Dec 10, 2008

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“I expect nothing less than what he said he was going to do, and we should hold him accountable.”

Those are the words of Andy Stern, president of the SEIU.  He’s referring, of course, to President-elect Barack Obama – a man who owes much of his newly found title to Stern and his compatriots.  In a Wall Street Journal profile over the weekend, Stern outlined his hopes for the new administration, and while the list is expected, the order is a little surprising.

“Massive investment” in a stimulus for the economy, the car industry, deficit-ridden states and infrastructure. Then universal health care, an issue on which the SEIU boss helped push the Democratic consensus leftward, and “tax cuts for the middle class” (and hikes for the upper bracketed). At the end of his list, Mr. Stern puts something particularly dear to unions: Quick adoption of the Employee Free Choice Act…

It is hard to imagine that EFCA is third among priorities for the President of the SEIU.  But with the economy spiralling downward, passage of the controversial bill – which looked like a complete lock in an Obama administration 6 months ago – is now relegated behind two initiatives that may be more easily accomplished.  

Stern is quick to point out that the time is ripe for massive healthcare reform.  While they may differ on the details, “Mr. Obama takes office at ‘an unusual Washington moment’ when business, labor and the politicians ‘see common ground’ on the president’s headline initiatives, health care above all.

Stern also addresses the status of the Employee Free Choice Act – the longsuffering bill championed by organized labor as a balancing of power during elections and early negotiations.  It is, apparently, the big issue among unions who see president-elect Obama’s theoretical shift to the center as a roadblock to its passage.  But Stern is confident, and while the article makes it seem like union-boss puffery, there is good reason to believe him when he says EFCA should be done in the first hundred days:

“You should do it early and I think it should be part of the basic second-tier economic package when we’re dealing with health care, energy and other ways that over the long term begin to solve America’s long-term economic problems.” Just how it will pass — in a single package, or a budget, or who knows — is hard to predict amid all the economic uncertainty, he says.

Why the confidence?  Regardless of his center leanings, there is truth to the notion that politicians cannot forget the people who got them where they are.  And for Obama, a lot of those people have union cards. Organized labor, and Stern’s SEIU in particular, was an Obama Campaign cash machine, and they know what that money’s worth:

[L]abor put up some $450 million to get Democrats elected. The SEIU accounted for $85 million of that, making Mr. Stern’s union the single biggest contributor to either party in this election cycle. And just in case, the SEIU set aside an additional $10 million fund to get people unelected if need be. “We would like to make sure people appreciate that we take them at their word and when they don’t live up to their word there should be consequences,” he says.

Now, read that headline again.