Andy Baby has got to really wondering why he wrote this stupid book anyway. It's causing him quite the problem, and the only time someone sees it is stacked in a pile in the dusty corner of a local union office.In yet another breaking article, the LA Times (led by Tasty's favorite investigative reporter, Paul Pringle) reveals that federal investigators are questioning people about a controversial 2006 book deal that allowed Andy Stern to personally pocket $175,000 in "advance" payments from the book's publisher even though SEIU officials spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of SEIU dues money to research, write, publicize and even purchase "A Country that Works."
The investigation comes as a kind of vindication for many people. Back in 2006, UHW's former leaders opposed Stern's book deal because they called it unethical, which reportedly was one of the reasons why Stern launched his aggressive attack against UHW.
If you wanna get more details on the book deal, check out this 2006 memo from Anna Burger. It includes descriptions of SEIU's plan to spend $80,000 to hire "PR Solutions" and "EchoDitto" to create a website called "http://www.acountrythatworks.com/" and do "blogosphere promotion" of Stern's book. SEIU officials also assembled a team of SEIU staff including Steve Trossman, TJ Michaels, Gina Glantz, and Bandele McQueen to do communications work and "help in planning the book events, book arrangements, press contacts and publicity." Burger's memo also notes: "A current employee on the Union's staff may accompany President Stern on occasion." (I guess Andy needed someone to carry around all of the books that he couldn't sell--a most pathetic assignment for some chump).
The LA Times makes special mention of SEIU Special Agent Don Stillman. Don, who is married to SEIU's top attorney Judy Scott, has strangely enuf been super successful at winning multiple consulting gigs from SEIU that have paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars over recent years (Wouldn't you think this should raise a few red flags for the union's attorneys?? Whoops...).
Observers say that one of Don's high-paying gigs was to help Stern with the book, which earned Don special mention in the book's "Acknowledgments." In a more recent contracting gig, Don produced an SEIU "coffee table" book that got totally panned in this review. (That reminds Tasty of that super expensive, but super lame, SEIU movie that the Village Voice called "A Crappy Infomercial Partly Funded by Its Subject")
Anyway, Tasty digresses. Back to the LA Times. The unnamed SEIU researcher in the LA Times article is Eli Staub, who assembled the facts for Stern's book while on SEIU's payroll.
Finally, for those interested in Anna's memo about Andy's book, Tasty personally loves this line on page 6: "We believe the book can be a very effective communication tool to advance our seven strengths program." Not sure what "seven strengths" she's referring to? Well, whatever they were, these "seven strengths" appear to have been pushed far off the stage by SEIU's most recent "seven scandals:" Andy Stern, Annelle Grajeda, Alejandro Stephens, Tyrone Freeman, Rickman Jackson, Byron Hobbs and Sharon-Frances Moore.
