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Quick Fact: Beck smears SEIU's Stern as a communist because he said "workers of the world, unite"

November 16, 2009 6:43 pm ET — 27 Comments

Glenn Beck asked, "What are the goals of Andy Stern and SEIU?" then aired a clip of Stern stating on PBS's Bill Moyers Journal, "workers of the world, unite, it's not just a slogan anymore. It's the way we're going to have to do our work." Beck then commented that "workers of the world, unite" is "a really dicey kind of phrase there" because "it's the old communist slogan," adding: "Good thing there hasn't been a recent rash of communist radicals running around the White House, right? I mean, because then I'd really be concerned."

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From the November 16 edition of Fox News' Glenn Beck:

BECK: Let's refresh. What are the goals of Andy Stern and SEIU?

STERN (video clip): Workers of the world, unite, it's not just a slogan anymore. It's the way we're going to have to do our work.

BECK: "Workers of the world, unite." That's a really dicey kind of phrase there. You might have heard that before, because it's the old communist slogan. "Workers of the world, unite." Good thing there hasn't been a recent rash of communist radicals running around the White House, right? I mean, because then I'd really be concerned. Let's for a moment, give old Andy Stern the benefit of the doubt that he just went to the Anita Dunn school of comedy over and over and over again.

Fact: While discussing use of "workers of the world, unite" slogan, Stern said "the good news is communism's dead"

During the May 14, 2006, edition of CBS's 60 Minutes, reporter Lesley Stahl said to Stern: "You like to say, 'Workers of the world unite,' which sounds, it is Karl Marx. But that's your, that's your kind of slogan now." Stern replied: "Well, the good news is communism's dead," adding, "[b]ut the truth is, the phrase means a lot because all of a sudden workers in London and workers in the United States are working for the same employer and the same owners."

— M.G.
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    • Author by Bad News (November 16, 2009 6:51 pm ET)
      4 1
      "Workers of the World Unite"
      If Glenn Beck had worked just one day in a Coal Mine he would be Front & Center is this Fight.
      Glenn Beck & Bill O'Reilly going on Tour?
      Which one in Gilligan & Which one is The Skipper? Keith Olbermann needs to be Sure.

      Speak truth to power.


      Mr. News
      Report Abuse
      • Author by Bad News (November 16, 2009 6:55 pm ET)
          1
        Which one is Gilligan & Which one is the Skipper?

        Sorry about the mis-placed word.


        Mr. News
        Report Abuse
      • Author by oldmaninblackforest (November 16, 2009 9:30 pm ET)
          8
        I thought you morons hated coal... So just get 'em outta the mine. I'll bet none of you have ever seen a mine let alone go into one. pathetic....
        Working in a coal mine is PRO-CHOICE (unlike pro-abortion).

        Report Abuse
        • Author by The_Cat (November 16, 2009 10:41 pm ET)
          7 1
          Put your money down, oldmaninblackforest. I've been in a mine, I've worked as a day laborer in the fields. I've been homeless more than once, and one time while I continued to hold down a 40 hour a week job. I've protested a local fast-food store, because it had a bad habit of pouring bleach over the food it threw out at the end of the day so homeless people couldn't eat for free. Working is pro-choice. So is breathing. So is eating. Ain't no free lunch, but there sure are hard times enough to go around. I was just lucky enough to live through mine.
          Report Abuse
        • Author by rtejon (November 17, 2009 5:23 pm ET)
             
          I think someone here may have suffered too much mercury exposure in coal country.
          Report Abuse
    • Author by The_Cat (November 16, 2009 6:56 pm ET)
      3  
      Global corporatism will inevitably mean global unions as well. I think Mr. Stern is wise to see that far ahead, and realize that the need to globalize labor's collective bargaining power is where this is likely all headed.

