Over the past few years, Andrew Stern has reshaped the Service Employee’s International Union into easily the most politically influential union in the country. However, he’s also made quite a few enemies in the union world along the way and has become something of a political lightening rod. Ben Smith has the details:
Service Employees International Union President Andrew Stern, one of America’s most prominent labor leaders, is set to resign, according to a member of the union’s board.
The President of an SEIU local based in Seattle, Diane Sosne, broke the news to her staffers at 11:35 this morning, local time.
“Last night I received confirmation that Andy Stern is resigning as President of SEIU. He has not yet made a public announcement; we will share the details as we become aware of them,” Sosne wrote in an email obtained by POLITICO.
Sosne offered no explanation for the move.
There will undoubtedly be a lot of fallout in the world of Big Labor over this, though the SEIU is hardly going away. SEIU treasurer Anna Burger will likely still be a fixture at the White House and Obama’s White house political director, Patrick Gaspard, is the SEIU’s former top lobbyist.
