For more than a week, one of the under-the-radar stories circulating among politicos deals with the complicated controversy swirling largely inside the office building at 5585 Pershing Avenue in the West End.

With a hat tip to Pub Def, who beat the rest of us in getting the basics of the battle ON the radar, the fight is more complicated than it may appear. I touched on the jockeying in my Thursday column.
Without taking sides, here’s a more detailed look at the war that may — or may not — become a Democratic headache next year.

The building on Pershing is home to various local arms of the Service Employees International Union and the Progressive Vote Coalition, commonly known as Pro-Vote, which is a coalition of unions, teachers groups and community organizations.

In 2000, 2004 and 2006, Pro-Vote and SEIU were regulars on the picket lines tweaking Republican candidates, and in neighborhoods as the two groups went door-to-door handing out fliers and collaring voters.

Seven staff employees of SEIU Local 2000 make up the membership of the Brotherhood of Union Support Staff (BUSS), also based at Pershing.

BUSS acting president Elston McCowan said some of his members were contacted this summer by employees of Pro-Vote, because they felt overworked by executive director John Hickey. “They didn’t even get a lunch break,” McCowan said.

Five Pro-Vote workers signed cards to join BUSS. According to McCowan, Hickey engaged in “corporate union busting” by making work life so miserable that four of those workers quit.

Hickey confirms the departures, but disputes the alleged reasons and accusations, while acknowledging “some weren’t happy working here.”

Hickey also acknowledges that he doesn’t consider Pro-Vote jobs to be 40-hour-a-week posts (the average for salaried workers is 45 hours a week), but says that overtime is paid to hourly workers. The workload is heavier close to elections, he adds.

That said, Hickey and Lenny Jones – president of the state Pro-Vote board and also head of the SEIU state council — deny any reports of a rift between the two bodies. “It’s a non-story,” said Jones.

McCowan disagrees and says the fight is “a humongous deal” reverberating among the local labor movement. BUSS has filed several charges against Hickey with the National Labor Relations Board.

Earlier this month, the state Pro-Vote board approved a resolution allowing Pro-Vote employees to join any union.

The current employees have signed a petition stating that they don’t want to join BUSS. McCowan blames pressure from Hickey on new employees; Hickey disagrees.

In any case, BUSS plans to picket Pro-Vote’s awards banquet Oct. 13. (Some of the honorees are groups known for picketing.)

McCowan said that he also will recommend that BUSS oppose any candidate supported by Pro-Vote as long as Hickey is around, and that he will encourage SEIU Local 2000 to follow suit. (Local 2000 president Barbara Black did not return a phone call seeking comment.)

Jones says that SEIU Local 1 is “still a big supporter of Pro-Vote,” and accuses BUSS of exaggerating SEIU’s role and mischaracterizing the union’s view of Hickey.

“We wholeheartedly support the right of the staff” of Pro-Vote to join any union, Jones said, “but as the executive board, we can’t stand by as a group (BUSS) threatens those same workers.”

Stay tuned.