      The forty hour week? Weekends off? Paid sick leave? Paid vacation? Family health benefits? Retirement planning and pension funds? All thanks to union members who struck and sometimes died for the principle that workers are just as deserving as executives, even if they had to stand up to state and federal government resistance as well as the head office.
      Report Abuse
      • Author by pilotx (November 16, 2009 7:49 pm ET)
        5  
        You don't need stinking 40 hour work weeks, work rules or even pay. Let the free market decide. Funny thing is conservatives actually believe this. I recently read the Texas GOP's 2008 platform and they are against minimum wage laws among other insane ideas. Wow.
        Report Abuse
        • Author by edrossinoelwein9669 (November 16, 2009 9:17 pm ET)
            8
          If you had any curiosity, you would know that minimum wage laws hurt the lowest echelons of wage-earners instead of helping them. But then, it makes liberals feel good, so it's worth it!
          Report Abuse
          • Author by pilotx (November 16, 2009 9:32 pm ET)
            7  
            So let me get this right since I have no curiosity. If corporations are allowed to pay employees any wage they desire it will assist the lowest echelons of wage-earners? I have a feeling that corporations would lower the pay rates and that would somehow be good for workers? Now you can argue that these corporation could actually increase the pay of its workers but can't they do that now? Please help out a non curious person.
            Report Abuse
          • Author by DellDolly (November 16, 2009 11:20 pm ET)
            5  
            That's a false talking point that was debunked long ago. Why are you so wedded to lies?
            Report Abuse
          • Author by The_Cat (November 17, 2009 9:21 am ET)
            1  
            Perhaps you're right, edrossinoelwein9669. Tell ya what, let's replace the minimum wage with the maximum wage. Set it at $1 million, and 100% tax on everything after that. Bet we could fund health care then!
            Report Abuse
          • Author by tinka (November 17, 2009 2:22 pm ET)
               
            Opponents of minimum wage increases have long believed that such policies have the disadvantage of reducing job opportunities, because employers will eliminate bottom-echelon jobs rather than pay more than those jobs are worth in terms of the additional output they produce. According to Mark D. Turner, Research Associate, The Urban Institute and Institute for Policy Studies, Johns Hopkins University, a majority of the evidence indicates that any negative effects of the minimum wage on employment opportunities are small and occur primarily among teens, a group of less concern in this policy area than are low-wage adults and at-risk groups such as women and minorities. Your text to link here...
            Report Abuse
      • Author by oldmaninblackforest (November 16, 2009 9:32 pm ET)
          9
        What a bunch of cr*p. Maybe unions HAD a place at one time but now all they do is suck the life out of the membership.... pathetic...
        Report Abuse
      • Author by oldmaninblackforest (November 16, 2009 9:32 pm ET)
          10
        What a bunch of cr*p. Maybe unions HAD a place at one time but now all they do is suck the life out of the membership.... pathetic...
        Report Abuse
        • Author by pilotx (November 16, 2009 9:38 pm ET)
          6  
          As a union member I have to disagree with your assessment. As a union we are actively engaged in many aspects of our working environment especially safety. We are a world-wide leader in safety related issues and there are numerous innovations due to our advocation. Our compensation and benefits are vastly better than they would have been without a union. Both of my parnets and many of my friends' parents were union members so we can thank them for helping our folks keep food on the table and clothes on our backs. Trust me, if the majority of us decided that the union didn't work to benefit us we would dissolve it but I don't see that happening anytime soon.
          Report Abuse
        • Author by aBeck in 10-O-C (November 17, 2009 12:49 am ET)
          5  
          Maybe unions HAD a place at one time
          Maybe? Oh man I just love to listen to the laissez-faire capitalist, free-markets experts. Not a one of them sound like they read any history, like for instance The Industrial Revolution. No, they read their Ayn Rand instead and now they are experts on the working class of the world and global economics. Do you think that Charles Dickens just invented the universe he wrote about, or do you get him mixed up with JR Tolkien? You do know that slavery, indentured servitude and child labor, were inventions of the free market, don't you?
          Come back after you have read some history and flushed some of the cr*p out of your head!
          Report Abuse
        • Author by pete592 (November 19, 2009 6:12 pm ET)
             
          Unions are the only thing that stand between your employer and mandatory 60-hour work weeks, no overtime pay, no vacation, no weekends off, no lunch breaks, no rest breaks, etc.
          Report Abuse
    • Author by HeeNow (November 16, 2009 8:24 pm ET)
      5  
      If you have a chance, try a white-water rafting trip in West Virginia on your next vacation. Listen to the guide during slack water as she tells you about the abandoned coal mines and rail beds as you drift by. Imagine the coal miner instantly indebted to the "company store" as soon as he was handed a pick and bucket. Imagine being paid in script that was only redeemable at the company store.

      Tennessee Ernie Ford had it right. You owed your soul.

      Only unions busted this racket. God bless 'em.

      Congratulations are in order for Glenn Beck. He now qualifies for a place on the JayWalk all-stars.
      Report Abuse
      • Author by egb (November 17, 2009 2:49 am ET)
        1 1
        And when you think of those miners in the late 1800's and early 1900's think of their parents living on 20 acres of mountainous rocky land that was and still is difficult to cultivate and their 15 children. Think of those children starving and when they became 12 or 15 they went to work in the coal mines. When looking at life in the early era of coal mining you have to look at the alternatives. Coal mines in the past were bad, but starving to death was worse. For almost all the employees who went to work in those mines, it was a step up the economic ladder. Unions helped improve things, but if you read their history, you'll find that unions in the early 1900's were as devious as today. [Read about John Mitchell and John L. Lewis] They worked and connived with government and corporations. Once people get power, they don't always use it for the best interests of their "customers".

