Labor Leader Andy Stern To Chamber Of Commerce Chief: Debate Me. I Dare You.
In an unusual move, one of the country’s most powerful labor leaders, SEIU chief Andy Stern, has just issued a public challenge to Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue, daring the influential business leader to debate him publicly over the Employee Free Choice Act.
Stern threw down the gauntlet in an interview with me just now, upping the stakes in what is shaping up to be the biggest and nastiest legislative battle between business and labor that we’re likely to see this cycle. Employee Free Choice is labor’s top priority, while business groups are marshaling forces to defeat the measure at all costs.
“Why don’t we just have a public debate about the Employee Free Choice Act?” Stern asked in a phone interview moments ago. “If he feels as strongly as he does, he should be willing to have a public discussion so we can do this in the sunshine.”
Stern said he’d privately brought up the idea of a debate to Donohue himself several times during personal encounters, only to get the brush-off.
“He’s never said Yes, never said No,” Stern said, adding that the anti-Employee Free Choice forces were hiding behind “front groups” and should “come out of the shadows.”
Some in the labor movement concede that the business groups have been outworking the unions in the message wars over Employee Free Choice, partly because the well-funded anti-Employee Free Choice forces are outspending labor in TV ad war that both sides have been running as they ramp up for the coming legislative fight. Labor officials point out that the anti-Employee Free Choice powers have misrepresented the measure as undemocratic, and a public debate of this kind could draw media attention to labor’s position.
In some particularly tough talk, Stern taunted Dohonue for the losses suffered by Chamber-backed candidates in last year’s Senate races.
“They poured a fortune into defeating [Democratic Senators],” Stern said. “Maybe he’s decided he’s not the most influential person anymore.” Stern added that Donohue doesn’t want to publicly admit that “he’s completely anti-union and doesn’t think workers should have any power.”
Ouch. We’re seeking comment from the other side. More on this soon…
The homepage of this blog is here. Its RSS feed is here. And its Twitter feed is here.
Now that’s leadership, way to go Mr. Stern!
And we thought the stimulus debate was ugly. I’m going to have to avoid cable news for months now. Oy.
Greg,
This is pretty funny, considering that we’ve been trying to get the unions to debate us for months and month. Just check out our hompage http://www.unionfacts.com.
The unions have all refused, saying a debate would be a media stunt. Give me a break. We’ll take on Stern any day of the week! Heck, we’ll even offer to foot the bill for the room.
justin, what’s your number?
Andy (or Greg) call me: (202) 463-7106
Andy Stern clearly wants to debate the Chamber, and not astroturf groups like Union Facts.
If he did, he could open up by saying: Since my salary is a matter of public record (and frequently cited by Union Facts and the like), why don’t we start with the good folks at Union Facts telling us who pays their salaries, and how much they are?
Looking forward to it!
Hey Greg, if you’re gonna talk to these Bozos, ask who funds them. They hardly seem legit – and apparently have the same sort of deals with WalMart that the U.S. has with Pakistan.
From SourceWatch:
“The Center for Union Facts is a secretive front group for individuals and industries opposed to union activities. It is part of lobbyist Rick Berman’s family of front groups including the Employment Policies Institute. The domain name http://www.unionfacts.com was registered to Berman & Co. in May 2005.”
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_Union_Facts
“(Rick) Berman … currently works as a lobbyist for the food, alcoholic beverage and tobacco industries … Which sponsors many front groups that defend his corporate clients’ interests by attacking their critics, allowing his paying clients to remain out of public view.”
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rick_Berman
Gee, what is SEIU afraid of?
Sourcewatch’s summary of the group J. Justin Wilson works for:
Andy, I know quite a few people who would debate you, myself included.
Wow! I guess that Yale education isn’t good enough, eh, Andy?
J. Justin Wilso:
FWIW, from your website I see that you challenged href=”http://unionfacts.com/news.cfm?id=65″> challenged American Rights at Work to a debate, but not unions.
Didn’t Rick Berman work for the McCain campaign. Oh and now it is all coming together the GOP even before Reagan but especially with Reagan are hell bent on getting rid of unions altogether. So everyone in unison do exactly what the GOP does when reality and facts get in their way, hold a press conference and then blame the unions. Our country economic situation is horrible, well it is the unions fault! Our healthcare is insufficient, it is the unions fault, or those damned illegals! No wonder they elected a B-movie actor as the presidential hopeful back in 80’s, they love them some drama. Phil Gramm did not have it totally wrong when he said that “we are a nation of whiners,” what he really meant is that the GOP is a nation of whiners!
