Readers may have missed an Olympic event that ended
with a withering smackdown of Andy Stern,
SEIU's President Emeritus.
Here's what happened.
It turns out that SEIU’s Andy Stern is pursuing yet another
opportunity to undermine workers in exchange for wads of cash from big
business. Last month, Stern “joined a gang of incredibly wealthy CEOs” to push
a plan that would cut social security and Medicare benefits for the elderly,
according to the Center
for Economic and Policy Research.
The gang of millionaire CEOs -- operating under the name of
“Campaign to Fix the Debt” -- plans to raise more than a quarter-billion
dollars from giant corporations and then launch an advertising blitz to
convince the U.S. public to accept cuts to their health and retirement benefits.
(Sound familiar, SEIU-UHW members?)
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| SEIU's Andy Stern |
Who’s leading the effort? A bunch of gold-plated CEOs from
JP Morgan, Caesars, Aetna, Honeywell, R.R. Donnelley & Sons, Invesco, etc…
and, of course, SEIU’s Andy Stern. In addition, “The Campaign will work closely
with its CEO Fiscal Leadership Council,
which is made up of nearly 100 CEOs and business leaders…,” according to the
Campaign’s website.
Last month, the Campaign held its official “launch” at a
press conference in Washington, D.C. According to the Washington
Post,
Later that
evening, at Honeywell’s Washington office, over a salmon dinner with the
floodlit Capitol dome as a backdrop, the executives huddled with their
political co-conspirators: Simpson and Bowles, Warner and Saxby, and Rep. Steny
Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat in the House. Also on board: Simpson-Bowles
commissioners Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, and Andy Stern,
former president of the Service Employees International Union.
Matt Stoller, a political analyst and fellow at the Roosevelt Institute,
wrote about the effort and offered this insight about Stern:
Back when he
was trying to woo bloggers in the mid-2000s, Stern invited me on a trip around
the country to see the union. On that trip, he told me that SEIU was growing so
quickly he wished he could cash out and take it public. Since retiring from
SEIU, Stern is now on the board of a bio-weapons company and his political
connections are what he sells. So he’s one of the links between shutting down
liberal opposition to this plan, the White House, and the business community.
That level of self-serving cynicism has become the basis of our political
system, and it’s an important cultural element in delivering austerity to a
public that doesn’t want it.
Apparently, Andy couldn’t “cash out” by converting SEIU into
a Fortune 500 company, so he’s now “cashing out” by simply pimping for every giant corporation under the sun.
And just in case Stern’s partnership with the
entitlement-slashing gang of CEOs wasn’t bad enough, in late July Stern
announced he had joined the Board of Directors of a group that’s working to undercut
teachers unions. Here’s just one piece attacking SEIU’s President Emeritus for this
move:
But WHY did Andy Stern have to join the Broad Foundation, an organization so antithetical to education
workers' interests? He could have turned it down. By signing up he gives the
impression that organized labor is fine with collaborating with a foundation
that drives the education de-form or stand-on-children abuse of school policy,
teachers and children…
But why couldn't Stern practice some labor solidarity and
keep more than a 10 foot pole's distance from the noxious company of the Broad
Foundation?
As readers can imagine, Stern’s recent actions have garnered substantial
journalistic interest, including a
piece published by “In These Times.” It begins this way:
Former Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
President Andy Stern has long faced criticism from dissidents within his own
union that he sold out workers in order to accommodate corporate America. His
critics say they have been proven right by Stern's career moves since he left
SEIU in 2010. In particular, they point to Stern taking two positions
associated with a private equity titan as well as joining the board of an
organization that is alleged to have trained school superintendents to combat
teachers' unions.
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| Ron Perelman |
The article goes on to describe Stern’s revolving-door
relationship with one of the world’s richest men, Ron Perelman. As president of SEIU, Stern negotiated a sweetheart
deal with Perelman that sold out 10,000 low-wage security guards employed by
Perelman. Weeks after Stern retired from SEIU, Perelman placed Stern on the
board of directors of one of his companies (SIGA
Technologies), where Stern pocketed 35,000 stock options.
And now… our Olympic moment!
As Andy dined on salmon in Honeywell’s corporate offices and
gazed admiringly at his three-piece suit and shiny gold watch, a truth-telling
labor leader fired a shot that hit Stern precisely in the solar plexus. Here’s
the game-winning blow as published by “In
These Times:”
“I think it’s
again the latest indication that [Stern’s] true interest is in being a junior
member of the corporate ruling class,” says John Borsos, secretary-treasurer of the National Union of
Healthcare Workers (NUHW), which split off from SEIU over deals Stern cut with
hospitals that its members considered to be too generous to employers. “I think
he always had that propensity. He always wanted to be a mover and shaker in
corporate America, which is why he was such an accommodationist. Now he is
showing what his true intentions were. He ran the union to accommodate
corporate America and now he is cashing in.”
The article concludes with this final quote from Borsos,
which sent Stern sprawling to the mat… and Borsos to the medal stand:
“I am not sure anyone trusts
the Ron Perelman Professor of Business to advocate the union agenda. I wouldn't
even call him a labor leader at this point because no one views him as a labor
leader except big business.”
