I'm not the only blogger down here in lovely Puerto Rico covering the SEIU convention.

• Dave Johnson, of Seeing The Forest, has his take on the Accountability project over at The Huffington Post.

  So SEIU will step up to the plate to with serious resources that does two things. First, it finally gives politicians whose hearts are with us a reason to vote with us. Second, it tells politicians who don't agree with a progressive agenda (of reducing corporate power over our lives and restoring democracy to the people) that their time is past, that we will run candidates against them in the primaries and these candidates will have strong support.

  While this is election activity, it begins to put an enforcement component onto our progressive movement's policy agenda.

• Also, Tim Tagaris is down here as well, doing some net outreach on behalf of SEIU. He's posting over at Open Left.

  All told, SEIU spent over $1 million dollars in an "unprecedented effort" to help elect Donna Edwards in Maryland's 4th Congressional District earlier this year.

  And as part of the "Justice for All" platform at SEIU's Convention -- you'll be seeing more primaries like this fought in the coming months and years. [...]

  The goal is not simply to run primaries and win, but to elect representatives who will work and vote for universal health care, freedom to form a union without employer interference, economic fairness, an end to the war, and more.

  Donna Edwards will be speaking in front of the convention tomorrow. Come back here for a livestream and some liveblogging of her speech.

• Now even with all this talk of "justice for all" and accountability, it's not all roses and butterflies. There's a deep-rooted conflict that's playing out here between the SEIU International and the United Healthcare Workers West local based in California. This is worth a far more extensive post than a bullet point in a round-up, which I intend to write tomorrow, but I recommend reading this NY Times article for an intro to the conflict:

  [SEIU President Andy] Stern...is facing considerable internal criticism that he is seeking to increase the union's size and the leadership's power at the expense of rank-and-file members.

  "He's taking things in a bad direction because he's taking steps without involving any workers," said Sal Rosselli, president of United Healthcare Workers West, which represents 140,000 S.E.I.U. members in California.

  Mr. Stern insists that the changes will help rank-and-file workers and are vital not just to make his union stronger, but also to transform the nation's politics and policies. [...]

  Mr. Stern says it is important to push to unionize millions of workers both to lift wages and benefits for nonunion workers and to prevent union members' wages and benefits from being pulled down.

  This Nation article is a more in depth look at it:

  At the heart of Stern's vision is a drive toward growth, to organize the "90 percent of workers without a union." Without growth, he argues, any union gains are built on sand--"a higher compensation island in a growing nonunion sea." This singular focus is rooted in a realization that, given the long slide in union ranks since the 1950s, the labor movement must build a critical mass of members ("density") in key industries in order to wield power against ever larger and bolder multinational employers.

  On the other hand:

  In what Stern sees as a classic example of "Just Us" unionism, Rosselli worked out a deal with better terms for his members that only covered Tenet's California facilities. But Rosselli is vehement that he was serving national goals: his members accepted healthcare givebacks in order to win the right to criticize Tenet publicly and throw up solidarity pickets--exactly the tools needed to aid SEIU's organizing drives in Florida and beyond. Good contracts now, Rosselli wrote in a letter to Stern, "are the best examples we can use to organize the unorganized." SEIU, he says, has lost sight of that.

  For more on UHW-W's side of the story, check out SEIUVoice.org.

  You can find SEIU International online over at SEIU2008.org.

Watertiger NYC from Fire Dog Lake is here too, will have a link to her piece tomorrow.