This is what democracy looks like

By now many of you have probably seen the exchange on Democracy Now! between Sal Rosselli and Dave Regan, both leaders of SEIU (Rosselli in United Healthcare Workers West, Regan in District 1199). If not, check it out.

Juan Gonzalez, a veteran labor activist himself, interviews the two and tries to sort out some of the issues.

I take this as another example of how the internet has changed the nature of "internal" union democracy. To an important extent, the internal has become external and vice versa. In many unions now, the "internal" dialogue now takes place on blogs, youtube videos, articles in newspapers, etc. And those "external" sources and media are now part of the internal union politics.

The most remarkable part of the exchange to me, is how Dave Regan casts Sal Rosselli as despicable, dishonest, etc. -- he stopped just short of calling him a scab -- not because of what Rosselli is proposing, but because Rosselli is speaking out publically about problems in the union and challenging its leadership.

Rosselli's forces have launched a website for their movement, seiuvoice.org, that appears to be largely aimed at the upcoming SEIU convention.