Andy Stern: Let's 'Share the Wealth'

[Omaha Steve]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122852244367484311.html

* DECEMBER 6, 2008

By MATTHEW KAMINSKI

Washington

"We just won an election. It's no secret." By "we," Andy Stern means "American workers." He also means Big Labor. Speaking on behalf of the fastest growing trade group in America, the Service Employees International Union -- and as one of labor's most powerful figures today -- Mr. Stern sets this simple bar for the Obama presidency: "I expect nothing less than what he said he was going to do, and we should hold him accountable."


Ismael Roldan

From his perspective -- atop SEIU's Washington headquarters, which offers an enviable view of the National Cathedral -- the first part is straightforward: "Massive investment" in a stimulus for the economy, the car industry, deficit-ridden states and infrastructure. Then universal health care, an issue on which the SEIU boss helped push the Democratic consensus leftward, and "tax cuts for the middle class" (and hikes for the upper bracketed). At the end of his list, Mr. Stern puts something particularly dear to unions: Quick adoption of the Employee Free Choice Act, commonly known as "card check," which would end secret ballots in union elections.

The bit about accountability is no idle warning. Organized labor put up some $450 million to get Democrats elected. The SEIU accounted for $85 million of that, making Mr. Stern's union the single biggest contributor to either party in this election cycle. And just in case, the SEIU set aside an additional $10 million fund to get people unelected if need be. "We would like to make sure people appreciate that we take them at their word and when they don't live up to their word there should be consequences," he says.

Wearing an open-necked purple shirt, the color adopted for the SEIU's rebranding, Mr. Stern makes his threat with a genial smile. He's in an ebullient mood these days, after all, and plainly not a labor boss out of central casting. Trim and 58, with no blue collar bona fides to speak of, Mr. Stern started at Wharton before switching majors -- 1968, he says, was no year to be a business student -- at the University of Pennsylvania to education and urban planning. He became a welfare case officer out of school and worked his way up the union hierarchy, becoming at 46 the youngest SEIU president in history.

Mr. Stern feels at ease with CEOs and in the media limelight. His sentences come seasoned with business phrases like "market share" and "our customers" alongside well-crafted ideological sound bites. As in: "This election was the end of the line for 25 years of market worshipping, deregulating, trickle-down economics. It's over. It didn't work. Greed kind of ruled the roost and we've taken the greatest economy on earth and have it staggering."

Admire or despise him -- and many union bosses fall into the latter category -- Mr. Stern is undeniably sharp, innovative and successful. In his 12 years atop the SEIU, membership more than doubled, to two million, as other unions stagnated. He has used his growing stable of janitors, nurses and office workers to wield political influence and challenge the old labor consensus. In 2005, he took the SEIU out of the AFL-CIO, criticizing the latter's emphasis on political over grass-roots organization and the movement's inability to adapt to the realities of a 21st century, service-dominated and global economy.

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