Greg King, Boston, Massachusetts, SEIU Local 888, Portside, September 13, 2004

Just a couple of comments on Steve Early's article and Mel Pritchard's response. While I think that Steve makes a lot of telling points, my personal experience with SEIU has been somewhat different from what he describes. I watched what had been a good SEIU local 285, degenerate into something which served its officers and not the members. They had started out great, with democratic ideals which they seriously tried to implement. I know, because I was a rank-and-file activist, and for a while a Negotiating Committee member and an Executive Board member. I watched the process of degeneration, though, into a vehicle for the aggrandizement of officers and the slighting of members' interests. Seeing this take place provided one of several reasons I became inactive. ... Early & Pritchard