Why Workers Unite

CBS News' Brian Goldsmith Interviews SEIU Leader Anna Burger

(CBS)  +CBSNews.com: More broadly speaking, union members currently make up only about 12 percent of the country's work force, which is the lowest since that data has been recorded. Only 7.4 percent of private sector workers are unionized. How does Change to Win, which is the breakaway labor group that SEIU helped found, that left the AFL-CIO, plan to start turning those numbers around?

Anna Burger: You're right, Change to Win came together because we believe that we have to organize workers to have their voices heard. And our federation has been working actively around some core campaigns, and focus on our industries. So as an example, all of our unions went together to support the hotel worker's union in their hotel organizing campaign.

And they organized, as a result of that campaign, more workers last year than they had in their last 30 years total. So in all of our industries, we have been actively working to think about ways of not organizing one place at a time, but taking on the whole industry. Because that's the way that we think that workers can have a voice, and change their lives.

CBSNews.com: So is that the fundamental strategy shift, and the divide between you guys and the AFL-CIO, that basically you take on the entire industry versus one piece of it at a time?

Anna Burger: Yes, that, and putting additional resources into it, and using the strength of all of our unions together to help each other.

CBSNews.com: Health care is obviously such an important issue, not just for labor, but for the country. Have you all made any preliminary judgments distinguishing between the various candidates' health care proposals?

Anna Burger: Not yet. So far, the only candidates that issued their whole plans are, I think, John Edwards and Barack Obama. Hillary has a three part proposal, the first one on cost containment, the two other pieces need to come out.

CBSNews.com: How has the Democratic Congress, which you did so much to help elect, performed in your view?

Anna Burger: We were just running ads in about 12 congressional districts, thanking 12 new members of congress for actions regarding minimum wage. We think that they've begun to act. I think Nancy Pelosi did an incredibly good job, in her first 100 hour agenda, of getting it through.

I know they've had a difficult time getting things through the Senate because they don't have the 60 votes. And they haven't had the cooperation of the Republicans. So it's been very frustrating.

We think that they need to take stronger action around the war. We have a grassroots effort in congressional districts making sure that our members' voices are heard around the critical issues. And we recently did a poll of our members, and found that they are incredibly unhappy with the direction of the country.

They are incredibly unhappy with the direction that the president has taken us on the war.

I think that our members are very concerned. The war being the number one issue. And health care being the second top issue. And all other economic issues following closely right behind. So, I think that they understand that it's difficult in Congress, but they want action.

CBSNews.com: Now in terms of the war, is that a labor issue per se?

Anna Burger: It is our members and their children and their brothers and sisters who are fighting this war. It's working class kids who are on the frontline. And not only are they on the frontline, all the money that's going to this war is what is preventing us as a country from being able to provide health care, provide adequate funding for education, provide funding for higher education so our kids can go to college.

So, this war impacts us both directly because of our kids and indirectly because of the impact on the budget and what we cannot do in this country because of the war. And so we as a union in January took a position, very strongly, against the escalation, and we joined the Americans Against the Escalation and war in Iraq. I think we're the only union that stepped forward and did that.

CBSNews.com: A lot of Democrats I've spoken to are concerned that Change To Win and the AFL-CIO are going to have parallel voter mobilization efforts in the fall of 2008 that could overlap, that could be duplicative, that aren't going be as well coordinated as they have been in the past. How do you respond to that?

Anna Burger: You know in 2005 when we first split, a lot of people said, "Oh, this is gonna be terrible, because we're gonna have competing programs. We're not gonna be coordinated." And we had the best election that we had had. We won the Governor's race in Virginia. We won the Governor's race in New Jersey, and we defeated all the terrible initiatives in California.

We went in 2006 to again coordinate our work where we could and where we agreed on candidates and had an incredibly successful coordinated effort. My expectation is that we will do the same thing for 2008. And I think that we'll be more effective than we've ever been.

---

Anna Burger is Chair of Change to Win and Secretary-Treasurer of the Service Employees International Union. Burger oversees the SEIU's political operations, and has been a force in pushing the union to embrace abortion rights and comprehensive immigration reform. Burger began her career in 1972 as a Pennsylvania state caseworker and union activist before her election as SEIU Local 668's first female president. She has been a delegate to every Democratic convention since 1984.

[toolmangler-2009]

they have the right not to be forced to join a union...

Posted by lars008 at 12:14 PM : Jul 14, 2007


I was a Shift Superintendant and as such saw a work force come out losers by forming a Union. They weren't big losers but they still came up short. Years later (because of layoff) I returned to being a blue collar worker (tool & Die maker) in a union. This one worked good for the people. Having been on both sides of the situation I make this observaton. Whether or not to unionize must be up to the workers concerned. But know this, if you unionize then every person must be a dues paying member otherwise there is division in the workforce.

[sjc_1]

I look at the world labor market like a large above group swimming pool. (odd analogy, but hang with me)
The U.S. labor economy is the water in this pool and the rest of the world in the surrounding yard. If the walls collapse on the pool 1000s of gallons flow out, but there is very little water on the surrounding land, it flows off.

