How Andy Stern destroyed SEIU financially [link fixed]

EIU has seen its liabilities skyrocket during the past decade. The union’s liabilities totaled $7,625,832 in 2000. By 2009, they had increased almost by a factor of 16, to $120,893,259. Meanwhile, SEIU’s assets barely tripled, growing from $66,632,631 in 2000 to $187,664,763 in 2009. A significant portion of SEIU’s current assets are from IOUs from hard-up locals…

Many SEIU local pension plans are in as bad a shape as the national plans – if not worse. In 2007, well before the financial meltdown, the SEIU Local 32BJ Building Maintenance Contractors Association Pension Plan was funded at an anemic 41 percent, the SEIU 1199 Greater New York Pension Fund at 58 percent, the 32BJ District Building Operators Pension Trust Fund at 56 percent, and the Service Employees 32BJ North Pension Fund at 68 percent…

While SEIU’s pension plans were failing and its liabilities growing, Mr. Stern seemed more concerned with electoral politics than with the internal workings of the union. Indeed, politics can account for much of SEIU’s lavish spending in recent years. “We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama – $60.7 million to be exact – and we’re proud of it,” he boasted to the Las Vegas Sun last year. In all, under Mr. Stern, SEIU spent more than $85 million to elect President Obama and give Democrats control of Congress.