Noam Chomsky, other academics and journalists, weigh in on SEIU-UHW feud

In an "open letter" addressed to Andy Stern, president of the 1.9 million member Service Employees International Union, dozens of U.S. authors, academics and several journalists on Thursday took Stern to task for an ongoing feud with United Healthcare Workers West, an SEIU local based in Oakland.

Among the signatories: famed radical and iconoclast Noam Chomsky, emeritus professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; authors Howard Zinn and Mike Davis; and a host of professors from institutions like UC Santa Barbara, Harvard Law School, Yale, City University of New York, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, New York University, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, University of Washington, UCLA, and a number of other universities across the country.

"We are writing to express our deep concerns about SEIU's threatened trusteeship over its third largest local (UHW)," the open letter stated. "We believe that there must always be room within organized labor for legitimate and principled dissent, if our movement is to survive and grown."

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The writers went on to say that "(p)utting UHW under trusteeship would send a very troubling message and be viewed by many as a sign that internal democracy is not valued or tolerated within SEIU. In our view, this would have negative consequences for the workers directly affected, the SEIU itself, and the labor movement as a whole. We strongly urge you to avoid such a tragedy."

Escalating an ongoing internal feud, the Washington, D.C.-based SEIU sued UHW's longtime president Sal Rosselli and other leaders of the local April 29 in federal court in Los Angeles for allegedly diverting "at least $3 million" in UHW funds to an educational fund under their exclusive control. UHW, however, insists the lawsuit is an "act of retaliation" against efforts by Rosselli and 150,000-member UHW to reform the international union. UHW says it created the so-called education fund "in full compliance with the law, and appropriately released all of the details of its actions."

Stern and SEIU reportedly are considering seeking a trusteeship to oust Rosselli and other UHW leaders from their posts. UHW represents approximately 150,000 health-care workers in California, and has long been a leading voice in statewide and local health policy debates -- and a thorn in the side of many hospital and nursing home operators in the Golden State.

The open letter didn't mention the lawsuit, or other details of the internal SEIU contretemps.