This analogy is meant to illustrate that we can completely destroy the U.S. economy and not really do much in the rest of the world to create a consumer class. If 1 billion people have money and 6 billion do not, it becomes a zero sum equation without productivity gains shared with those that create the gains.....labor.

[lars008-2009]

Lar's, this is AMERICA and AMERICAN's have a LEGAL and MORAL right to a UNION!
Posted by MCVet at 02:32 PM : Jul 13, 2007

they have the right not to be forced to join a union...

they have a right to a non corrupt union...

[fizzal-2009]

You can fight for what you wantfor health care but in the end they will just stick something up yor *** and send a picture around the world and let some doctor in China tell you what too do.

[sjc_1]

I am reading a book written in 1997 about the global labor market and the race to the bottom. Where Nike takes its shoe manufacturing to Viet Nam because the wages are low and they have no unions.

I find it ironic that some used to call unions communist and now capitalists flock to a communist country because they have no unions.

One final comment on unions that I would like to make seems simple, but it could be effective. Why don't unions leverage their pension money and buy companies outright? They would compete directly with companies that are not labor union owned and then the most efficient model wins.

No one said that labor can not become management. This is not a new idea, but one that I think needs to be looked at more closely in several industries. Imagine a UAW buyout of Chrysler, instead of letting it fall into the hands of people that do not have labor's best interests at heart.

[tucano2]

Oppressed workers used to have no collars, then blue collars, and now white collars. The objective of management remains unchanged to extract the most work with the fewest workers at the smallest payroll. It is pure bunk to think an individual can successfully go up against an entire so-called Human Relations (used to be called "Personnel") department whose individuals are measured by how badly the can screw others and get away with it. Any one with a brain who is not actually the owner of the firm ought to be in an appropriate Union. That is the pursuit of individual interest - which is the Adam Smith type Republican Party foundation.

[mcvet]

name one non corrupt union???

Posted by lars008 at 02:12 PM : Jul 13, 2007
+ report abuse

That's the EXACT same think Hitler said when he locked all the Labor Leaders up. There are many and I do mean many labor unions that aren't just not corrupt but do a very good job of representing their members. Take off the Swasitka Lar's, this is AMERICA and AMERICAN's have a LEGAL and MORAL right to a UNION! Sieg Heil Bush.

[ubrew12]

FARTKNOCKER2 said: "Lets see: Union..less work but more money; Over paid for what the job requires..Have to hire 4 people for one job...Best friends to the over sea labor markets = UNIONS !!!!!!!"
The problem is union management is shut out of company management, so can't respond with more finesse to actual financial conditions in the company. Thus, all they have is a broad brush, called the STRIKE, and that's wielded horribly or not at all. A middle ground is needed, where a union can support management goals. Of course, unions wouldn't be necessary if anti-trust legislation broke companies up on behalf of labor as they currently do on behalf of customers. The status of the individual laborer diminishes inversely with the size of the company, leading to the well known abuses. Break up companies, means more company managements with a greater respect of their laborers, as well as laborers with more options for rehiring available to them when they exercize the ONLY tool you right-wingers would allow them: the option of leaving the company. As it is, companies are so large that when employees leave they often have to undergo extensive retraining and/or moving across the country to find another job. The only ones who like that are Bush-clones like yourself.

[lars008-2009]

Without unions...employers would take advantage. No lunch, deplurable working conditions, long hours, unfair pay. Now, according to our wonderful Supreme Court...one cannot sue their employer, if he/she finds out they are not being equally paid - men are paid more than the women - even in the same job. Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan had big lawsuits from women.
Posted by zoe20006

Yep, and the message is privatization is a bad thing....POWER TO THE PEOPLE, bring back representive government before our democratic society is destroyed. SOMEONE WILL RULE !! Do you want the autocrats that Lars and Fartfcker are hoes to or do you want a place at the table?
Posted by l8c6 at 01:51 PM : Jul 13, 2007

name one non corrupt union???

[l8c6]

Lets see: Union..less work but more money; Over paid for what the job requires..Have to hire 4 people for one job..Have major blaclmail power.
Yep good reasons to be Union..Of course most of the larger companies they control are now ALL MONEY LOSERS ...Best friends to the over sea labor markets = UNIONS !!!!!!!
Posted by FARTKNOCKER2

A sign of you ignorance and naivete...."american" corporations are multinational concentrations of wealthy commerce that are already overseas fool. They expect the working citizens of the western world to sacrifice so they can rule and amass the ultimate booty.

[l8c6]

Without unions...employers would take advantage. No lunch, deplurable working conditions, long hours, unfair pay. Now, according to our wonderful Supreme Court...one cannot sue their employer, if he/she finds out they are not being equally paid - men are paid more than the women - even in the same job. Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan had big lawsuits from women.
Posted by zoe20006

Yep, and the message is privatization is a bad thing....POWER TO THE PEOPLE, bring back representive government before our democratic society is destroyed. SOMEONE WILL RULE !! Do you want the autocrats that Lars and Fartfcker are hoes to or do you want a place at the table?

