Andy Stern: Savior or Sellout?

When Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and Lee Scott, CEO of Wal-Mart, appeared onstage together in early May, the pairing drew attention. The occasion was a lunchtime meeting of Better Health Care Together, a coalition of business, labor and political leaders, at a Hilton hotel in New York City. Stern had initiated the coalition with a letter to all the Fortune 500 CEOs inviting them to work with him on a solution to the nation's healthcare crisis. He says he was surprised that Wal-Mart--and so many other companies--responded. "When I write letters to CEOs," he explains matter-of-factly, "I usually don't get a response."

Outside the Hilton, several hundred men and women wearing United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) T-shirts, some of whom had come all the way from Maine and Pennsylvania, picketed the event, objecting to the "hypocrisy" of Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott's appearance. Scott is accustomed to dodging protesters; his company has been engaged in a bitter public relations battle with the UFCW for years, with the union charging that Wal-Mart routinely violates the right to organize and offers stingy health benefits.

But the Wal-Mart boss wasn't the only target of righteous ire that day. The union activists were also upset about the presence of Andy Stern. "People feel he has sacrificed some of the basic principles of the labor movement" by appearing onstage with the Wal-Mart CEO, said Pat Purcell, an organizer of the Hilton picket. One of those principles is solidarity. "Our union is losing members every single day because of Wal-Mart," explains Purcell, director of special projects for UFCW Local 1500. "When we ask for help from other unions, we don't mean, You can have lunch with them but not dinner!" Though Purcell says he has "great respect" for Stern, he and other unionists feel that Stern enabled a public relations stunt by Wal-Mart, aimed at making the company look socially responsible.

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