Administration Keeping Cozy with Union Bosses

President Barack Obama has appointed Service Employees International
Union President Andrew Stern to a new commission tasked with coming up
with recommendations to help reduce the federal deficit. While
disappointing, this is not surprising. Stern’s appointment is merely the
culmination of a series of appointments by the Obama administration of
individuals closely associated with SEIU to
government posts.

These include Patrick Gaspard, a former vice president for politics
and legislation for SEIU Local 1199, a giant
New York health care workers union, who was named White House political
director following Obama’s election, and SEIU Treasurer
Anna Burger, who was named to Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.
Then there’s former SEIU associate general
counsel Craig Becker, whose nomination to the National Labor Relations
Board failed in a Senate cloture vote.

Stern himself, according to White House visitor logs released in
November, visited the White House at least 22 times in 2009, making him
the most frequent visitor during that time (the Alliance for Worker
Freedom has filed a request for an investigation of Stern for possible
lobbying disclosure violations, including during those visits).

This access hasn’t come easy. SEIU has
invested heavily in politics. In 2008, it was the seventh biggest
campaign donor, with nearly all of its contributions going to Democrats,
according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Stern told The Las
Vegas Sun in May 2009: “We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama—$60.7
million to be exact—and we’re proud of it.”

Coziness between the administration and a special interest aside,
asking the head of a union that organizes public-sector workers presents
a clear conflict of interest, especially now that union members in the
public sector outnumber their private-sector counterparts for the first
time ever. Would Stern be willing to reduce growth of the sector where
his union is most likely to find new members? More likely are calls for
higher taxes to fund more “public services” for SEIU
to unionize. That also shouldn’t be surprising. Today, government
employee unions constitute a permanent special interest lobby favoring
the growth of government, one that is motivated, organized and
well-funded.