We all know the Business section of the New York Times isn’t interested in promoting the interests of working class people, which is why radicals need to take a careful look whenever the Times weighs in on what’s happening in the labor movement.

The paper’s recent article about Unite Here’s organizing practices is a perfect example. It may have read like an “objective” piece of journalism, but everything about the article—how the story is framed, what’s included and what’s left out, even when the story begins—were choices and the construction is the commentary.

What we’re fed is a disturbing picture of “pinksheeting,” a Unite Here practice of systematically collecting sensitive details about their staff and worker-leaders which are used by organizers to “push” activists to implement the union’s program.

SEIU: THE GOOD GUYS? THINK AGAIN

The story situates this practice in the ongoing dispute between Unite Here and SEIU throughout. For example the opening protagonist, Julia Rivera, is a rank and file hotel worker who came onto Unite Here staff. She’s appalled by what she’s asked to do—share her personal story of abuse over and over again—but she’s scared to refuse. Ultimately she leaves Unite Here and becomes an organizer for SEIU hotel worker affiliate Workers United.

[For folks who haven’t been following the drama, Unite Here was formed in 2005 as a merger of the garment workers union UNITE and the hotel and restaurant workers union HERE. Last spring former president Bruce Raynor led part of the union—mostly from the Unite side of the merger—in a break-away attempt. The break-away was facilitated by SEIU behind the scenes but only later would they publically affiliate with SEIU, under the banner Workers United. They have been trying to wrestle away control of Unite Here bargaining units—and the union’s bank—ever since.]

Unite Here’s practice of pinksheeting should not be used to paint SEIU and Workers United as the “good guy” in this dispute, there are bigger issues at stake. One is SEIU’s model of unionism—pursue growth at any cost, organize bosses not workers, and always be ready to cut a deal. This model is undermining worker power, democracy, and contract standards in the labor movement, and Workers United is the latest piece of SEIU’s plan to spread this brand of unionism. Pinksheeting is not even a small part of what’s at issue in the Unite-Here “divorce” and subsequent raids by SEIU.

However, when Unite Here’s leadership claims these accusations are ONLY an attempt by SEIU to discredit them they’re also incorrect.

Sure SEIU is exploiting the issue of pinksheeting, just like the former UNITE leadership (current Workers United leadership) tried to exploit it in the internal power struggle pre-divorce. And yes this is part of a larger pattern—reflected in SEIU’s organizing model—of lowering workers’ expectations and re-enforcing the fears generated by employers that unions are a third-party boogieman giving workers less control.

But when Unite Here president John Wilhelm says pinksheeting is rare and the union has policies against it, he’s not speaking truthfully either. This is a systematic problem inside Unite Here and the union—along with the rest of the labor movement—needs to grapple with it rather than sweep it under the rug.

Wilhelm’s claims that he has “taken a very strong stand against [these techniques]” doesn’t fit the facts, making it even harder to tackle the problem honestly. First and foremost, Wilhelm’s “crackdown” on pinksheeting was not voluntary, it resulted from a successful staff-union grievance, a fact the N.Y. Times article fails to mention. Other attempts to address this practice have been squashed by Unite Here leadership.

More generally, Wilhelm is revered within the organization. So if he really had zero tolerance for pinksheeting the practice would stop.

CAN’T SWEEP THIS UNDER THE RUG

Now that this uncomfortable spot light is shining on Unite Here there will surely be attempts to discredit former staff and activists who voiced criticisms of pinksheeting. Individuals who shared their critiques publicly with The New York Times will also be called into question.

Propagating claims that the New York Times is the boss’s paper—or that airing the union’s dirty laundry will only give the boss more ammunition—doesn’t cut it. These arguments fed from the top often go self-righteously viral but they only serve to protect the interests of one group (the top) at the expense of another (the bottom) and to avoid the actual substance of the issue.

What did Unite Here leaders—those with the power to change things—do when pinksheeting was criticized internally? All indications are they stuck their head in the sand, or worse actively covered up the problem. What choice did these they leave former Unite Here staff and activists who care about the labor movement and don’t want a “cult-like form of organizing” to be practiced?

Some Unite Here leaders were frustrated last year when United Healthcare Workers-West (UHW), then led by Sal Rosselli, took their gripes with the SEIU International to the mainstream press. But now it’s clear that UHW’s public campaign helped foster a healthy suspicion of SEIU’s top leaders within the labor movement and the broader progressive community, one with benefited Unite Here when they found themselves under siege.

Talking to the mainstream press is a hard decision but it should be understood that these are some of the only tactics available to the (relatively) powerless who seek change. As any union activist in the shop will tell you, you can’t change anything if you let those in power tell you how to change it.

But this brings us back to the practice of pinksheeting.

DEEP RELATIONSHIPS AND FIGHTING THE BOSS, YES

On the one hand, Unite Here believes in fighting the boss for the personal transformation and leadership development of workers and for establishing contract standards. This has been my personal experience with the union and it’s a big positive.

