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Got A Grievance? Call A Call Center

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The New York Times

Published: June 1, 2008

As 2,000 convention delegates gather in Puerto Rico, the Service Employees International Union is about to jettison a time-honored union tradition - having members go to their union representatives with their questions and grievances.

The delegates are expected to vote to have union members rely on call centers instead to handle their problems.
Union officials say these 24-hour centers would provide the union's members with faster and more expert service, usually in their own language.

But some union leaders and members complain that the call centers would hurt the union and its 1.7 million members.

"Sometimes you can't get through to these centers," said Eva Lozada, a home-care worker from Oakland, Calif. "It's like talking to an ATM."

This is just one of the complaints that Andrew L. Stern, the union's president, faces as he seeks to transform the union, already the nation's fastest growing, to make it grow even faster.

Stern said the convention's resolutions are part of an effort dating from 1996, when he became the SEIU's president, to increase organizing. One resolution calls for unionizing at least 500,000 workers over the next four years.

"The union's mantra has been organize or die trying, and it has been pretty successful in increasing its numbers to help improve wages and benefits," said Janice Fine, a labor relations professor at Rutgers University.

"Now the SEIU is grappling with the consequences of some of the steps it took to achieve that growth," Fine said.

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