Drew says, "I'd love to hear your thoughts on the Andy Stern piece over at TNR. And more broadly, if you have anything to add re: the state of SEIU and Change to Win, and how they will play into the political climate that will drive healthcare reform in the next four years, that would be cool, too." I don't have a ton to add to Brad Plumer's article at The New Republic save to say that it's the best thing I've read on Labor in a long, long time. Essentially, the tension he's exploring is between Labor's need to have a strong national presence and a responsive local presence. The sort of organizational structure that gives SEIU a cohesive and focused voice on the national scene may not be the same structure that's most responsive to workers with particular grievances in individual workplaces. These sorts of conflicts are pretty standard in organizations with both a national (or international) and local component. The national organization has a macro view; they see the precipitous decline of Labor's political power and the profoundly negative impact that's having on the lives of workers with an inescapable clarity, and so naturally work to put resources into political change. The local groups have a micro view; they see a high level of legislative focus when their members are clamoring for more workplace advocacy, and so they argue for a reallocation of resources towards micro concerns concerns. The incentives you face and feedback you hear differs depending on where you're placed, and what Plumer convincingly conveys is that it's a tricky issue precisely because neither group is wrong. As for Stern's impact on the national health care scene, I can say, in context of reporting that I've been doing, that it's immense. It was SEIU's pressure that pushed the Democrats to the left on health care in the campaign (Stern declared that they wouldn't even consider endorsing any candidate that didn't have serious, detailed, universal health plan -- though Obama, who had the least universal plan of the Big Three, eventually got the endorsement), and it's been Stern's coalition building that has created a lot of the early conversations among stakeholders (business, insurers, etc) who'll eventually need to trust each other if they're to achieve reform. But his approach hasn't been entirely conciliatory, either: He gave a speech to the insurers which...blasted the insurers and SEIU is pledging $75 million to campaign for health reform. They're training organizers, creating ad strategies, running a bus tour...it's a pretty impressive effort, all in all, and testament to the fact that Stern's attempts to make SEIU a key national player have actually worked. The question is whether anything has been lost along the way.