To do this they train their leaders to build meaningful relationships with workers. Unite Here leaders regularly draw on these relationships—to push people past their fears, remind them of times they’ve displayed leadership, and talk about what’s at stake in a way that's grounded in the person’s life experience—whether on the job or outside of the workplace. Again, this is part of being a good organizer.

It’s also no sin for organizers and worker leaders to take notes on people they are trying to develop. Our movement could use a more thorough approach to leadership development.

I also think it’s appropriate for organizers to draw on the whole range of our life experience as part of their practice of organizing. Human beings suffer oppression in many ways not related to work, so having a broader sense of where people have experienced—and possibly overcome—oppression is appropriate. Pushing people to connect with their personal stories and be able to share them can be a way to validate individuals and help them inspire others.

THE ENDS. THE MEANS. THE JUST VISION.

Our movement needs to grapple with the fact that within Unite Here these practices have sometimes played out in emotionally manipulative ways. And the hierarchal relationship referenced in the N.Y Times article between lead (supervisor) and organizer is often encouraged and mirrored in the relationship of organizer to worker, and worker leader to other worker.

One example—referenced in the N.Y Times article—is quite instructive. In an ugly effort to pursue the war with SEIU, three Unite Here organizers were sent to Phoenix to disrupt an SEIU election among city workers. Unite Here’s goal was to prevent these workers from having a union. Unite Here had no interest in organizing these workers, and no claim on the public sector jurisdiction. There were just there to mess up SEIU’s election.

Rather than play the wrecking crew these organizers did what so many of their SEIU counterparts have not done—the principled thing. They refused to interfere with SEIU’s election. At this point their lead organizers bring them into a room and begin to “push” them or “pinksheet” them.

What does this tell us about this tactic? When is it used? To further what ends? Some feel its linked to destructive practices within the United Farmworkers movement in the 1970s, others feel its just challenging leaders to be their best.

Focusing on the “pink sheet” sidesteps the debate that’s actually needed. The issue is not whether organizers should write down personal information of workers they’re trying to develop. And its not limited to looking critically at the role of one on one conversations and ethical boundaries therein as Wade Rathke suggests in his response to the Times article.

WHOSE PROGRAM? (AKA: WHICH WAY DOES POWER FLOW)

This tactic is a reflection of the organizing culture of the union. Many workers and staffers will tell you it seeps into every conversation. What does this organizing technique say about rank-and-file members’ real place inside the union? What’s the relation of this tactic to a top-down vs. bottom-up model of organizing?

I remember once as I prepared to speak to a worker who had expressed some problems with the union’s response to an issue in the shop. My lead was concerned I would be sympathetic to the worker’s concerns.

“What you should really do” he pressed, “is push her on what it means to be a leader.”

“Well, I think I’m going to need to listen” I replied.

“I disagree” he responded immediately and quite plainly.

My lead was offended that I would consider the conversation (and by extension the union) something accountable to the worker I was speaking to. I would later be interrogated about the conversation, though he pretended to bring it up casually, and I had to lie about what happened in order to avoid the push back.

All this reflects a systematic de-valuing of any ideas or concerns that come from the bottom. The pink sheet is usually not used as a tool to show you’ve listened well, its information the organizer uses to prove to their lead that they have the ability to push a worker.

These conversations are not mutually accountable, the organizer or worker leader does not have the institutional space to have their mind changed or take input. Only the worker “being organized” can change their mind and receive info.

Those who disagree with union leadership are characterized as “off program” or “scared” or “struggling with their organizing.” Those that continue to dissent are called, “rogue” or even “traitors.” Critiques or even just independent ideas that come from outside the Union are discredited as the ideas of “arm-chair revolutionaries.”

In some Unite Here locals the culture of demanding obedience exists all the time, in others it crops up more intensely during controversy. Particularly in the former but even in the latter case one thing is clear: workers are not the intellectual architects of the union program. The job of organizers is to get people “on program” not help them create it.

This has even more disturbing implications when we realize how much of Unite Here’s leadership comes from Yale, an institution deeply connected to perpetuating intellectual elitism, corporatism, and social inequality.

RADICAL POLITICS AND UNION DEMOCRACY

Radicals in the labor movement and Unite Here as an organization desperately need to have a conversation about what constitutes a healthy push vis-à-vis our organizing goals. We need to have that conversation in relation to our understanding of the world we’re trying to build and how we organize to get there.

If we want working class people to govern society we need to fight for working class people to be able to govern themselves. That means prioritizing building institutions and culture that allows workers to forge their own future. In this case it also means helping workers truly govern their unions.

The argument that comes from the top is often some variation of, “Democracy on paper doesn’t matter. What matters is member involvement and participation.” While there some truth to these words, the argument is meant to obscure the question of worker control and downplay its value.

Unite Here has made it’s battle cry against SEIU, “Union Democracy.” That battle cry comes with certain responsibility and it should provide an opening for conversation.

