"Employers need to recognize that the world has changed and there are people who would like to help them provide solution in ways that are new, modern and that add value to companies"
About this Quote
There is a polite warning embedded in Stern's managerial language: adapt, or get blindsided. He frames employers as lagging institutions, not villains, which is strategic coming from a labor activist who knows doors close fast when executives feel accused. "Recognize that the world has changed" isn’t just an observation about globalization or technology; it’s a demand that management admit its old playbook has expired. The key move is that he doesn’t lead with confrontation. He leads with an offer.
The phrase "people who would like to help them" is doing a lot of reputational work. Stern is recasting workers, unions, and reformers as partners rather than adversaries - an intentional pivot away from the 20th-century image of labor as purely oppositional. It’s also a subtle bid for legitimacy: we’re not here to gum up the works; we’re here to improve them.
"Provide solution in ways that are new, modern" borrows the buzzwords of corporate innovation culture, a linguistic cross-dressing meant to make collective action sound like a consultancy deliverable. Stern understands that in an era of shareholder value and efficiency talk, moral claims about fairness often lose. So he argues in the dialect that CEOs and boards actually reward: "add value."
Context matters: Stern rose to prominence as SEIU president during a period of deindustrialization, service-sector growth, and aggressive anti-union management. This quote reads like a blueprint for "social unionism" and labor's rebrand: less strike romanticism, more system redesign - without giving up the leverage implied by "need to recognize."
The phrase "people who would like to help them" is doing a lot of reputational work. Stern is recasting workers, unions, and reformers as partners rather than adversaries - an intentional pivot away from the 20th-century image of labor as purely oppositional. It’s also a subtle bid for legitimacy: we’re not here to gum up the works; we’re here to improve them.
"Provide solution in ways that are new, modern" borrows the buzzwords of corporate innovation culture, a linguistic cross-dressing meant to make collective action sound like a consultancy deliverable. Stern understands that in an era of shareholder value and efficiency talk, moral claims about fairness often lose. So he argues in the dialect that CEOs and boards actually reward: "add value."
Context matters: Stern rose to prominence as SEIU president during a period of deindustrialization, service-sector growth, and aggressive anti-union management. This quote reads like a blueprint for "social unionism" and labor's rebrand: less strike romanticism, more system redesign - without giving up the leverage implied by "need to recognize."
Quote Details
| Topic | Business |
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