Cornell University's Kate Bronfenbrenner, who has done extensive research into these kinds of agreements, says, "Neutrality agreements are necessary in a climate where employers wage war when workers try to organize. But on the other hand, unions that do top-down organizing, who don't involve the members, are not going to build lasting unions. Research shows it again and again. They won't be able to survive; they're not going to be able to withstand employer attacks. These are big questions many unions need to wrestle with."

SEIU leaders may debate the merits of their opposition, but the sheer explosion of dissent--from one of the country's most progressive unions, CNA; from the leadership of one of its largest, and most rapidly growing, Locals, UHW; from its own staff; from the students and community allies SEIU depends on to run its successful corporate campaigns--indicates, at least, a crisis of confidence in the union's leadership. Stern has been astonishingly successful at communicating his vision to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and winning the trust of hostile corporate leaders. But the evidence is accumulating that he's not been nearly as adept at bringing along his own labor movement--and his own membership.

If he places UHW in trusteeship and removes Sal Rosselli and his executive board, he'll confirm the worst images of SEIU painted by Rose Ann DeMoro, of a gang of purple-clad street thugs, whose first principle is omertà. But if he can guide delegates through a process of meaningful compromise at the convention, with a friendly eye toward some of the dissident proposals on local autonomy; if he can sit down and negotiate a truce with CNA (and indeed, in late May, Stern told The Nation that the two parties had just agreed to hire a mediator and try to come to terms), then his claim to be reinvigorating the labor movement as a whole will gain new credibility.

The truth is that the pressure on SEIU is coming from labor progressives--not complacent labor chiefs signing off on givebacks until they reach retirement. The voices raised against Stern are deeply invested in reversing labor's decline, in positioning unions to shape national policy, in building--as Stern puts it in his most recent white paper--"a more just and humane society for all working people."