Green with envy? Candidate’s union already backing Slay
McCowan
If Green Party candidate Elston K. McCowan is going to gain any traction in his bid to unseat Mayor Francis Slay, it’ll help if he has at least some support from organized labor.
But even his own union is backing the opposition.
McCowan works as the public sector director for the Service Employees International Union Local 2000 — which endorsed Slay last month.
At his announcement yesterday at City Hall, McCowan showed he intends to run a spirited effort, bringing a preacher’s zeal to the campaign. (He is, after all, a pastor.)
He’ll need more than that, though, to mount any type of substantive challenge to the mayor, who has more than $1 million in the bank.
If nothing else, McCowan may take some comfort in getting to face the mayor in the April general election rather than the March primary — that is, of course, if somebody else doesn’t snatch the Democratic nomination away from Slay first.
Hasn’t SEIU Local 2000 been trusteed by the international union? That doesn’t speak well for any of the current staff or leadership of that local…
This article/blogpost distorts the truth by omitting the key fact that McCowan\\\’s SEIU local is under trusteeship. The un-elected trustees imposed on the local, not the local membership, made the decision to endorse Slay and to not endorse McCowan. Some kind of retraction or clarification should be made if STLToday.com has any claim to credibility.
Also, in terms of why the trusteeship itself was imposed, you have to keep in mind that SEIU is run on very un-democratic lines. The Andy Stern leadership has a habit of \\\’super amalgamating\\\’ locals (some \\\”locals\\\” include workers in 4+ states) and when local leaders or locals don\\\’t \\\”play ball\\\” with Stern\\\’s policies they are either placed under trusteeship or a smear campaign is organized against them in the union (search \\\”Sal Roselli\\\” on google for an example.) Many in McCowan\\\’s local were not satisfied with the Stern leadership, and then with McCowan\\\’s decision to run for Mayor (and NOT as a Democrat) this was all that was needed for Stern and Co. to impose trusteeship.