By Bryan O’Keefe

For those of us who follow internal labor politics, there is a fascinating controversy erupting out in California in the Service Employees International Union. As most everybody already knows, SEIU’s national president is Andy Stern, who, without a doubt, is regarded as the brightest labor leader in America today. Mr. Stern is both very media savvy and shrewd when it comes to labor-management disputes as well as internal labor fights.

One of Mr. Stern’s biggest priorities since he took over the helm of SEIU has been a push for fundamental health care reform. He even shared the stage last year with Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott to announce a new labor-corporate partnership on health care. On a theoretical level Mr. Stern favors some sort of nationalized health care plan, calling the current employer-based system broken. However, he has not given a lot of details and it always seems that he would be willing to endorse new approaches so long as they were not what we have now.

This context brings us to California, where Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is trying to put on the ballot a referendum that would require all Californians to obtain health insurance. The SEIU State Labor Council and its head, Sal Rosselli, have opposed the plan because they fear that families will not be able to afford premiums or be left with bare-bones insurance policies. Given SEIU’s size in California and their affiliation with the health care industry in general, gaining their support is critical for the Governor’s plan.

But the governor’s idea was not universally opposed by SEIU leaders everywhere. According to media reports, Mr. Stern himself urged the SEIU state council to take a less confrontational approach. Obviously, while Governor Schwarzenegger’s idea might not be perfect in Mr. Stern’s eyes, he probably views it as progress away from the employer-based model. One Stern ally in Los Angeles told the LA Times that, “You don’t have to have the perfect bullet to slay the dragon.”

What happened next though shows that Mr. Stern can be hard-nosed when he sees obstacles in his way. Through a series of complicated internal union mechanisms, Mr. Stern was able to force out his major opposition, Sal Rosseli. Mr. Rosseli said this past week that he would not run for another term as state council leader and it seems highly likely that a Stern ally will replace him. Already, SEIU locals loyal to Mr. Rosselli are complaining about the national power grab. Other long-simmering SEIU tensions are also coming to the surface as a result. For example, some SEIU members are now publicly complaining that Mr. Stern is willing to accept bad contracts for workers in return for a pledge for further unionization. Those of us who have followed corporate campaigns know that sometimes card check and neutrality agreements for non-unionized workers do indeed trump actual wage and benefit concerns in contract negotiations.

The entire situation in California should be watched closely. There are the clear policy implications of a massive health care reform bill that will be hard to stop if both the Republican governor and SEIU are on-board. But perhaps even more importantly, there is a useful case study in how Andy Stern aggressively takes on his opposition in SEIU and seeks to achieve his goals in a top-down manner. It’s clear that Stern favors a more nationalized approach to union politics, at the expense of local unions. These locals might start to air more SEIU “dirty laundry” if they feel that their power is continually threatened by Mr. Stern and his allies. Employers should take note however of how SEIU handles these kinds of disputes and who ultimately emerges as the winner.

Bryan O’Keefe is a labor policy analyst in Washington, DC and a frequent contributor to Workplacehorizons.com and EFCAUpdates.com