Press coverage for the NUHW/Zombie SEIU trial

Most labor disputes go unreported or woefully under-reported by the LameStream media. In an effort to bring the coverage to the forefront of my readers minds here's a round up of what was covered by mostly local media. Oddly enough the New York Times had a little, very little to say about this monumental Zombie SEIU screw up.


I have decided not to list any press releases written by Zombie UHW media relations flunkie Steve Trossman since they are horribly biased propaganda pieces and I assume none of my readers care in the least what he has to say.

Obviously a lot of the coverage will be duplicative but I feel it's still worth reading to get a consensus view of the trial and it's implications.

First off are Randy Shaw's and Carl Finamore's articles on BeyondChron, followed by Randy's summary of the struggle for union democracy since January 2009.

Local coverage continues with San Francisco Business Times coverage by Chris Rauber, IndyBay, Christopher Cook at San Francisco Bay Guardian.

National coverage includes the kind of super secret teleconference attendee David Moberg of In These Times, Mike Parker at Labor Notes, Steve Early at Monthly Review and finally Stephen Greenhouse of the New York Times wrote a whole paragraph about the trial verdict.

As a blogger I would be remiss if I didn't mention the excellent coverage of fellow bloggers Perez Stern and Tasty Burger (here, here and here).

Much to my surprise the pseudo-bloggers from the trial have nothing to say, despite being ecstatic about the verdict during Friday's teleconference. Lame!

Wall Street Journal: New Salvo Fired as Unions Battle Over Workers

For the Wall Street Journal's perspective on the Fresno fight, read here.

Irrespective of which union you favor or how you feel about organized labor, this much can be said about this absurd fight for representation: if SEIU had a decent approach to organizing and member representation we wouldn't be in this mess. In fact, their strategy is to grow for the sake of growth by adding members as fast a possible then leaving them to fend for themselves. How do I know? Just ask any homecare worker, anywhere or any UHW member that has had a contract renegotiated since SEIU hijacked our local in January 2009. SEIU is not good for workers and not good for America, no matter how you slice it.

Wall Street Journal: California Labor Wars

Well now the Zombies cover has been blown! Finally, an SEIU staffer had the courage and decency to step forward with his recollection of what he and likely all of the other scabs in Fresno were asked to do against their own sense of decency. What we all suspected happened in Fresno has been written up in the Wall Street Journal. I wonder how the Zombies will play this one down and if another election for Fresno homecare workers in the works. I say save everyone a whole bunch of trouble and just let the battered homecare workers of Fresno have what they wanted all along: NUHW!