Three Questions For Life After Stern

Andy Stern’s announcement that he will be stepping down as head of the Service Employees International Union certainly came as a shock as Stern was undoubtedly in the best position of his life, at least politically. Stern was the most frequent visitor to a White House that has the most pro-labor administration since the 1960s. So while I am not going to speculate on what caused Stern to resign, here are a couple other questions that we will see play out in the near future:

Who will be the new president of SEIU?

In the piece yesterday we mentioned a few names including SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger. She is viewed as Stern’s heir-apparent and is the most obvious choice to replace him. Burger is/ was a close ally to Stern and in addition to her role with SEIU, she also served as the first chair of Change to Win when they broke off from the AFL-CIO. She is also a close ally to President Obama having served on the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. You have to imagine this would be a smooth transition.

Will Trumka be the new “punching bag?”

I saw this question posed at Politico yesterday. Andy Stern has certainly been a punching bag of sorts for opponents of the labor movement and their agenda. The AFL-CIO has a relatively new president, Richard Trumka, and he seems ready, willing, and able to be the mouthpiece of organized labor. Look for Trumka, who does not have a high-profile yet, to emerge as the new face of the movement making him a prime target.

Will Change to Win unite with AFL-CIO?

With Trumka replacing John Sweeney at the AFL-CIO and a new president on the horizon at SEIU, you can say there has been a changing of the guard and the cards look to be in place for the two sides to have a reunification. Change to Win, Stern’s break off coalition, has been getting smaller and never really challenged the supremacy of AFL-CIO. There are lots of talks about reunification being floated; the near future seems like the best time if that was going to happen.