[lbo-talk] Stern leaves behind a weakened SEIU

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Fri May 14 12:29:17 PDT 2010


On May 14, 2010, at 3:06 PM, Joseph Catron wrote:


> As usual, Doug, your "creative" headline editing left out the part
> where
> SEIU's membership doubled under Stern's watch. That's kind of
> important, no?

To what end? How much has that doubling benefited the membership, or changed politics in the U.S.? What has all that growth done for the working class? And with all that growth, how'd he end up leaving the union deeply in debt and massively discredited among a lot of people who follow these things?


> But don't let me stop you from getting in your last kicks; soon you
> might
> even have to learn the names of some new labor leaders. (Might I
> recommend
> going so far as to familiarize yourself with some outside of SEIU?
> The labor
> movement doesn't begin and end with Big Purple, you know.)

Yeah, I knew that. But it wasn't all that long ago that Andy was the great hope for labor. Now he's left in disgrace. A lot of former loyalists have turned on him - I know at least several of them personally.


> I'd be very interested to learn the source of your peculiar
> obsession with
> this guy. Did he once lead a Yale SDS raiding party that stole the
> Party of
> the Right's pet eagle, or what?

Ha ha. Funny. I did wash dishes in the Yale union local that John Wilhelm led. Andy started a war with him. Maybe there is something to the old college tie.

Doug



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