BusinessWeek Logo
Facetime September 16, 2009, 3:10PM EST

Union Leader Andy Stern on the Future of Big Labor

Maria Bartiromo talks to SEIU head Andy Stern about health-care reform, President Obama, and a labor movement in need of change

http://images.businessweek.com/mz/09/39/600/0939_11face.jpg

Jeff Hutchens/Reportage by Getty Images

By Maria Bartiromo

null

Trumka, the new head of the AFL-CIO, as he was being nominated in Pittsburgh Scott Goldsmith/Aurora

The AFL-CIO is expected to elect Rich Trumka as the new leader of the federation today, succeeding longtime President John Sweeney. Trumka would be heading a much larger organization if Andy Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union, had not taken his union (now 2.1 million strong) out of the AFL-CIO four years ago. Stern, who once was a student at the Wharton School, was an early critic of banking industry practices and the private equity juggernaut. He is passionate about health reform (about 1 million members of the SEIU are health-care workers), and he is a staunch supporter of President Barack Obama. The SEIU, according to The Wall Street Journal, was also a generous backer of the voter registration group Acorn (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), which is at the center of a scandal that just erupted.

MARIA BARTIROMO

Could the election of Trumka lead to a re-merger between the SEIU and the AFL-CIO? Should business be worried?

ANDREW L. STERN

The good news is that the AFL-CIO and all the unions have been pretty united when it comes to health care and free choice [eliminating the secret ballot in union elections].

Didn't taking your union out of the federation four years ago diminish the power of Big Labor?

No. I think it's allowed a healthy discussion about whether unions really want to be lapdogs of a political party or watchdogs for the interests of the members and their families. If we can all come back together with a new plan, that would be very exciting.

What led to the bad blood between you and the AFL-CIO? At one point, you were one of Sweeney's top lieutenants.

American workers were losing their health care, their jobs, their long-term security. The rich were getting richer. And we were not willing to change in spite of all that American workers were confronting. So when you're walking down a road and you know where it ends, the wise thing to do is walk in a different direction where there's hope. Rich Trumka has a real opportunity here to work together to [fix] what I think we all now acknowledge is a labor movement that needs to change.

Are you disappointed with the attention President Obama has given to issues of importance to labor?

Between the economy, wars, and the lack of hope, no one has been left in such a deep hole at the beginning of their Presidency. Getting out of it is going to take time. So we're just going to have to be patient, collaborative, thoughtful, and do what has worked well in health care, which is build coalitions with employers and organizations that normally haven't worked together. With health care we've demonstrated, by working with the Business Roundtable, the Federation of Independent Business, Intel, and Wal-Mart, that there are certain issues that are not Democratic or Republican issues—they're American issues.

Reader Discussion

 

BW Mall - Sponsored Links