http://www.counterpunch.org/early04162010.html
Stern spent scores of millions on all his internal and external fights, not to mention scores more on Dem candidates. Now the union is up to its ears in debt. Nice.
Early's conclusion:
> In light of all of the above, is it any wonder then that, as The
> Washington Post just reported, “SEIU membership growth has slowed --
> after growing by 300,000 workers from 2006 to 2009, it added only
> 50,000 workers last year, for a total of 1.86 million.” (In every
> press release, including the one announcing Stern’s retirement, SEIU
> turns that real number, as just reported by the U.S. Department of
> Labor, into “2.2 million.”) In addition, as Alec MacGillis of The
> Post wrote:
>
> “The union's finances are far more leveraged than those of most
> other unions -- it owes $121 million, while much of its $188
> million in assets include IOUs from strapped locals.”
>
> In all the tributes to Stern, the dollar figure that keeps getting
> repeated is the $85 million that his union spent electing Obama and
> other Democrats in 2008. Some reports even recall the $10 million
> SEIU set aside afterwards for a 35-state grassroots campaign (called
> “Change That Works”) designed to hold newly-elected officials
> accountable. The union spending that goes un-noted, for the most
> part, is the cost of labor’s civil wars, circa 2008-10. The total
> tab for progressive union mayhem, all SEIU-related, easily matches
> Stern’s much applauded expenditures on national politics during the
> same period. And that’s why The Washington Post headline, April 14,
> had it right when it called Stern’s record “a mixed legacy.” A
> financial day of reckoning is coming, but Andy won’t be around to
> settle up the bill.
>
Doug