-By Warner Todd Huston
We’ve been reporting that it looked like the Service Employees International Union was going to ignore past President Andy Stern’s pick of Anna Burger to be ushered in as his replacement and would instead pick Mary Kay Henry for its new president.
Well, that has come to pass. It is now official that Mary Kay Henry is the new SEIU president.
Henry announced that she intends to “restore relations with the American labor movement,” which would seem to be a shot over Andy Stern’s legacy seeing as how it was Stern that ruled the SEIU with an iron fist to the point that many smaller unions had broken off communication with him not to mention that a few groups had spilt from the SEIU in anger. These breakaway groups said that Stern was forcing a top-down model of control over them and taking all power from the locals and locating it back at the main office in Washington.
While Henry seems to be admitting that Stern had led the SEIU down a destructive path, it seems that those that spilt from the SEIU are not convinced she intends to reverse Stern’s megalomanic direction. Upon getting the official nod Henry immediately rejected any talks with the breakaway groups and this, they say, proves she has no intention of being a kinder and gentler SEIU chief.
“Mary Kay has a fundamental lack of respect for workers in deciding the course of their union and their contract,” said Tony Aidukas, an NUHW interim board member who works as a rehab specialist at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs.
They do not trust her a bit, apparently.
There is also another thing that we will have to watch to see what will happen. President Stern was a very, very frequent visitor at the White House and wielded considerable influence over President Obama. Will the SEIU’s new prez still have as much Washington power? I’d have to doubt it. Mere position does not automatically convey such power, after all. The person in that position has a whole lot to do with what power is amassed, to be sure.
So, with a new president in the big seat, we’ll have to see where the SEIU heads. But whatever the case, we must not assume that Mary Kay Henry will be any better for workers, our economy, or our government than any other union bigwig.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, TheRealityCheck.org, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, and the New Media Journal, among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. Warner is also the editor of the Cook County Page for RedCounty.com.
He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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