Moreover, Stern has enjoyed considerable entree to the new administration -- starting on Inauguration Day, when he joined Obama and the new president's family on the reviewing stand outside the White House to watch the inaugural parade.
Stern estimates he visits the White House once a week. SEIU officials talk to senior Obama advisor Nancy-Ann DeParle about healthcare -- a top priority for Stern -- and to Obama aide Cecilia Munoz about immigration, Stern said.
"We get heard," Stern said.
Stern's access is envied by some fellow union leaders. John Wilhelm, head of Unite Here, the apparel, hotel and food service union, said his perception is that Stern gets a steady stream of invitations to the White House that other union executives do not.
Wilhelm said he was disappointed, for example, that his union was not invited to a White House meeting that touched on travel to Nevada -- an important subject for his union, which represents hotel and culinary workers in Las Vegas. Part of the meeting was spent placating Nevada interests upset over comments Obama made that banks receiving bailout money should not take Las Vegas junkets.
The SEIU's access to the White House also has left California officials unsettled. Earlier this year, the Obama administration invited the SEIU to take part in a conference call centering on a dispute over pay cuts to home healthcare workers represented by the union. State officials said the union's involvement in a government-to-government conference seemed inappropriate.
Still, the labor movement's track record in the Obama presidency is mixed, which raises questions about the value of Stern's access. Labor's top priority has been a bill called "card check," which would make it easier for unions to organize. But the bill has stalled in the Senate, and Obama has done little to move it along.
For Stern, another setback concerned the California home health worker case. The SEIU had wanted the Obama administration to declare that California acted illegally in cutting the wages of home healthcare workers.
At first it seemed Obama would go along. A preliminary opinion from the federal government warned that California, in cutting wages, had violated terms of the stimulus package.
Emboldened, the SEIU issued a news release trumpeting a "major victory."
In the end, however, the Obama administration backed off its position, validating the wage cuts.
