How dirty are SEIU?

So dirty apparently that they tried to sneak someone's divorce papers out of the office by labeling them as Change to Win campaign documents!

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June 11, 2009
To: Change to Win Leadership Council
From: John W. Wilhelm, President

I have received Anna Burger's letter advising me that I will replace Bruce Raynor as UNITE HERE's representative on the Change to Win Leadership Council. As a founding member of Change to Win, I am honored to be re-joining the Leadership Council, and I look forward to working closely with you.

As we evaluate UNITE HERE's future relationship with Change to Win, as well as whether or not UNITE HERE will continue to participate in Change to Win's dispute resolution process, I have deep concerns about whether, in fact, Change to Win's leadership and staff is impartial toward UNITE HERE.

The current dispute between SEIU and UNITE HERE initially appeared to be an internal dispute within UNITE HERE, and would have been resolved by UNITE HERE's Constitutional processes. It became apparent in February 2009 that, in fact, this dispute is an unprecedented intrusion by SEIU into UNITE HERE's affairs. Now that the officers of UNITE HERE have regained control of our own offices, we have discovered documentary evidence that SEIU's involvement in UNITE HERE's affairs began in 2008, if not sooner.

It is disturbing that Change to Win officers and staff have been deeply involved in this intrusion into UNITE HERE's affairs. Anna Burger and Tom Woodruff have been involved in exhorting UNITE HERE members and affiliates to secede from UNITE HERE in violation of UNITE HERE's Constitution, as well as in the strategy of SEIU's unrelenting attack on UNITE HERE.

Michael Zucker, a Change to Win staff member, has been a key architect of the campaign for SEIU to raid UNITE HERE.

All of this can be documented, if any of you desire that.

I would have thought that Change to Win would have learned from the history of other organizations that a labor federation may not properly insert itself into the internal affairs of one of its affiliates, let alone allow itself to be harnessed by one affiliate in a campaign to take over or destroy another affiliate. Yet this is precisely what has happened in Change to Win.

The partisanship of the Change to Win staff was further demonstrated by something that happened at UNITE HERE headquarters in New York City on Monday, June 1. Several of the former UNITE HERE employees who resigned from the Union put various files in boxes and taped them shut. They marked the boxes to indicate that the contents belong to the Change to Win drugstore campaign. They sought to take the boxes out of the UNITE HERE headquarters but were prevented from doing so. Pat Szymanski asked, and Richard McCracken agreed, to let the boxes be transported away from UNITE HERE, but only after loyal UNITE HERE employees reviewed their contents to be sure that they did not include any contraband--documents not related to the drugstore campaign. It was also agreed that Change to Win lawyers would be present to watch this process, allegedly in accordance with a court order about Change to Win's maintaining control of the drugstore campaign documents. The process took place as agreed. Contraband was indeed found: the divorce records of a UNITE HERE officer and lists of past residences of two other UNITE HERE officers, all of whom have remained with our organization and are leaders in its current work. This was "opposition research" for the SEIU campaign to disrupt our organization. It was bad enough that the attempt was made to sneak these documents out of our office by people working on the Change to Win drugstore campaign. But what is most alarming is that the Change to Win lawyers reviewing the inspection of these documents insisted that these documents had to be turned over to Change to Win! There is no possible way that this opposition research had any connection to the drugstore campaign. No one could have asserted so in good faith. For lawyers to assert Change to Win ownership of such records betrays them as co-conspirators.

This partisanship in the Change to Win leadership and staff must be corrected. I would appreciate the view of the Leadership Council members, individually and collectively, on whether, and how, this will be corrected. Until then, as I am sure you can appreciate, UNITE HERE is not prepared to proceed with arbitration under the Change to Win processes.

I hope these issues can be fairly addressed, so that UNITE HERE can work with all of you in Change to Win to address the great challenges, and the great opportunities, that we face together, and to utilize Change to Win's dispute resolution processes with full confidence that they are fair and impartial.

cc: Change to Win Key Staff

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Oh wow!