Conversation WITH LABOR GROUND-BREAKER ELISEO MEDINA

Eliseo Medina, 50, is executive director of Service Employees International Union, Local 2028, in San Diego. He is running (virtually) unopposed for national SEIU office. If elected, he will be the first top-ranking Latino in the history of the union, which has an increasingly Latino membership in public sector jobs and among janitorial and service workers. Medina began his career during the United Farm Workers’ grape strike in 1965, and eventually became second vice-president to Cesar Chavez. He is an enthusiastic advocate of “Labor Neighbor,” a new grass-roots political information campaign. He spoke with ERIN AUBRY.

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One of the things we have found is that while there may be hundreds of union members [in a neighborhood], there’s no discussion of political activity. Yet there are political decisions being made every day that will impact employees just as much as employers. The whole idea is to have union members building a political organization in voting precincts. The members may be telephone workers, hotel workers or carpenters, but they will connect with other unions, which is a new practice. All workers share the same concerns.

We want to create political-based organizations to address the issues of working people. At a work site, for every 20 workers we have a job steward to educate people about contracts and other labor-related issues. We want the same principle applied to politics; instead of a job steward, have a steward out in the community who will educate people about registration and other aspects of the political process.

In San Diego, for example, you have an SEIU member on one block and three doors down is a communications worker who is not in SEIU. These people know each other as neighbors, not as union members. What’s critical about “Labor Neighbor” is that it focuses on labor, not on party politics. What matters now is not the party, but the issues. In the past we’ve seen Republicans ignore us and Democrats take us for granted. The end result is that we get screwed by policies that yield absolutely nothing for workers--NAFTA [the North American Free Trade Agreement], for example. It’s time we look at our interests and take interest-based political action.

People are cynical about the political process; they don’t want to vote. But it doesn’t have to be that way. The political process is a circle, not a half moon. The second part of the process--after a candidate is elected--is ensuring that candidates follow through on promises made during their campaign. If that doesn’t work, we can replace the candidate.

We want to also create a political farm team within the union--a system of grooming union members to run for public office rather than them doing it independently.

If we don’t go back to grass-roots politics, we’re in trouble. Otherwise, the only force behind politics is money. There are two main forces in politics--money, and the power of numbers. In California, we have a million union members. If we get people educated, registered to vote, in citizenship classes, then the numbers go way up. A force of 2 million voters can make a real difference in the world. It can change the debate from one controlled by folks with money to something very different.

We’ve found that all union members love being involved in the project, including myself. When I knock on the door of a different union member to tell them about the political process, it makes absolute sense. We’re doing something that many people don’t ordinarily think of unions as doing, particularly the the SEIU local in San Diego, since we represent so many different people, professionals as well as working people, everyone from architects to nursing home workers to janitors. We’re about 25% Latino, 20% black, 5% Asian and the balance white. But we are the face of the city and aside from having a common union, we all have a common desire to better our lives. That cuts across a lot of lines.

The current state of the labor movement is our own fault. We haven’t taken advantage of our own power. We’ve finally awakened to the fact that we can’t concede power to politicians. We have a right to be cynical--how can a millionaire politician even begin to relate to an increase in the minimum wage? For us that means being able to buy food for your kids, moving to a bigger apartment. And that marginal group, the working poor who have no benefits, is growing. These people won’t disappear.

Part of our failure as a society is not making the connection between a lack of benefits and an increase of profits for big business. That’s why we do “Labor Neighbor,” to talk to people on a one-to-one basis, get them educated and involved. We all have an obligation to leave this world a little better, to strengthen justice in this country. That’s something I always believed, from my days as a grape-picker in Delano.