        Today, unions have largely disappeared. Something like 9% of private industry is unionized. That's because they drive costs up and efficiency down. States with low unionization have high job creation rates (Texas) and high unionization states have low job creation rates (north east and northern autoworkers states).

        The only stronghold for unions today is government where efficiency is obviously unnecessary and job tenure is paramount. Why do you think our governments (almost all of them, local, state and federal) have such poor respect from citizens? Why do you think the fed can't do anything well and efficiently? No requirement to make a profit, no requirement to satisfy customers. Unions just piggyback on these shortcomings.
        Report Abuse
        • Author by aBeck in 10-O-C (November 17, 2009 2:55 pm ET)
             
          Once people get power, they don't always use it for the best interests of their "customers".


          Egb, you do make some good points that incorporate history and economic realities....the good, bad, and the ugly. The questions you pose in the last paragraph could foster some healthy debate. So I give you a thumbs up for your measured and thought provoking post.
          Report Abuse
        • Author by mikehuck1976 (November 18, 2009 1:26 pm ET)
             
          "Coal mines in the past were bad, but starving to death was worse." - egb

          OK. But, I think we can all agree that we do not want to go back to these times, right? And that unions got us out of those choices that should not have to be made. I mean I guess maybe if the free-market dictates you work in unsafe conditions or starve then so be it. Surely, we are advocating going back to that time.

          Also, I have respect for government employees. Perhaps, you shouldn't assume you speak for everyone else. They do good work. Also, the fed does many things well and efficiently. FDIC, FDA, Medicare, Medicaid, WIC, Food stamps, Post Office are all effective programs that are successful when funded properly. As a customer, I have always been satisfied with the service the post office has provided me.
          Report Abuse
    • Author by edrossinoelwein9669 (November 16, 2009 9:26 pm ET)
        7
      I wonder how the left would react to a right winger proposing a 'final solution' to the problem of illegal immigration?
      Stern doesn't think that 'communism is dead,' He knows better. Most of the communists stayed in school until they had a degree and could get a job in school - as a tenured professor.
      Communists in the US didn't change their political philosophy when the USSR fell, they just changed their tactics. Suddenly they were feminists, environmentalists and community organizers, Acorn-ites and Labor organizers. The political philosophy of Marx and Lenin is not dead, it's just incognito - posturing as Educational Reformists like Bill Ayers.
      Report Abuse
      • Author by pilotx (November 16, 2009 9:44 pm ET)
        4  
        Not exactly. Yes there are certain elements of socialism and Marxism in unions and leftist philosophies but there are certain benefits to such. For example, many community organizers use Marxist philosophy to propose a sense of unity and commonality. Personally I don't see this as a problem. Some of these philosophies gained traction due to the virulent strain of racism that permeated this country years ago. Because Communists saw all people as equals this became a popular movement among civil rights activists and those who wanted equal rights for all. Not too hard to understand.
        Report Abuse
      • Author by rtejon (November 17, 2009 5:32 pm ET)
           
        You really should educate yourself on the fundamental philosophical differences Lenin had with Marx and Engels. It was not trivial.
        Report Abuse
      • Author by mikehuck1976 (November 18, 2009 1:29 pm ET)
           
        The fact that you think Lenin and Marx are the same tells us exactly what we need to know, ed. You have done zero research of your own on these political philosophies. You take what is spoonfed to you by Fox and hate radio and swallow it as fact. Ironically, you are as good an example of the need for "educational reform" as I have ever seen.
        Report Abuse
    • Author by truepatriot (November 17, 2009 9:48 am ET)
        1
      So are you saying that Communism in America would be a good thing?
      Report Abuse
    • Author by terrapin53 (November 17, 2009 10:20 am ET)
      1  
      One of the biggest fears these wingnutz have is globalism. They cannot accept the fact that technology as is has brought us to a global economy. They cannot understand, or more likely do not want to admit, that we are no longer in the Leave it to Beaver days. I argue this with my brother all the time. I tell him when I can log onto the internet and chat with someone in Australia, or even Iran, Theodore Cleaver is no more. These guys just want to point to our founding fathers who did not know what was going in virginia if they wree in Massachusetts. Now we knwo what is going on everywhere and that is just unacceptable to some of these people. In Beck's case, he is just an idiot.
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