SEIU and Stern:
Key to Stern's characterization of himself as a new, different type of labor leader is his assertion that the SEIU is leaving behind the old class-struggle-style unionism pitting employees against bosses. In its place is a modern template where workers and employers seek to advance interests they hold in common.
(...) These documents suggest Stern's post-Cassie leadership of the SEIU shares little in common with Martin Luther King, and doesn't involve much real innovation. Instead, it's merely a re-hash of the sort of sweetheart company-union labor deals that have marred the reputation of trade unionism throughout history. It has involved trading away workers' free-speech rights, selling out their ability to improve working conditions, and relinquishing their capability to improve pay and benefits, in order to expand the SEIU's and Stern's own power.
(...) "There's a struggle going on at the SEIU, and the struggle is, what kind of unionism is being advanced? Are these agreements that lay the ground for voluntary recognition? Or are they in fact straightjackets?" said Bill Fletcher, a visiting professor at City University of New York, who formerly held the SEIU position of assistant to the president for the East and South.
(...) Stern "does things that are very provocative. Unless you dig into it, you say, hey, the guy is full of good ideas," says Fletcher, the former SEIU organizer who teaches at CUNY. "The fact is, workers and employers are going to clash. And they have contradictory interests. Andy obscures that question, and that helps explain the attraction he has for Fortune, for Business Week. "

on labor and global warming:
"Professionals working for the Environmental Protection Agency are protesting being ordered to sit on the sidelines while we face the greatest environmental challenge of our generation," he stated, noting that the petition began among agency staff. "Under a new Congress, perhaps the scientists at EPA can begin to directly communicate with their true employers - the American public."
(...) Early in 2007, the AFL-CIO weblog published an article headed "Exxon Mobil Secretly Funds Efforts to Deny Global Warming," by Managing Editor Tula Connell. It quotes a new study from the Union of Concerned Scientists revealing that Exxon "gave $16 million to 43 ideological groups between 1998 and 2005 in an effort to mislead the public by discrediting the science behind global warming."
(...) A new poll by Yale University Center for Environmental Law and Policy shows that 83 percent of Americans see global warming as a serious problem and some 70 percent think the government is not doing enough.
(...) [BUT] The union opposition to Kyoto reflects the tendency of the American labor movement to represent narrow sectoral interests, rather than the interests of workers as a whole. It was spearheaded by a coalition of unions called United for Jobs and the Environment. The UJAE describes itself as a "partnership" of unions. It lobbied, and continues to lobby, against the Kyoto agreement and against environmental legislation in the US that it considers unfavorable to labor. While its concern with the possible negative impact that measures to reduce greenhouse gasses might have on the employment of miners and other workers is entirely legitimate, it has made little effort to explore ways that a "just transition" might protect them.