The American Spectator

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The Anti-Union Union

By Doug Bandow on 3.23.09 @ 4:49AM

The so-called Service Employees International Union represents government employees and has grown while other unions have shrunk.  The fact that it claims to represent workers apparently doesn't affect how it treats its own workers.  The union actually behaves like the sort of abusive corporate slave-master that organized labor claims dominate the workplace and must be resisted.  Reports the Washington Post:

As it helps push for legislation that would make it easier for workers to organize, the country's fastest-growing union is engaged in its own labor dispute with employees it is seeking to lay off.

The Service Employees International Union, considered the most influential union in the nation, has notified the union that represents about 220 of the SEIU's national field staff members and organizers that it is laying off 75 of the employees.

In return, the workers union, which goes by the somewhat postmodern name of the Union of Union Representatives, has filed charges of unfair labor practices against the SEIU with the National Labor Relations Board. The workers union's leaders say that the SEIU is engaging in the same kind of practices that some businesses use: laying off workers without proper notice, contracting out work to temporary-staffing firms, banning union activities and reclassifying workers to reduce union numbers.

"It's completely hypocritical," said Malcolm Harris, president of the workers union. "This is the union that's been at the forefront of progressive issues, around ensuring that working people and working families are taken care of, but when it comes to the people that work for SEIU, they haven't set the same standards."

So who is supposed to protect workers from the unions?

(Hat tip to Ivan Osorio over at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.)