Last February HERE-side members of the General Executive Board sent a letter to all Unite Here staff declaring “…the heart of our differences: one-man rule or democratic decision-making.” They were speaking of Bruce Raynor’s authoritarian maneuvers to retain control of Unite Here, but they could just as easily be speaking of Andy Stern.

Unfortunately counterposing one-man rule to democratic decision making is not the best way to describe the union’s structure. In fact some critics would say that if Bruce Raynor acted like a Monarch the current Unite Here leadership functions as Feudal Lords. Neither model translate particularly well into worker power.

The letter cited in the N.Y Times article by four Unite Here activists from the Bay Area makes important suggestions about what democratic practices could look like. It also raises additional questions that put pinksheeting in a broader context:

• What Unite Here Presidents have come to power by rising through the ranks?
• Are Shop Stewards and Bargaining Committee members elected?
• And just as important, can they be openly critical of leadership without being removed?

These are the things that create poles of power at the base of the union and must be fought for and protected. We also have to ask ourselves whether pinksheeting is the tactic of an organization that recognize a strategic need to involve and mobilize workers but doesn’t believe ideologically in workers having control?

The letter from Bay Area activists also suggests another dangerous trend inside Unite Here—purging radicals who think independently, from their leadership structure. They do this, facilitated by un-democratic structures, but also with the help of other radicals on staff together with former rank and filers brought onto staff in part because of their loyalty.

There is no room on bargaining committees for activists pushing for more democracy or housekeepers who bring a developed political ideology from struggle in their home country. And when conflicts crop up there is a whole grouping of self-identified radicals who rush to defend leadership actions. It’s a group that has somehow has accepted the logic, “this is a class war. And to go against Unite Here leadership is mutiny.”

STAFF-UNION RESPONSES AND THE ROLE OF UNION STAFF

This brings us to the responses to the N.Y Times article by FOUR and UUHS the respective staff unions of Workers United and Unite Here. These responses taken with the DSA piece by Paul Garver and Wade Rathke’s personal blog tackle the issue from a very staff-centric perspective. This framing prevents the much needed discussion about how workers relate to this organizing culture.

It is extremely important we remember there may be a few thousand Unite Here staffers but there are hundreds of thousands who relate to the Union as rank-and-file workers in the shop. Workers at the casino or hotel or stadium are members of the broader working class. They need to be central to our analysis and more importantly central to bringing about change in their workplaces and in their union.

The FOUR letter comes across as disingenuous. I don’t know for sure the intent of the the signatories but it seems inappropriate to come out against pinksheeting but not condemn the SEIU/Workers United raids which SEIU’s staff union, UUR has bravely done.

The Union of Unite Here Staff (UUHS) letter is the most disturbing and disappointing. They claim to have left FOUR because it was a tool for Bruce Raynor and SEIU, but in one of their first public statements they’ve indicated they’ll be a tool for their own leadership.

Their statement raises serious questions about their independence and the nature of their relationship to leadership. They start by calling into question the entire group of former organizers mentioned in the New York Times by pointing out that two of them have relations to SEIU.

The use company language like “disgruntled” but most of those former organizers would not be willing to work for SEIU and some are even on record as opposing the raids.

They attempt to challenge the UFW connection by the N.Y Times but even a simple internet search of many Unite Here leaders will show their long history with UFW. This connection is not only plausible it is actual, as is the legacy of "the game" inside the Farmworkers. Their claims about their own empowerment and the member-driven nature of union are questionable at best. Do these staff work under former members who have been elected to office? Indeed, how many of top leaders in Unite Here actually got their start as rank-and-file members, not staff?

Most irresponsibly though they refer to instances of pinksheeting as “isolated incidents”—a clear sign they are not going to take up the challenge of this systemic problem. In fact they are willing to take John Wilhelm’s lead in downplaying it.

SOCIAL JUSTICE UNIONISM

We must critically and independently (from our Union leadership) develop our conception of social justice unionism. We have to form an analysis of how to wage class struggle and what role unions can play. Then we can cultivate criteria—a set of standards for reference points with which we can evaluate our Union and others. We can have disagreements and change our minds but we must operate on a higher plane than acting based on institutional loyalty or even personal trust.

There has been a lot of chronicling of the Unite Here-SEIU conflict in the mainstream press and in independent media. There has been much less critical analysis. Randy Shaw has offered some important perspective but his closeness to Unite Here leadership has caused him to lose depth and nuance. We have to scrutinize this conflict from a place of clarity around social justice unionism and advancing working class interests.

There is no question that in the Unite Here-SEIU conflict activists need to take sides—and Unite Here represents the pole of social justice unionism. But support for a union willing to fight employers and push for higher contract standards doesn’t mean we can turn a blind eye to its problems. In fact it compels us, the ones who are the most invested in Unite Here to pressure the union to be much more democratic and as a function of that end pinksheeting.

Interested readers can contact Vicki by email at Vicki.Johnson1979@gmail.com.