Will SEIU Socialism Survive Stern Stepdown?

Cross-posting from the KeyWiki blog where they're examining the implications of the announcement that SEIU boss Andy Stern is stepping down...

The shock stepdown by long time SEIU president Andy Stern has raised eyebrows across the US political spectrum.

While Stern has been the face of SEIU for years, it is unlikely that his resignation will affect the direction of America's most politically powerful labor union.

SEIU's positions on immigration reform, healthcare "reform", labor legislation, worker pensions and support for Obama and the Democratic Party usually reflect the policy's of the U.S.'s largest Marxist organization, Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) .

Stern himself trained at the DSA controlled Midwest Academy in Chicago.

Key senior positions in SEIU are held by leading DSA connected Marxists, all of whom are likely to stay on under any new leadership regime.

These include:

• Eliseo Medina, SEIU Executive Vice President and the union's lead activist on immigration reform. Medina has been involved with DSA since the mid 1970s and has been a Democratic Socialists of America honorary chair since 1974.
• Gerry Hudson , SEIU Executive Vice President since 2004. Head the union’s Long Term Care Division, representing nearly 500,000 nursing home and home care workers nationwide. Hudson has been a member of DSA, and its preceding organization, the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee since the 1970s.

• Bruce Raynor, SEIU Executive Vice President and since 2004, General President of UNITE HERE, an SEIU affiliated union representing 150,000 workers in the U.S., Puerto Rico and Canada. Raynor was active in the radical students for a Democratic Society at Cornell University in the late 1960s. In 2001 he served on a Boston DSA awards committee. In 1999 and 2004, Raynor presented awards at Chicago Democratic Socialists of America's annual dinner.
• Tom Woodruff, SEIU Executive Vice President and Director of the Change to Win labor federation's Strategic Organizing Center. Woodruff was a very active Students for a Democratic Society member in the 1960s. In September 2002 Democratic Socialists of America organized an event in Washington DC entitled “Confronting America’s Low-Wage Economy.” Featured speakers included DSA vice chair Frances Fox Piven, DSA member Lawrence Mishel, Executive Director of the Economic Policy Institute and Tom Woodruff of SEIU.

• George (Skip) Roberts, is SEIU Assistant Director of Government Affairs and adviser to the president. He is probably one of the union's most influential operators. Roberts has joined DSA delegations to Socialist International meetings in 2003 (Brazil) , 2004 (Spain) , and to greece 2006 (where he joined independent US delegate and now Obama "Global warming Czar" Carol Browner). Roberts also participated in the observer delegation from the Socialist International to the Mexican elections in early July 2006, which was led by DSA National Director Frank Llewellyn.

Further down the ladder, the pattern is the same:

• Debbie Schneider, SEIU Director, Global Organizing Partnerships, is a veteran of the DSA Feminist Commission.
• Howard Croft, SEIU Assistant Director Long Term Care Division, is a veteran of one of DSA's predecessors, the New American Movement and of DSA's "Racial Diversity Task Force".
• Steve Askin, Director of the SEIU's Center for Public Accountability, is also veteran of the New American American and is a financial supporter of DSA's Democratic Left magazine. Askin's Deputy director, Raahi Reddy has been active in both DSA and the Communist Party USA splinter group, Committees of Correspondence.

SEIU is not Andy Stern.

SEIU is a covert policy "transmission belt" from Democratic Socialists of America to the White House and the Democratic Party.

SEIU socialism will roll on, regardless of who next takes the reigns at America's most destructive labor cartel.