SEIU’s Andy Stern:
The new face of labor?
It’s been a long time since an Ameri-
can union leader was a media regular.
But in the last two years, Andy Stern,
head of the 1.8 million strong Service
Employees International Union, has be-
come somewhat of a celebrity, making
the cover of “Business Week” and the
“New York Times Magazine,” profiled
in “Fortune,” and appearing on CBS’
“60 Minutes,” Comedy Central’s “Col-
bert Report” and WNBC’s “Wall Street
Journal Report.” Now he’s getting local
press as well, as he tours the country
promoting a new book, “A Country That
Works: Getting America Back on
Track.”
Within the union movement, Stern is
regarded either as the visionary who’s
leading the rebirth of American labor, or
the villain who caused labor’s biggest
split in 50 years — last year’s exodus of
five big unions from the AFL-CIO.
SEIU is concentrated in the public
sector, health care, and building serv-
ices, like janitors and security guards.
Since Stern was elected president 10
years ago, SEIU has grown by 800,000
members, four-fifths of that through new
organizing. Now SEIU has plans to try
to unionize the South.
In his book, Stern describes his rise
to power within the SEIU. He gives a
peek into the behind-the-scenes work-
ings of national Democratic Party poli-
tics, and he details the power struggles
within the AFL-CIO that led to the deci-
sion by SEIU and several other unions to
leave and form a new federation,
Change to Win.
Stern was in Portland Oct. 17 to meet
with SEIU members and talk about his
book at Powell’s Books, and answered
some questions from NW Labor Press
associate editor Don McIntosh about the
split, foreign trade, health care, and pol-
itics.
Labor Press: Some local affiliates of
other unions have stayed in local
AFL-CIO bodies. Is SEIU going to al-
low locals to continue to affiliate
through ‘solidarity charters’after this
year?
Andy Stern: We don’t know yet, we
don’t know if solidarity charters are
going to continue. So far we’ve let
every local make its own choice. I
think there’s a more fundamental ques-
tion, which is, ‘Why don’t we create a
new mostly-political local solidarity or-
ganization, with the NEA [the big
teachers union], Change to Win, the
AFL, the independent unions, and
maybe groups like America Votes and
ACORN. Because we need to create
the highest level of unity possible, and
it’s a rather limited debate what percent
of the 11 percent of American workers
who are unionized are going to be in a
certain group.
What’s the likelihood of SEIU or
other Change to Win unions return-
ing to the AFL-CIO?
Highly unlikely.
What do you think America ought to
do vis-a-vis China that would protect
working people in this country?
I don’t think you can build walls. I
think we need to recognize we live in a
global economy. That doesn’t mean
America can’t have a plan. We would
fire the negotiators of NAFTA and the
WTO if they were union leaders. We
would unelect them. Because they re-
ally didn’t protect America’s interests.
We protected patents and intellectual
property but we didn’t protect against
China manipulating its currency. I
think every country needs an economic
plan. Ours needs to start with the most
simple security issues. It’s outrageous
that we can’t fix American battleships
with American steel. And clearly there
are ways to hold countries accountable
to agreements they have signed.
but it’s a huge portion of the economy.
You’ve talked about taking service-
sector jobs that can’t be outsourced
and making them good jobs. But my
sense is that producing things is the
foundation of any kind of prosperity.
We can’t all be serving each other
lattes. Somebody’s got to grow the
beans and make the cups.
We have to reconceptualize what
making things is. I’m not sure if you
think Google is making things or not,
But it doesn’t employ hardly any-
body.
Yeah, but you can go on. I don’t
know if mapping the genome is mak-
ing something. It is much better for a
country to make things. It’s a much
more robust economy.
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NOVEMBER 3, 2006
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
How long before SEIU has Chinese
locals?
They won’t let us have SEIU locals.
Should America do business with
countries where the workers aren’t
free?
I think they’re going to anyway. But
I think we should ask ourselves some
questions about how free American
workers are, and not just on paper. It’s
a pretty depressing moment — now
we’re telling nurses they’re supervi-
sors. We’re telling security guards they
have no union. I’m not trying to make
any excuses for China, but I think we
should think about American workers’
ability to have a union. When the Wal
Mart workers say they want a union,
and corporate jets fly out of Ben-
tonville and surveillance cameras go
up, you’d say ‘This isn’t the country
we love.’” If the Employee Free
Choice Act [a union-backed labor law
change] passes, I would guarantee you
we could organize a million workers a
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