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SEIU officials: Stern to
resign<http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0410/SEIU_official_Stern_to_resign.html?showall#>

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 and another SEIU official.

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, but another SEIU official
speculated that Stern had finally tired of the draining job.

"Health care getting done is a good culmination," the official said.

Sosne isn't seen as a Stern loyalist or a central union player, but she's a
respected former nurse who sits on the international's board as president of
SEIU Local 1199NW, which represents nurses. She and her assistant didn't
respond to questions about the email. Stern's spokeswoman also didn't
immediately respond to a question about the email.

The SEIU has emerged as a central political player and has grown rapidly
under Stern's tenure, and some close to him had expected him to resign
during the first term of the president he helped elect, and after the
achievement he'd spent years focusing on, widening access to health care.
But he's also waged a series of bitter battles inside the labor movement,
one of the nastiest of which turned in SEIU's favor with a California court
ruling last week. Stern also won a victory when Obama named his union's
lawyer, Craig Becker, to the National Labor Relations board over Republican
objections in a recess appointment last month.

Stern, even without the union presidency, would remain on, among other
things, the board of President Obama's deficit commission, to which he was
appointed in February.

Change to Win executive director Anna Burger is widely viewed as Stern's
heir apparent, and has been groomed for the post, though other union
officials, including international executive vice presidents Mary Kay Henry
and Gerald Hudson, are also sometimes mentioned.
--
Eric D. Schwerin
Rosemont Seneca Partners
(202) 333-1880
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.co