By Michael Hirsch
Does Steve Early exist? Or is his the brand name for a syndicate of crack labor journalists who in James Thurber’s words “get the story and write the story,” but write it from the perspective of working people? That’s a talent that often unappreciated, even by many unions. And, yes, he exists.
When Early was in Vacaville, Cal., last year, covering the state’s contentious healthcare representation election, he got an earful from one side and stony silence from the other. An email after the fact from the communications director of the state’s SEIU healthcare division, whose organizers studiously passed on talking to Early, informed him that his union limits media responses to “legitimate journalists.” Even knowing the prickly back story—Early staunchly supports workplace organizing, rank and file activism and control by workers of their own unions, and is skeptical that the SEIU’s vaunted “partnering” with employers either has worked or can work in delivering anything beyond labor peace via substandard contracts—the slam that he is not a legitimate scribbler is bizarre.
Source: Save Our Unions, a Battle Cry and a Must-Read
