Wednesday, December 9, 2009

The Union Pot Calls the Korporatist Kettle Black

Over at HuffPo, SEIU president Andy Stern is calling for Goldman Sachs "to come clean." This, keep in mind, is the same Andy Stern who is on public record visiting President Obama at the White House more times than anyone else in the entire #$%&ng world.

In Stern's column, he mentions that "Last month, hundreds of ordinary Americans gathered outside Goldman's Washington, D.C. headquarters to demand the firm clean up its act." "Hundreds" is a bit of a stretch and it wasn't "ordinary" Americans. It was ONLY SEIU members and members of George Goehl's National People's Action Network. I know. I was there. In fact, the only "ordinary" American protester there, who happened to be decked in anti-Obama wear, was shooed away from camera sight lines by NPAN operatives.

But, getting back to coming clean. When I asked Stern at the protest what he and President Obama talk about, he suddenly got "busy" and couldn't talk to me anymore. So Andy, I see that your busy schedule has died down enough that you can write poetic about Goldman for HuffPo, maybe you can also set an example for Goldman about coming clean and write a piece with a headline something like this, Coming Clean: What Me and the President Talk About on All Those Visits to the White House.

3 comments:

  1. Andy Stern said employer health insurance was dying in 2006.

    "We have to recognize that employer-based heath care is ending. It's dying. It will not return," he said at a forum sponsored by the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

    Did his 22 visits to the White House include strategies to make unions the new group purchaser for worker plans?

    America will have the same number with employer coverage in 2019 that it had in 1999, roughly 168 million. Only 2019's population will be 110 million higher. Employers are cutting back, unions want to fill the void:

    http://stateofthedivision.blogspot.com/2009/12/rop-van-winkle-employer-sponsored.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. In Stern's column, he mentions that "Last month, hundreds of ordinary Americans gathered outside Goldman's Washington, D.C. headquarters to demand the firm clean up its act." "Hundreds" is a bit of a stretch and it wasn't "ordinary" Americans. It was ONLY SEIU members and members of George Goehl's National People's Action Network. I know. I was there. In fact, the only "ordinary" American protester there, who happened to be decked in anti-Obama wear, was shooed away from camera sight lines by NPAN operatives.

    I can only conclude that one of the following is true:

    (a) You do not protest Goldman Sachs' actions.

    (b) You are a member of SEIU.

    (c) You were the guy decked in anti-Obama wear.

    ReplyDelete
  3. When I cover a function as a reporter, I do not participate as an activist of the fuction.

    ReplyDelete