SEIU Watch

The SEIU is probably our favorite place for in-fighting drama. Cherie Mancini, who was ousted as Nevada SEIU Local 1107 president in April, is suing to be reinstated, and to prevent the International from placing the local into trusteeship – a favorite gambit of the SEIU International for maintaining control. Supposedly, the removal stemmed from infighting within the local between Mancini, and former local executive vice president Sharon Kisling, who was also removed and suspended. Seems like just another episode of All My Children. Across the desert in San Diego at SEIU Local 221, the largest public employees union in the region, the union representing the SEIU staff (CWA) filed a letter blasting the SEIU for the way it treats its own staff. The letter cites managers barely working half-days, and notes that several groups represented by the local are planning to ditch the SEIU and look elsewhere for help. We already mentioned that SEIU plans to give up on the Fight for 15 campaign, after flushing millions down that drain, following their failed OUR Walmart effort. It appears they believe they can follow the California strategy of using legislators to do their bidding, and have decided to pour $100 million into 2018 political campaigns in the midwest. That’s a pretty massive uptick. The union spent about $70 million on all federal political activity in 2012 and again in 2016, and the Fight for 15 campaign didn’t cost them that much (as far as we can discern, anyway).