[l8c6]

Lets see: Union..less work but more money; Over paid for what the job requires..Have to hire 4 people for one job..Have major blaclmail power.
Yep good reasons to be Union..Of course most of the larger companies they control are now ALL MONEY LOSERS ...Best friends to the over sea labor markets = UNIONS !!!!!!!
Posted by FARTKNOCKER2

What has Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter and the likes of these mouthy media hoes done to deserve their millions. What is their contribution? Those you listen to with one hand busy.

You are so full of absolute cancer. I hope one day the working people of this country rise up and demonstrate to the human excrement that spout such ignorance just how lazy they are when it comes to fighting for their posterity.

Your ilk need to get busy licking the rosebud between Rush's supersized fat buns and get off the backs of hard working americans.

[lars008-2009]

Demonic-rats find god

GOD IS GREAT: DEMS GOT RELIGION, SAYS MAG...

Leveling the Praying Field
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1642649,00.html

hahahahahaha

[l8c6]

I should clarify:

barbaric western (funded) networks of terror.

They'll say, you don't understand business, this is how business is, we cannot become isolationists.

Did anyone hear Henry Kissinger on Charlie Rose last night? He said the problem for many western nations is the problem they are having asking their people to sacrifice.

Yes, Joe Blow and your kind, you need to sacrifice so that the multinational corporatists and the 3rd world country royal elite can take your places at the table and rule autocratically. If you look at the build up of wealth in Dubai, I don't think one can surmise that is for the greater good of society. It's for the self-righteous entitled who have no vision for humanity.

The great equalizer is that each and everyone of us rich, poor, smart and stupid face our mortality.

Belief or non-belief in a benevolent God of justice is the final debate.

[l8c6]

lars008 ,

Yes, nice that your right wing republican ideologues have been receiving funds from multinational private corporatists that saw to it business was absolved of social responsibilty in cutting deals with the royal families of these terrorists bringing them to levels of incredible wealth enabling them to build these barbaric western networks of terror.

[l8c6]

l8c6 - and if many foreign people hate America, complete with their stories, why do they keep coming here? Surely not to tell us of ourselves, which definitely don't represent all of us...

I would ask you which foreign people you refer to that are coming here...those from horribly corrupt third world countries who would gladly illegally enter any number of industrialized nations but are not permitted or the very gifted who are ushered in for their intellectual properties?

[lars008-2009]

it is fascist nazi terrorislam stupid%u2026.

non muslims of the world unite... fight against the tyranny of the fascist nazi terrorslam imperialist empire of the darkside...

I was a fanatic...I know their thinking, says former radical Islamist
By blaming the Government for our actions, those who pushed this "Blair's bombs" line did our propaganda work for us.
More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=465570&in_page_id=1770
Bless the Beasts and Children
Fascist nazi terrorslam kills every man woman and child in the village again%u2026 typical mo for terrorslam%u2026
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/bless-the-beasts-and-children.htm
thank you demonic-rats%u2026
New Video From Al Qaeda Number Two
"You must be patient and steadfast," he says. "Rejoice, for victory is near, with Allah's permission, and the herds of crusaders have begun to split up and their sole concern has become searching for a way out."
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/07/new-video-from-.html
Sentencing them, Judge Charles Openshaw said the men had engaged in "cyber jihad", encouraging others to kill "kuffars" or non-believers.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070705142313.zr9n5g5g&show_article=1
45 Muslim doctors planned US terror raids
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/05/nterror405.xml

[hypnotoad72]

l8c6 - and if many foreign people hate America, complete with their stories, why do they keep coming here? Surely not to tell us of ourselves, which definitely don't represent all of us...

I'll agree there is a discontinuity regarding protecting the homeland and immigration/offshoring concerns. And as some of the news stories I read suggest the initial sticker prices of offshoring are turning out to be smoke and mirrors, we should be seeing more jobs coming back to America soon.

[dan9111]

The Democrats already had their chance at honor, and blew it by getting rid of Joycelyn Elders. They can never be forgiven. The idiotic plan to make everyone earn less than what they're worth in the name of working-welfare (or should we say bitter lazy narcissism) is a great plan. In the rubble of civilization we'll at least know who is to blame, and they will get no sympathy from those who know they do the real work.

[l8c6]

People in this country need to come to a realization. The average working american has been flat out placed to the side. The multinational corporatists have infiltrated our shrinking representative government and have been insidiously replacing political positions with the hoes they own who spout a public interface of anti-government rhetoric directed at the average citizen. More fine tuned on site pimping is conducted by the lobbyists.

They have used nationalism, fear of terrorism etc. to control public opinion and the lives of young men and woman to fight for their interests. They march to a different drum and do not share the beat with the masses of everyday working americans. The reality, the average person really has no clue what this country's government is all about. Every day people from foreign countries have stories that many americans would not believe is their country in action.

The multinationals are of an elite nature that does not respect the artifical boundry of the U.S., they cross these boundries in the fashion of a separate society and solely are the ones who reap the benefit. Thus the apparent inconsistency of "protecting the homeland" and being weak on immigration.

Politicians have virtually no credibilty. They are beyond unworthy of trust. They have lied to the people far to often and far too profoundly. They do not represent the people of the United States but rather a multinational elite.