Tempe, Arizona are the latest
to leave SEIU, according to this
article in the The Arizona Republic. The workers bolted SEIU Local 5 to
join an independent union called the United
Arizona Employee Association. The decertification represents a serious blow
to Local 5, which only had 3,794 members at the beginning of the year, according to the U.S. Department of
Labor.
Tasty hears it’s a ‘chickens-coming-home-to-roost’ moment
for Scott Washburn, SEIU’s Arizona
State Director. Washburn and his staff are supposed to actually kinda help SEIU’s
members in Arizona, but instead have been raiding other workers’ unions in
California and Phoenix.
In 2009, Washburn famously deployed himself and many of his
staff to California to help put UHW’s members under SEIU’s martial law of trusteeship. And in
another big distraction, Washburn directed Local 5’s staff to wage an unsuccessful raid
against UNITE HERE at Phoenix’s Sheraton Convention Center Hotel.
Then, last summer, Washburn and his staff spent many more months
in California working on SEIU’s law-breaking Kaiser campaign. Washburn even
sent his own union-employed offspring, Simon
and Hannah, to illegally threaten
and intimidate Kaiser workers in California.
Well… Washburn’s unfortunate adventures left Local 5’s
members a bit shorthanded back in Arizona. And now, the chickens are coming
home to roost, so to speak, and Washburn is working overtime to clean up the
proverbial chicken poo.
Anyone got a shovel for Scott? On second thought… scratch
that. The workers at Catholic Healthcare West, who just lost their
defined-benefit pension plan thanks to SEIU’s trusteeship, say that Washburn’s dirty
hands can easily handle some Arizona chicken sh*t!
