Andy Stern
Andy Stern
Andrew L. "Andy" Stern, is the former president of the Service Employees International Union. Stern is currently a senior fellow at Columbia University. Stern supports federal legislation to create universal health care, expansion of union ranks via the Employee Free Choice Act, more regulations on business, profit sharing for employees and higher taxes...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusiness Executive
Date of Birth22 November 1950
CityWest Orange, NJ
CountryUnited States of America
American workers won't be able to compete fairly for jobs until companies have to pay higher wages in countries like China and India.
Unions have been the best anti-poverty program that actually worked and did not cost the government a dime. But as unions grow smaller- not stronger- our ability to act as an economic mechanism to distribute the gains of our work and raise all workers' wages and benefits up is disappearing.
Today I send this message to every emerging global corporation: "justice; family, community, and union" are the same in every language and, wherever you go and whatever you do, a new global labor movement is coming to find you.
I'll never run for office. But I intend, either on the fiscal commission or on issues like immigration, to hopefully have my voice be heard.
I would say the issue for the labor movement in the United States is not structural... there is no correlation between the success of workers and how the labor movement is structured.
In 1972, I signed a union card for SEIU. And for the last 38 years, 14 as president, it's been my life. I've seen the most miraculous, spectacular things. But there's a time to learn, a time to lead and a time to leave.
It has no enforceable standards to stop a union from conspiring with employers to keep another stronger union out or from negotiating contracts with lower pay and standards that members of another union have spent a lifetime establishing.
I was too much of a victim of the model I created. I tried Change to Win and helping Obama, and then I just ran out of Andy Stern ideas.
Unions should not be lapdogs to a political party, they should be watchdogs for their members interests.
The union movement has been the best middle class job creating program that America has ever had, and it doesn't cost the government a dime.
Employers need to recognize that the world has changed and there are people who would like to help them provide solution in ways that are new, modern and that add value to companies.
College is about three things: homework, fun, and sleep...but you can only choose two.
Every resident of Malibu should be horrified about the BHP Billiton oil and gas rig in the Gulf of Mexico that was lost during Hurricane Rita, ... Not only did the supposed foolproof precautions taken by BHP Billiton fail, but according to their own spokesperson, they do not even know why they failed.
When we strengthen our cooperation and help workers in the same industry unite, everybody wins,