Anna Burger

The War of the SEIU Succession Is Over, or Is It?

by Ivan Osorio on April 26, 2010

in Economy, Labor

The battle over who would succeed outgoing Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Andrew Stern (picture above, next to President Obama) appears to be over, as several key locals lined up to support challenger Mary Kay Henry against Stern’s handpicked successor, Anna Burger, who served as Secretary-Treasurer during Stern’s presidency. The story got largely buried because it broke at the start of a weekend, but Liberty Chick, at Biggovernment.com, has some useful background on Henry.

Mary Kay Henry’s history with SEIU began in 1979, as she rose through the ranks and became a leader and chief healthcare strategist, then was elected to the International Executive Board in 1996.  Today, Henry serves as International Executive Vice President of SEIU, a step beneath Anna Burger.  Henry’s efforts have been very focused in the health care sector and on building labor coalitions and partnerships with hospitals and health care facilities.  That said, we can probably expect to see SEIU’s stronghold on this sector continue to grow stronger.

In addition to her posts at SEIU, Mary Kay Henry has also been a labor adviser to and member of the Subcommittee on Catholic Health Care of the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops, an organization that in itself has become a major political force, having brokered deals with the likes of Nancy Pelosifor crucial votes in the eleventh hour of major bills, most notably on health care reform.  Additionally, she is a member of the executive board of Families USA, a left-leaning non-profit group that serves as a think-tank for most of SEIU’s and other progressive organizations’ research and reports to support universal health care.

In other words, we should expect a change in style — mainly in not antagonizing other labor leaders as much as the Stern-Burger duo did — rather than substance.

For more on Stern and SEIU, see here, here, and here.

UPDATE: Outgoing SEIU boss Andy Stern isn’t giving up the fight for Anna Burger to replace him; he said today that the selection of his successor is not over. However, the Huffington Post reports that, “Aides at SEIU didn’t dispute that Henry, owing to support of local affiliates in New York, Los Angeles, Oregon, and Washington State finds herself in a strong position to take over for Stern.”

Stern Jumps off Sinking Pension Ship

by Ivan Osorio on April 13, 2010 · 1 comment

in Economy, Employment, Labor

Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Andrew Stern plans to retire as head of the union that he helped to transform into the most powerful in America. Considering the access he enjoys to the Obama administration — he was the most frequent visitor to the White House last year — the timing of his departure seems odd.

While it could be seen as a case of knowing when to quit so as to go out on top, or of riding into the sunset following SEIU’s huge victory in helping ram Obamacare through Congress, there may be another, much less triumphant reason for Stern to quit now.

He may be getting off the Titanic that is SEIU before it runs headlong into the proverbial iceberg in the form of severely underfunded pensions. As Diana Furchtgott-Roth of the Hudson Institute notes in a 2009 study that compares union-sponsored vs. private pension funds:

On July 11, 2008, in response to an article published in the July 9 edition of the New York Sun by Diana Furchtgott-Roth on the state of union pensions, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) issued a blistering press release. The article stated “Yet in 2006, the SEIU National Industry Pension Plan, a plan for the rank-and-file members, covering 100,787 workers, was 75% funded. That is, it had three-fourths of the money it needed to pay benefit obligations of workers and retirees. In contrast, a separate fund for the union’s own employees, numbering 1,305, participants was 91% funded. Even better, the pension fund for SEIU officers and employees, which had 6,595 members, was 103% funded.”

The SEIU lambasted the article and claimed that the SEIU National Industry Pension Fund had achieved high funding levels, 92 percent in 2006, and 96 percent in 2008. Now, perhaps the union’s internal calculations showed the SEIU pension plan was in good shape, but in 2009, the SEIU National Pension Fund reported to the DOL that it was in critical status—a sign of serious funding deficiencies that suggests the SEIU’s arguments were ignorant at best, and disingenuous or worse if they were aware of these problems22.

In addition, three of SEIU’s pension funds were in endangered status as of 2008, and this year the 1199 Pension Fund declared critical status.

The Local 32BJ District 36 Building Maintenance Pension and the Local 32BJ District 36 Building Operators Pensions cover together 7,000 people. And the SEIU 1199 Greater New York Pension covers another 29,000, or 36,000 in New York in all.

Whatever the reason for the disparity in funding between rank-and-file pensions and those of SEIU staff and officers, it doesn’t look good. With Stern gone, it’s somebody else’s problem now. That somebody else will most likely be SEIU Treasurer Anna Burger, who has long been considered Stern’s heir apparent, though, as Politico‘s Ben Smith reports, she may be challenged from within the union.

For more on union pensions, see here, here, and here.

For more on SEIU, see here, here, and here.

SEIU/CtW Deny Blagojevich Ties; “source” names Stern

by Ivan Osorio on December 9, 2008 · 1 comment

in Economy, Politics as Usual

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Change to Win (CtW) union coalition have each released statements denying involvement in the corruption scandal that led to the arrest of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich this morning.

However, it may be some time before more is known. SEIU, in its statement, says, “In keeping with the U.S. Attorney’s request, we are not sharing information with the media at this time.”

Meanwhile, the Politico‘s Ben Smith credits an unnamed “Democratic source” with confirming the identity of “SEIU official” mentioned in the case.

A Democratic source confirms that SEIU President Andy Stern is the “SEIU official” referred to in the federal complaint against Rod Blagojevich.

There’s no allegation that the SEIU official did anything wrong, and what appears to be a wiretap transcript has the official reacting non-commitally to Blagojevich’s offer of a quid pro quo. Another Democratic source tells me that Stern was been in Chicago November 3 meeting with Blagojevich, a discussion thought to have included talk about the Senate seat — though that meeting isn’t mentioned in the complaint.

An SEIU spokesman didn’t respond to a call or email seeking comment.

It’s too early to tell what, or where anything improper, took place. Still, the SEIU and CtW connections are worth watching as the case unfolds. (By the way, Change to Win and SEIU are inextricably tied. SEIU President Andy Stern created CtW when he led his union out of the AFL-CIO in 2005, and SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger is also CtW Chair.)