Under what conceivable scenario is organized labor worse off under a strong mayor in Miami-Dade county than under thirteen members of the Parrot Jungle County Commission? None.
Natacha Seijas—who sits astride the county commission like the talent agent in Borat—is urging organized labor rush to the defense of the county commission. It is laughable.
We understand labor can’t bite the hand that feeds.
But taking on a cause so patently against the interest of its membership is the kind of backward-thinking that has wrecked labor's influence in America.
If organized labor leaders in Miami-Dade want to do something about the cost of living, about the enormous costs imposed by bad planning in the county—including affordable housing and long commutes for struggling families—then labor should be campaigning at every opportunity against the permanent incumbency of the Parrot Jungle County Commission.
Labor should support the strong mayor proposal. It will pass.
The county commission has made a better case for the strong mayor through its greed, incompetence, and mismanagement than Mayor Carlos Alvarez could have ever made himself.
And after the strong mayor proposal passes, then organized labor should work with grass roots groups to ensure that a newly elected strong mayor will fairly represent the interests of all the people of Miami-Dade county, not just the big developers.
The wealthy, big developers have the most to lose by the strong mayor proposal, but once it passes, they will have the most to gain.
So they are egging on the unions, today, but make no mistake: they are also hedging their bets.
They are hedging their bets because it is in their interests to have political re-treads they have controlled in the past, represent them in the future.
So in other words, in its campaign against the strong mayor, labor is being played for a pawn, again.
The day is approaching when the manatee-loving Natacha Seijas move on to new feeding grounds—perhaps by a rich consulting agreement with PBSJ or partial ownership in home developments she has worked her entire career to push through, by foisting the real public costs onto voters and taxpayers.
It’s been a neat trick. Too bad labor has taken the bait hook, line and sinker.
3 comments:
The absentee ballots went out on Seijas' recall. Here is hoping Hialeah dumps her.
When the police were beating up union members during the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) in 2003 you didn't hear a peep out of the County Commission.
not eveyone in labor is happy about this decision to support the commission, however, labor is weak now in Miami and has been threatened by many of the commissioners to obey or else pay in the furture contracts! That is why their support against the strong mayor is in their memberships interests, at least in the short term. Labor has tried to make it clear to Carlos Alverez that it is not personel against him.
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