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Why Does SEIU’s Andy Stern Sound Like Rahm Emanuel?

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Rahm SEIU ColorsUpdate: SEIU contacted me to say that Andy would in no way be "happy" with triggers–he was asked a hypothetical question and answered it in this way. One of the SEIU’s three demands is a public health insurance option, and the union has been running one of the largest field campaigns in support of that. I’ve changed the post to more accurately represent Andy’s comments.

It’s bad enough that a guy who usually has just as much fight as Rahm is telling ABC that he’d be happy with triggers triggers are a better compromise than co-ops.

He signaled that a more acceptable compromise might be to create a public option whose creation is only triggered if certain circumstances are met.

"It’s obviously better than no public option," said Stern.

Triggers, of course, are Rahm’s favorite gimmick. And Andy-who-sounds-like Rahm must know that triggers mean people who need healthcare now won’t get it until two years beyond whenever this finally gets implemented–years and years down the road. So answer me this, Andy-who-sounds-like-Rahm? Do you really think delaying health care for millions is going to solve the problem you enunciate about winning in 2010?

"I think we’re talking losing control of Congress," said Andy Stern, the President of the Service Employees International Union. "[The failure of health-care reform] would totally empower Republicans to kill all change."

"It’s hard to imagine the Democrats convincing the public that Republicans are to blame for health-care reform going down when the Democrats have such large majorities," he added. "After last year’s promise of change, voters will start feeling buyer’s remorse."

You’re telling me people are not going to feel buyer’s remorse if the Democrats take that same large majority and tell them they can have health care, but only after their current, pre-existing condition either bankrupts or kills them?

"Oh, sure, we lost Dad when good healthcare could have saved him, but we still love the Democrats because Rahm asked so nicely for that two year delay in the guise of triggers and the rest of the Democrats gave it to him."

What surprises me is that Andy-who-sounds-like Rahm knows, in a way that I suspect Rahm doesn’t, how much misery that seemingly innocuous idea of triggers would unnecessarily cause a lot of people.

But I think I’ve discovered why Andy sounds so much like Rahm.

Stern is prepared to use SEIU resources to pressure recalcitrant Democrats in Congress if progress is not made by Sept. 15, the deadline which Senate Finance Committee negotiators have set for themselves.

For now, however, he is holding his fire against fellow Democrats since the president has signaled through his staff that he does not want Democrats shooting at one another.

"We call it: ‘helping the president be successful,’" said Stern with a smile.

Almost word-for-word the prettied up version of Rahm’s fuck-laden attack on the liberal groups "in the veal Read more →

Fire Ken Lewis for the $3 Billion in Merrill Lynch Bonuses

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I’ve been meaning to point to Andy Stern’s call to give Ken Lewis, CEO of Bank of America, the same treatment Obama gave Wagoner–the boot.

Both Rick Wagoner and Ken Lewis sunk large public companies — putting thousands out of work and toppling the American economy — while accepting billions in taxpayer bailouts. Yet only Wagoner got a pink slip. It’s time for Treasury Secretary Geithner to replace Ken Lewis as CEO and let real reform take hold at Bank of America.

And Change to Win’s petition calling to fire Lewis. 

But this tidbit–courtesy of Howie–will really make you want to oust Ken Lewis.

In its last days as an independent company, Merrill gave performance-based bonuses exclusively to employees earning $300,000 a year or more and holding a rank of vice president or higher, according to their financial statements. $3.62 billion was handed out to these executives – a sum equal to 36.2 percent of the $10 billion in taxpayer funds that were allocated to Merrill as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) before the bonuses were paid.

The company had been failing as a result of misadventures in the now infamous mortgaged-backed securities market which began crumbling with the decline of home values as the bubble burst.

The performance bonuses were determined by Merrill’s compensation committee on December 8, 2008, before Merrill revealed that it lost $15 billion in the final three months of 2008, unusual timing according to court documents filed by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo in an ongoing suit against Merrill’s former CEO.

In prior years, Merrill paid performance bonuses of this type after the end of the year, in January or February of the next year.

[snip]

The questionable timing and the amounts of these bonuses were not revealed to Bank of America shareholders when they voted to acquire Merrill. These facts raise questions about what government officials knew about the bonuses and when they knew it, according to Kucinich’s letter. 

$3.62 billion would keep all of GM in business for a month or two. Read more →

Blagojevich’s SEIU Contact NOT Andy Stern

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Not This Man

Not This Man

My NPR station reported earlier today that the SEIU contact that Blagojevich spoke with–referenced in the complaint–was not Andy Stern. NPR said it was Tom Balanoff, President of SEIU Local 1.

A senior advisor to the SEIU has confirmed to me that the contact in the complaint is not Stern, though he could not confirm that it was Balanoff.

The SEIU advisor also told me that SEIU proactively contacted Fitzgerald’s office. I guess that was the same conversation when, according to SEIU’s earlier statement, Fitz asked SEIU not to share any information at that time.

I guess all those nutters trying to take down Obama and Stern are going to have to work harder to make a mountain out of a molehill.