SEIU's War On Everything...

Well, that's pretty much how it seems of late, if one were to read the latest from BeyondChron's Randy Shaw...

When 2009 began, SEIU was generally recognized as the nation’s most powerful union, and Andy Stern was likely the best-known and most politically prominent U.S. labor leader. Barack Obama’s election appeared to usher in a new era of labor union growth, with SEIU and its Change to Win Labor Federation poised for tremendous gains.

But SEIU chose a different course. A week after Obama’s inauguration it put its third largest local, SEIU-UHW, in trusteeship, spawning a year long fight with its former leadership, who now operate under NUHW.

By April, SEIU had intensified raids against UNITE HERE, creating a bitter war with its once closest union ally. SEIU failed to force UNITE HERE to surrender and affiliate with SEIU, and its raids triggered angry denunciations from fellow labor leaders and the effective demise of Change to Win.

Now, rather than repairing its relations with labor, SEIU is escalating the fight. Its protest last night of longtime allies like John Burton, who has done more for labor and SEIU than any living politician, shows that SEIU is clearly feeling a siege mentality.

SEIU’s decision to withdraw funding from the California Democratic Party in response to Burton’s support for NUHW typifies the union’s self-destructive strategy. SEIU’s state employees depend on Democrats to protect them in Sacramento, so defunding State Party campaigns to elect Democrats is self-defeating. And when I suggested to Burton that he could probably make up the funds by calling the many international labor leaders who have criticized Stern, he replied that he had “already started calling them last week.”

And while SEIU withdraws funding from the Democratic Party and battles the labor movement, the campaign for the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) – once among SEIU’s top priorities – seems forgotten. The Center for Union Facts and other anti-EFCA forces have used SEIU’s blocking of worker elections in California as a prime argument, and even sympathetic politicians are reluctant to wage war on behalf of a divided labor movement.

I personally cannot believe that SEIU is going to try to pick a fight within the CA Democratic party with John Burton. This is a larger-than-life figure for the CA Donks, and he is notorious for holding a grudge against those who, in his perception, have slighted him. Either SEIU thinks they are so large and powerful that the CA Donks will come crawling back, or SEIU's leaders are just so Beltway-centric that they don't know who are the movers and the shakers out here in California.

Myself, I'm betting on the latter, with a pretty good garnish of the former to top it off.

But of course, SEIU pissing off the entire labor movement is old news. Evidently the Purple Plague has found themselves a new and enticing target: Boy Scouts.

In pursuit of an Eagle Scout badge, Kevin Anderson, 17, has toiled for more than 200 hours hours over several weeks to clear a walking path in an east Allentown park.

Little did the do-gooder know that his altruistic act would put him in the cross hairs of the city's largest municipal union.

Nick Balzano, president of the local Service Employees International Union, told Allentown City Council Tuesday that the union is considering filing a grievance against the city for allowing Anderson to clear a 1,000-foot walking and biking path at Kimmets Lock Park.

"We'll be looking into the Cub Scout or Boy Scout who did the trails," Balzano told the council.

Balzano said Saturday he isn't targeting Boy Scouts. But given the city's decision in July to lay off 39 SEIU members, Balzano said "there's to be no volunteers." No one except union members may pick up a hoe or shovel, plant a flower or clear a walking path.

"We would hope that the well-intentioned efforts of an Eagle Scout candidate would not be challenged by the union," said Mayor Ed Pawlowski in an e-mail Friday. "This young man is performing a great service to the community. His efforts should be recognized as such."

Balzano said Saturday the union is still looking into the matter and might cut the city a break.

"We are probably going to let this one go," Balzano said .

Oh, that's nice. SEIU "might cut the city a break." How magnanimous of them.

This is a 17-year-old kid who has put in 200 hours of his own time to try to clear a path which has fallen into disrepair, and SEIU can only say they are "probably going to let this one go."

But that's not to miss the full-on threat that the SEIU thug made farther up in the article:

"We'll be looking into the Cub Scout or Boy Scout who did the trails," Balzano told the council.

If one of my kids was doing this kind of volunteer work on a public parkway and someone from SEIU publicly proclaimed in a city council meeting that they would be "looking into the Cub Scout or Boy Scout who did the trails," that SEIU leader would then very quickly find himself and his thug compatriots looking into the barrel of my deer rifle.

SEIU seriously needs to check itself.