SEIU organizers file complaint against SEIU for unfair labor practices

I love this. According to the WaPo, SEIU is getting rid of union organizers, who are filing a complaint with the NLRB over the issue:

The Service Employees International Union, considered the most influential union in the nation, has notified the union that represents about 220 of its national field staff and organizers that 75 of them are being laid off. In return, the workers’ union, which goes by the somewhat postmodern name of the Union of Union Representatives, has filed unfair labor practices charges against SEIU with the National Labor Relations Board. The staff union’s leaders say that SEIU is engaging in the same kind of practices that some businesses use — laying off workers without proper notice, contracting out work to temp firms, banning union activities and reclassifying workers to reduce union numbers.

This reminds me of ACORN’s 1995 lawsuit to exempt them from paying minimum wage, while working on a ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage. EPI has the story, wtih the full report after the jump:

In 1995, ACORN sued the state of California, claiming that it should be exempted from the state minimum wage. The group realized the simple economic fact facing all employers: being forced to pay higher wages means that you must employ fewer workers. A legal brief filed by ACORN during the appeal of its lawsuit admits:

As acknowledged both by the trial court and California, the more that ACORN must pay each individual outreach worker—either because of minimum or overtime requirements—the fewer outreach workers it will be able to hire.

This argument is particularly ironic. In 1996, when New Orleans business targets of Rathke’s minimum wage increase campaign acknowledged the economic reality that increasing the cost of labor would lead them to reduce employment or cut hours, Wade Rathke snapped, “If their business is that marginal, they probably shouldn’t be in business.”

(Crossposted from The Next Right)

Rotten ACORN – America’s Bad Seed – By The Employment Policies Institute – Free Legal Forms