Why would a senior analysyt at the Center on Consumer Freedom like yourself want to debate the unions about this Justin?
Or is it in your role as an employee of Richard Berman’s company?
Or is it in your role as an employee of the Center on Union Facts?
http://www.bermanexposed.org
Debate your members in California Andy. We dare YOU!
Trusteed Workers In California Form Independent Union
As former UHW staff members, we’re writing to update you about the trusteeship of UHW as well as healthcare workers’ recent founding of a new union here in California.
First, a quick update: On January 27, President Andy Stern imposed a trusteeship on UHW, thereby removing UHW’s 100-member Executive Board, suspending its constitution, removing its officers, and appointing out-of-town trustees to run the union. An article from the Daily Labor Report offers more details and is especially interesting because it includes observations from labor analysts like Kate Bronfenbrenner of Cornell University and Nelson Lichtenstein of the University of California Santa Barbara. Their comments underscore what’s been widely understood about the effort to seize control of UHW – that there are no legitimate grounds for trusteeing UHW and that the trusteeship is simply a move by Stern to eliminate his political opponents inside SEIU. In the article, Bronfenbrenner points to the profound contradictions in Stern’s stated rationale for the trusteeship. A second observer calls Stern’s action “the height of absurdity.” A third calls the former UHW “a model union in many ways… a big, vibrant democratic local which has a policy disagreement with the international.”
On January 28, the day after the trusteeship, UHW’s 100-member Executive Board voted unanimously to form a new union independent of SEIU – the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW). Since then, tens of thousands of workers have flocked to the new union in an unprecedented exodus from SEIU. In just the first week after NUHW’s founding, a majority of the workers from more than 100 hospitals and nursing homes signed NLRB certification petitions requesting to leave SEIU so they can join NUHW. These petitions, which were filed with the NLRB, cover more than 25,000 workers and are the largest such filing in California’s history. Since then, petitions covering approximately 5,000 more workers have been filed. Workers accomplished this feat without the help of a single paid staff person. Currently, NUHW is an entirely volunteer organization that relies on thousands of dedicated rank-and-file leaders as well as more than 120 former UHW staff who quit their jobs and are volunteering to help build a democratic, member-led union.
The mass exodus of workers from SEIU is a totally predictable response to Stern’s actions. For months, UHW members pleaded with Stern to let them continue to govern their own union. More than 125,000 UHW members signed petitions telling Stern not to trustee their local. More than 8,000 protested at SEIU’s trusteeship hearings. Staffers assigned to the trusteeship team are now facing the predictable anger of UHW’s members. Members are refusing to let out-of-town organizers set foot in their facilities. International officials have had to hire off-duty cops to guard the offices that they forcibly seized from UHW members. SEIU officials hide behind office doors chained shut with heavy locks and guarded by gun-toting officers. For more reports about what’s happening inside the trusteeship, go to http://perezstern.blogspot.com (Today’s post includes a report from an SEIU staff person assigned to the trusteeship who quit her job.)
Meanwhile, SEIU officials have launched an aggressive campaign to stop workers from leaving SEIU. These SEIU leaders are working with some of California’s worst anti-union employers to threaten, suspend and even fire rank-and-file workers who circulate petitions to join NUHW. In the words of one UHW steward: “This is like a very bad marriage. We filed for a divorce. SEIU is like an abusive husband who’s trying to stop us from going.” Meanwhile, each day UHW members are filing more and more certification petitions and are insisting that SEIU officials respect their decision.
For more information, please go to http://www.nuhw.org.
The last time I checked the text of the Employee Free Choice bills the mechanism for card signing was not specified. As we all know, the devil is in the details. Is the intent of the framers of this act to let the NLRB determine how cards would be distributed, and how cards would be returned to a collection box? I favor anything that helps unions overcome professional union busters hired by management in today’s NLRB elections. But there should be some clear guarantees to make sure that employees are not intimidated by anybody. Without such guarantees, right wing anti-union people will say that the law does not protect the rights of employees.
So Andy, would the workers right to join the union of their choice extend
to workers in California ? Would they be able to check out of your “Hotel
California”? Would they be harrassed and threatend by their own union
if they didn’t subscribe to the gospel of Andy? Would they be forcibly
removed from THEIR union hall by people whose salery is paid by their
dues? Would they get to be actual members with a right to their own
minds {yes Andy, dues units actually come equipped with functioning
brains} I’m waiting anxiously for your answers. You can contact me in Andy’s roach motel in sunny California
signed
A Dues Unit