Counterpunch: A Purple Uprising in Oakland

From http://counterpunch.org/early04022008.html

As an infrequent visitor to the west coast, I've never experienced the earthquake tremors that are so familiar to millions of Californians.

But, in a union hall in downtown Oakland last Thursday (3/27), one didn't have to be a seismologist to see-and feel-the fault lines shifting in America's second-largest union.

Several hundred members and staffers of United Healthcare Workers (UHW) were jammed into their local headquarters for a raucous press conference and pep rally. Arriving by bus, the BART, on foot and by car, the crowd was chanting, clapping, whistling, and making an enormous racket with union-issued yellow plastic clackers.

Almost everyone wore the signature purple T-shirts and jackets of their national organization, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

The event could have easily been mistaken for an SEIU strike vote, a contract ratification meeting, or an organizing rally involving some portion of the UHW's statewide membership of 150,000. Since a few workers even wheeled in the disabled people they care for in neighboring homes, it also looked like a union protest against state budgetcuts.

The gathering of African-American, Asian, and Latino home care workers, nursing home aides, and hospital employees was convened for another purpose, however.Their call-and-response chants were not directed at any recalcitrant employer or tight-wad Republican governor. Instead, UHW members were venting against top officials of their own union.