SEIU’s President Emeritus Andy Stern -- who’s always fancied
himself as a “maverick” -- has apparently 'broken new ground' by becoming the only
“labor leader” in history to be sponsored and funded by a
billionaire industrialist.
Readers may remember that just weeks after Stern
resigned as President of SEIU, he was
appointed to the board of directors of a pharmaceutical company (SIGA Technologies) that’s owned by
billionaire Ron Perelman. In his
first six months on the board, Stern pocketed 35,000 stock options and $116,094
in cash for attending board meetings.
Then, last month, Stern’s billionaire benefactor poured another
giant spoonful of gravy onto Stern’s gravy train. Perelman donated a wad of
money to Columbia University in New York City in order to create a custom-made job for Andy! Here’s how
Columbia University describes the newly established “Ronald O. Perelman Senior
Fellowship” at its business school:
And here's Andy's page in the Biz School directory, complete with Mr. Sugar Daddy's name:
So who’s Perelman?
He’s the 64th richest person in
the world. Perelman, who's a corporate raider and buy-out specialist, has amassed $12 billion in personal wealth by buying and flipping companies -- and their workers -- for a
profit. He’s been married five times, owns two personal jets and a 188-foot
yacht, and uses a Sikorsky S-76C helicopter to commute from his lavish compound
in Manhattan to his 57-acre weekend getaway in the East Hamptons. Oh, and don’t forget
about the $13 million estate in the Bahamas, which is located on a part of an island called “The Billionaire Boys Club.”
So how did Perelman become Andy’s Sugar Daddy? After all... everyone knows that a Sugar Daddy doesn’t hand out his sugar
for free.
Well, back in 2006, SEIU President
Andy Stern apparently cut a backroom deal with Perelman that allowed Perelman’s
security company -- AlliedBarton -- to
escape an SEIU organizing drive that was underway among 10,000 of Perelman’s
low-wage workers in Philadelphia. According to reports like this
and this,
Stern simply pulled the plug on SEIU’s organizing efforts after meeting with Perelman.
And presumably, SEIU’s
President Emeritus continues to “protect” Perelman’s companies from SEIU
organizing drives in exchange for Perelman's generous support of cold, hard cash.
Andy, of course, has been working extra hard to please his patron. No doubt that Perelman was super happy when Andy began
jumping in front of TV cameras with Fortune 500 CEOs to publicly pimp for giant tax breaks for U.S. billionaires -- as he did here
and here.
All and all, it’s quite a disgusting story. Corruption. Deceit. Backroom deals. Front-page payouts. A so-called "leader" of America's working class who's sucking off the teat of one of the richest people in the world.
