LA Story + The Next POTUSA

1. It would seem that SEIU members in CA continue to be beset by the administrative, fiduciary and political shortcomings of their leadership. Hopefully someone is writing a political biography of STERN and the last 20 years of the SEIU. How these mishaps in LA relate to: the municipal, state and federal government and current "labor" law; corporate intrigue; SEIU's previous melees with CNA in CA and elsewhere; SEIU's "growth" model; and Sal Roselli's reform movement, is anybody's guess. But only a genius like the guy at LaborPains would extrapolate that this trusteeship is somehow testimony against collective bargaining and/or the democratic rights of all workers to voluntary association.
2. Themselves 'pro-Secret Ballot' activists of the American Right, the people at NW Republican did a great job finding and posting this long, wind-y video glimpse into both Obama's understanding of EFCA and his willingness to give the same moralistic, finger-wagging "but behave yourself" speech to unions that he gave to working-class and poor blacks on Father's Day. 'Not trying to be too cynical, mind you - but remember I'm going to be at the Convention for the next week, so I am overcompensating by indulging my Trot-ish tendencies. Suffice it to say, it's not FDR we're dealing with here. Or Woodrow Wilson. However....................it's, uh, a lot better than an angry old hawk named John McCain.
   
3. Anybody think Andy Stern will take a role in the Obama administration - say, on the NLRB? Or will Stern decide that he wants to use his cult of personality to re-establish "the labor boss" as a subject-position in the political culture?