SEIU's Andy Stern Commits Latest Chipocrisy

Andy Stern’s newest 'bromance' with a fatcat business exec offers readers another glimpse at the immense integrity that's become the hallmark of SEIU. Here’s the latest.

Ever heard of Chipotle Mexican Grill? That’s the chain of restaurants that fired nearly 700 immigrant Latino workers without notice… and in some cases without paying back wages.

Many groups -- including SEIU -- have protested Chipotle for this despicable act, using slogans like this one: “Chipotle Chipocrisy: Selling Mexican culture and then selling out Mexican workers.”

For example, SEIU has this on its website (click on image to enlarge it):

And here’s SEIU’s Secretary-Treasurer, Eliseo Medina, protesting in front of a Chipotle restaurant. 

Which of course makes it a tiny bit awkward now that Andy Stern is palling around with one of Chipotle’s current board members and its former top exec. 

In late March, Jeffrey Kindler was appointed to the board of directors of SIGA Technologies. Like Stern, Kindler quickly pocketed 25,000 stock options in the bio-warfare phamaceutical company. Kindler formerly served as the Executive Vice President of the McDonald’s Corporation, where he was directly in charge of Chipotle Mexican Grill for a number of years, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

That's not all. Kindler also served as the Chairman and CEO of Pfizer. In 2010, Pfizer boosted Kindler’s take-home pay to $15 million a year. Why?  Because Kindler successfully lobbied the U.S. government to give the pharmaceutical industry “a largely hands-off regulatory atmosphere in drug pricing.” That means the giant pharma industry was free to charge astronomical prices to patients and then pocket giant profits.

In addition, Pfizer rewarded Kindler for buying a company called Wyeth, and then laying of nearly 20,000 workers. What a guy!

In fact, Pfizer was so pleased with Kindler that it gave him 20 hours of “personal use” flight time in Pfizer’s

corporate jet and helicopter, in addition to his company-paid personal car and driver. Here’s a photo of the interior of Pfizer’s jet.

Now that they're both on SIGA's board of directors, Andy and Kindler will spend countless hours together in corporate board rooms as they plot the future of their stock options and the pharma corporation. 

Andy Stern -- one more principled SEIU official who's fighting on behalf of U.S. workers!