Si Se Puede

I’ve had this website for many months, and this blog for a few weeks now, but I’ve been waiting for the right moment to start it. I was waiting for something worthy of a new blog. I was waiting until I had something to add the Great American Conversation, as we used to call it on the Dean campaign. Today, I have that.
Fifty years from now, if unions exists in America–if there’s a labor movement to speak of–it will be because of the vision laid out in the speech I watched today. I am in San Francisco for the quadrennial convention of SEIU, the Service Employees’ International Union. And today their president, Andy Stern, threw down an impressive gantlet.
It’s the fourth day I’ve been here in San Francisco. Another day, another day of the purple people. Today, though, was something else. If I was impressed by the four miles of purple people at Saturday’s Bridgewalk, it didn’t hold a candle to the very base way I was moved sitting among them today as they celebrated and plotted for the future.
In fact, this morning’s opening session moved me like nothing else I’ve seen since I stood in Bryant Park on the Sleepless Summer Tour rally. It opened in a fashion befitting the most fly organized labor gathering ever–hip hop groups performed as dancers raced across the stage and then through the audience. Multi-colored club lights gyrated around as SEIU got its groove thang on. Andy Stern even uttered the word “booty” in his remarks.
My photos from the day, by the way, can be found here.
Anyway, a little history lesson not up on your SEIU history: 32 years ago, SEIU had its quadrennial convention here in San Francisco. It then represented 450,000 workers and the whole convention fit in one hotel. Now, Andy Stern announced today, SEIU will represent 1.8 million workers by the end of the year–that’s an increase of over a million workers since 1996. The convention spreads across five hotels, fills the entire three-story downtown conference center, and has over 8,000 delegates.
That growth came during a time when the number of the 65-odd unions in the AFL-CIO that are gaining membership can be counted on one hand with some fingers left over.
The morning was about celebrating the past four years and looking ahead in a big way. We saw videos from some of the main organizing victories–Boston’s janitors, Ohio’s nursing homes, and Georgia’s public workers. Nancy Pelosi got everyone fired up about the election and there was wild chanting of “George Bush has got to go.”
But certainly the big thing today was the big thinking.
In her speech here today, Nancy Pelosi called SEIU the “biggest, baddest, and boldest” union out there. And it’s so true. Andy Stern isn’t willing to mess around with irritating actions or scattershot organizing. He’s going methodically industry-by-industry, organizing to win.
The members are loving it, and obviously have a huge level of confidence and love for their officers. It’s not hard to see why Dean did so well in this union because they are all Sterniacs — the energy, the edge, and the enthusiasm is all there in a really serious way.
We’re on the cusp of something really exciting. Andy Stern and SEIU is going to single-handedly save the labor movement or die trying. I wanted to give you a taste of some of the most visionary quotes from his keynote address today. It’ll be online tomorrow, and is worth reading in its entirety, but I wanted to pass along some of the choice ones:
On the future of the labor movement:
“Sisters and brothers, it is time and it is so long overdue that we join with our union allies and either transform the AFL-CIO or build something stronger that can really change workers’ lives.” (Read this one again and realize what he’s saying: this is a true revolution, the end to half-a-century of organized labor as we’ve known it.)
On globalization:
“Today’s global corporations have no permanent home, recognize no national borders, and salute no flag but their own corporate logo and take their money to anywhere where they can make the most–and pay the least… So today I am asking you, SEIU