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EAA Democracy and SEIU Dictatorship Explained

EAA DEMOCRACY!
EAA is a fully democratic labor union, in the best tradition of representative democracies, including the United States of America. EAA's Constitution and By-Laws ensure that every voluntary dues-paying member in good standing has the right to vote in a secret-ballot election for the officers that will represent them. Officer elections are conducted by an independent, professional outside organization. Your elected Governors are responsible for the financial health of EAA, for setting the organization's goals and policies, and for ensuring that all union activities are properly conducted and monitored. To ensure ample experience on the Board of Governors, while allowing infusion of new ideas, the Constitution and By-Laws provides for yearly elections of approximately one-third of the Governors. There is additionally a means to recall any Governor who does not faithfully attend to his or her assigned duties and responsibilities.

The Board consists of one Governor elected by EAA members from each bargaining unit and of several Governors elected "at-large”" by all EAA members, ensuring the City employment experiences of the Board match that of the membership. The governing Board meets monthly at a regularly scheduled time and location. All EAA members are welcome to attend any Board meeting and determine for themselves how each Board member performs and how issues are addressed by the Board. Your Governors serve as true volunteers and receive no compensation for their dedication to the members. And best of all, any member can easily qualify to run for Governor if she or he believes they can provide quality service to EAA members. They only need obtain the signatures of 10 members to qualify!

To provide additional democratic representation, Unit Councils to govern the affairs of each unit are elected by the same secret-ballot method. They provide valuable direction in the bargaining process and many Unit Council members are part of the negotiating team. They also are responsible to review grievances within their unit for potential arbitration in accordance with Board policy.

EAA also enjoys a dedicated group of Union Stewards who are the first line of contact in the workplace. This group is now growing and becoming more proficient in keeping members informed of issues affecting their employment and union membership. The Stewards are selected from EAA members in a particular workplace by those in that workplace, once again in a democratic process. EAA is working to increase the Steward ranks so that every workplace is represented by a Steward. We are also training the Stewards to become more effective in communicating issues to and from members. The EAA Constitution and By-Laws are available by clicking here. This protects all EAA members from the kinds of abuses routinely practiced by SEIU. You should also note that this Constitution and By-Laws only requires the approval of EAA members (Constitution last revised at least 15 years ago, By-Laws last revised in 2003-04) and was never subject to review, supercedence, or cancellation by IUPA, one of the pluses of the affiliation. Read it!

SEIU DE-WHAT? In contrast, SEIU 721 is governed by appointees made by their International President, Andy Stern. The elected leaders in the legacy locals that were merged to form SEIU 721 were dismissed and replaced by the appointees. One of those appointees, Annelle Grajeda, has now resigned from 3 SEIU positions due to allegations of corruption. Also implicated was her boyfriend, also employed by SEIU. He has now pleaded guilty in Federal court. SEIU 721 members did not elect any of those who were responsible to make decisions for their local. In addition, SEIU 721 still does not have a member-driven Constitution and By-Laws. A small group of Stern appointees was writing a very poor document conforming to the dictated template, but dedicated SEIU members fought back and became part of the process. However, the final document had little of their input and it seems their inclusion was a sham. And, unlike EAA, their Constitution and By-Laws must be approved by their International.

However, labor laws require that SEIU can only use the dictatorship for three years, unless they figure a sneaky way around it. If and when elections are held, they will be conducted by SEIU staff, at a single location, on their members' own time, and they must vote in person. Votes are then counted in-house by staff with no members allowed to view the process. In addition, the petition-signing requirements are so large (a percentage of the membership of 80,000+) as to disenfranchise most SEIU members.