Thursday, April 24, 2014

SEIU Local 221 Is Forced into Do-Over after Workers Protest "Starbucks" Election




This week, SEIU Local 221 in San Diego is conducting another 'do-over' of an internal officer election after union members filed protests with the Purple Palace and SEIU President Mary Kay Henry.

In the first election, which took place last December, only 41 of the 5,000 members of the County of San Diego Chapter actually filled out a ballot. (That's less than one percent.)

Why?

SEIU refused to send mail-in ballots to its members. Instead, SEIU set up voting booths at “5 weird Starbucks locations" during just one day of voting for 5,000 workers employed at 200 county worksites, according to union members.

Super fair, right?

For the do-over election, which began April 22nd, SEIU is continuing to refuse to send out mail-in ballots to its members. This time, there'll be voting booths at 22 County worksites during five days of voting.

However, workers report that SEIU has pulled another last-minute trick from its purple hat in an effort to get its hand-picked candidates elected to office.

SEIU has censored the online statements of candidates who are critical of SEIU's leaders. These statements are posted on the union's website so voters can understand who/what they're voting for. Here's the phrase that SEIU deleted from candidates' statements:
"A reform movement has started in SEIU (see SMART at reformseiu.com)."
So... workers quickly filed another round of protests. Meanwhile, SEIU is conducting balloting at the county worksites.

Looks like the United Nations should run SEIU's elections from here on out.

Here's a link to "Reform 221," a group of rank-and-file union members that filed the original protest against SEIU's "Starbucks" election.