Was LA “Deportation Flier” Protest Held in Front of Wrong Union Building?
If you haven’t already heard about the incident, read this story or watch the video:
As the story notes, “Community groups and school board members held a rally in front of the headquarters of the United Teachers Los Angeles union. Although they never accused UTLA of being responsible for the flier, the union says the message was clear, and they are upset about it.”
It was not an unreasonable assumption, as UTLA is the primary opponent to the district’s school choice plan. But it isn’t the only opponent.
SEIU Local 99 represents education support employees in the Los Angeles Unified School District, and it isn’t thrilled with the district’s plan either.
We maintain that hiring non-District subcontractors does not serve the students of LAUSD. Living wages and health benefits that the District provides have been key ingredients for preventing high staff turnover. By creating good jobs in the neighborhood, schools have been able to attract workers who stay for many years, getting to know entire families and providing stability for students as they grow up. These elements will be lost if school operators are simply pushed to hire the lowest-bidding contractor.
If you are going to assume that a union, or a rogue element of a union, was behind the deportation flier, why would SEIU be a more logical choice? Matthew Kaminski inadvertently answers that question in an unrelated editorial in this morning’s Wall Street Journal.
Kaminski tells the story of SEIU’s ongoing battle with the National Union of Healthcare Workers in California. NUHW lost a decertification election and accused SEIU of campaign irregularities. A former SEIU staffer came forward with this story:
But now, Carlos Martinez, an immigrant from El Salvador who was on the SEIU’s staff during the campaign, has come forward—so he says—to blow the whistle on his employer. Mr. Martinez went door-to-door canvassing the home-care workers during the 15-day election. Like him, many of them are native Spanish speakers; some are illiterate.
Speaking in an interview over a sandwich at a hotel in the Bay Area late last month, Mr. Martinez says he was instructed by superiors to tell the workers that if they voted against the SEIU, they could lose their medical benefits, see their green cards or citizenship revoked and possibly be deported. He says he and other staffers were also told to pressure voters to spoil ballots that had been filled out for the NUHW. In other instances he filled ballots out for them. He says he even took some to the post office, as did other SEIU campaign workers.
All of these actions, if true, are a violation of state or federal laws governing union elections. In all, he adds, he visited 550 homes. “We scared people. We took the secret ballot away from these people,” he says. “It was wrong.”
(emphasis added)
There’s no hard evidence that anyone from either UTLA or SEIU was involved in the creation or distribution of the fliers. But if you’re going to go with that as your working hypothesis and hold a protest rally and press conference, you would be better off going with the one accused of the same practice in the past.
November 16th, 2009 at 14:53
Instead of tripping over each other to prove their love for illegal aliens, both the UTLA and the LA School District should remember that every one of them has broken the law. They also ought to remember that Cesar Chavez opposed illegal immigration for the very reason all unions should oppose it; illegal aliens drive down the wages and benefits of American workers.
It is incredible that any public entity, knowing what havoc illegal illegal aliens wreak on the public treasury, could protect illegal aliens, let along claim bragging rights for doing so.