Beck: “I want to show you something from 2008. It's the head of the Service Employees International Union. What did he say while he was in Puerto Rico? Truth.”

From the November 17 broadcast of Fox News' Glenn Beck:

BECK: I've told you about the spending. Now, who's pushing this health care? We told you yesterday all about the purple people, SEIU. I want to show you something from 2008. It's the head of the Service Employees International Union. What did he say while he was in Puerto Rico? Truth. Watch this.

STERN [video clip]: I pledge we will, before the next convention, proudly join our Canadian brothers and sisters to be a nation that guarantees affordable health care for every man, woman, and child. Isn't it time? Isn't it time? Isn't it time we do that? I pledge -- I pledge we'll restore the American dream by passing the Employee Free Choice, and helping millions, millions of workers join our movement. Our pledge will begin to win quality services in our community and finally create a pathway to citizenship for all the hard-working immigrants in our country, all that we saw earlier today. They deserve something better from America than to hide in the shadows in our country.

BECK: You tell me, America. We've been talking about it's too expensive to do business here in America. How is government health care, union labor, and everything else, how is that going to help us? How is that going to help us? Oh, and what was he -- he was promising the health care, and then -- oh yeah, yeah -- restoring the American dream and giving it to illegal immigrants.

But the issues that Stern “pledge[d]” to address are publicly announced SEIU goals -- available on SEIU's website

SEIU website: “Now is the time, to guarantee everyone access to quality, affordable healthcare.” In the clip Beck played on his show, Andy Stern said in his speech at the 2008 SEIU Convention in Puerto Rico, “I pledge we will, before the next convention, proudly join our Canadian brothers and sisters to be a nation that guarantees affordable health care for every man, woman, and child.” Indeed, this echoes SEIU's position on health care, which includes the “principle” of “Quality Affordable Coverage for All.” From SEIU's website:

Principles for Health Care

If we're going to fix our economy, we must fix America's broken healthcare system -- we cannot afford to wait. Crushing healthcare costs have made it impossible to strengthen our economy, with families and businesses all struggling to make ends meet. Reforming healthcare means: keeping the healthcare you have, if you like it, seeing the doctor of your choice, increasing the quality of care while decreasing costs and eliminating waste, helping small businesses stay competitive, and reforming the insurance market so you will never face losing your coverage. Now is the time, to guarantee everyone access to quality, affordable healthcare.

SEIU website: “That's why we need the Employee Free Choice Act--a bill in Congress that would make it easier for workers to join together and bargain for wages that support a family and quality, affordable healthcare.” Also included in Beck's clip of Stern's 2008 speech, Stern said, “I pledge we'll restore the American dream by passing the Employee Free Choice, and helping millions, millions of workers join our movement.” Again, SEIU's position as provided on its website aligns with the stance Stern took in that speech:

When workers are free to choose to join a union, our economy can work for everyone again. That's why we need the Employee Free Choice Act--a bill in Congress that would make it easier for workers to join together and bargain for wages that support a family and quality, affordable healthcare.

This bill will make it easier for workers to unite on the job, imposing stiff penalties for corporations who fire or intimidate workers who try to form unions and giving workers a seat at the table so they can negotiate their contracts just like CEOs do.

[...]

It's time our economy worked for everyone again. It's time for the Employee Free Choice Act.

SEIU website: “Service Workers United is a campaign to help facilities management and food service workers form unions in order to ensure good jobs with healthcare and quality services for their communities.” During his 2008 speech featured on Beck's show, Stern also pledged “to win quality services in our community.” Similarly, SEIU's website discusses the Service Workers United campaign, "[a] joint project of SEIU and UNITE-HERE" that is intended “to help facilities management and food service workers form unions in order to ensure good jobs with healthcare and quality services for their communities.” From SEIU's website:

In recent years thousands of workers employed in institutional settings such as schools, colleges, universities, stadiums, corporate cafeterias, and convention centers have formed unions through SWU. Working together with students, parents, and local clergy, today more than 50,000 members of SEIU and UNITE-HERE employed in the outsourced services industry are becoming a leading voice for the quality services--including food safety, good nutrition, healthy buildings, and the responsible use of taxpayer money--that the public deserves.

SEIU website: “SEIU believes that any reform of the immigration laws must include the following elements ... [s]ome path to citizenship.” In his speech, Stern also pledged to “finally create a pathway to citizenship for all the hard working immigrants in our country.” Indeed, SEIU's website provides their “Principles for Comprehensive Immigration Reform,” which states in part that “any reform of the immigration laws must include ... [s]ome path to citizenship.” From SEIU's website:

SEIU believes that the only way to fully address our festering immigration problems is through comprehensive reform that fixes the interconnected flaws of our current broken system. The need for comprehensive reform is urgent, not just for immigrants, but for all of us. Until it is enacted, the absurdities of our current system will continue to drag our economy downward and claim an ever-growing list of victims, including: workers who suffer depressed wages and poor working conditions; families separated from their loved ones; and communities that are degraded by increasingly heavy handed--but ineffective--enforcement efforts.

[...]

To achieve this, SEIU believes that any reform of the immigration laws must include the following elements:

· Earned Legalization. A realistic and expeditious mechanism whereby the estimated 12 million undocumented persons currently living in the United States can get right with the law. We cannot realistically expect to deport 12 million people, even if that were desirable. Some path to citizenship is the only practical and humane solution. The programs under consideration in Congress that SEIU supports all require workers to pay a significant fine and back taxes, undergo a background check and go to the back of the line of others who are waiting to enter the country legally. SEIU also supports the DREAM Act--legalization of undocumented immigrants who have grown up in this country--as a component part or building block towards comprehensive reform.