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

Written by Matt Gertz

Published

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.”

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."