SEIU's Andy Stern: Going Global
Aren't private-equity groups helping the economy by rescuing failing companies?
These companies are not in trouble. Now private equity is taking companies that are perfectly healthy and they're loading them up with debt. Under our tax laws, all this debt is tax-deductible. Private equity could adopt an attitude about work, employees, and profit sharing that is actually healthy and helpful. Or they could be another bust in the economy, which requires, like we saw in Enron, workers losing pension fund money and the government being forced to step in and bail them out.
So how do can unions change that?
We want workers to share in success. It happens by having unions. That's what we're seeing in the Chrysler deal. Workers have a seat at the table. We're trying to get into the discussion to have some of the benefits of these purchases go to the benefit of workers and the community.
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