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During the past 20 years, the author has watch China move from being a developing country into an industrial superpower
Money Moves, 5/24: Chocomize Co-Founder Fabian Kaempfer talks with Bloomberg’s Deirdre Bolton about the business of customizing chocolate
The president's campaign has a new rule—no cell phones allowed
In honor of remote control inventor Eugene Polley, we recognize other influential but neglected inventors who have felt the sting of stolen glory
Forget Adderall. Traders now pop chia seeds to stay focused and energized
The Italian automaker and others are adding hybrid technology to elite cars
The storied bridge that links San Francisco and Marin County changed the face of California
Schools cultivate ties with startups before they're big successes
Dave McClure's traveling venture capital show scours the world for promising startups
Get Four
|  | JULY 28, 2004
A Union Chief's Bold New Tack [Page 2 of 2] Q: What's SEIU's relationship to the liberal activist 527 groups such as America Coming Together (ACT) or the Media Fund? Both have vowed to raise millions in uregulated dollars -- including union money -- to defeat President Bush (see BW Online, 7/28/04, "Why 527 Is the Dems' Lucky Number"). A: We have full-time workers that will be in 16 battleground states by September [for ACT]. We will be ACT's largest contributor. Q: How much are you spending, and where will the money go? A: We're going to spend about $65 million on the effort. We asked all our members to add a $20 special assessment this year. About half a million have done that. Our money comes from that assessment, voluntary contributions, and the regular dues-paying members. About $40 million will be spent on taking members off the job to go to battleground states, to house them, and pay for salary and health care. They'll spend full-time talking about issues, registering people to vote, and turning them out to vote. We'll spend another $20 million or so talking to our own members at their workplaces about the issues that are important to them, mailing and phone calls, and we'll spend the rest of the money giving to candidates. Q: Tell us a little more about your work inside the AFL-CIO. You've been trying to expand and rejuvenate the union, take it in a new direction? A: If you look at the union movement and you look at the Democratic Party...I think they're both in incredible need of reform. The labor movement is no longer organized in the way that our employers are organized, the way our economy is organized. We are localized, the economy is globalized. Q: So what are you doing? Expanding into new industries? Solidifying your hold? A: A majority of our employers, probably by the end of the next decade, will be foreign corporations. Our kids are being driven to school by bus drivers in the private sector that are owned by three multinational companies [Sodhexo, Aramark (RMK ), and Compass (CMPGY )], two of them based in the United Kingdom. We've been talking with other unions about creating the fist global union in the country. We also have launched the first open-source virtual union in America, called Purple Ocean. Q: What's an open-source union? A: It means anybody can join. You can join, our family members can join.... We want to make people members of our union and mobilize them into the campaigns that we do everyday. Q: In the past you've expressed dissatisfaction that the Democratic Party hasn't had a a full debate on economic issues? A: Hopefully, we're going to model the Republican Party, where a large group of ideas exists, and then there's a decision-making process. The Republicans have a much healthier, full-throttled debate about where they stand. The Democrats run from [an] issue because it's divisive, and I think we're hurt by that. People keep looking for the populist message, or whatever we call it, every year, because people are hungry for elected officials to talk about what might change their lives. In the absence of an economic message, we have had a candidate-driven model of politics. If John Kerry and John Edwards win the election, I think it would be great for the country, but it's not going to change people's lives unless we really have a discussion of what we stand for. And we're ready to fight for what we stand for.
 For more on the Democratic National Convention, see BusinessWeek Online's continuing coverage at www.businessweek.com/election2004.htm Edited by Douglas Harbrecht Get BusinessWeek directly on your desktop with our RSS feeds.  Add BusinessWeek news to your Web site with our headline feed. Click to buy an e-print or reprint of a BusinessWeek or BusinessWeek Online story or video. To subscribe online to BusinessWeek magazine, please click here. Learn more, go to the BusinessWeekOnline home page  | | |
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