Article at a glance:

Shaking up the labor movement: An interview with the head of the Service Employees International Union

• In this interview, Andy Stern, president of the 1.8 million–member Service Employees International Union (SEIU), discusses his ideas for reversing the long decline of US organized labor, which now represents just one worker in eight.
• In July 2005, Stern led his own union and several others, including the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, out of the AFL-CIO in the biggest breakup of US organized labor in decades.
• Here Stern explores his dissident group's strategies to organize employees in entire industries rather than in individual companies and examines the role of health care policies in the competitiveness of US business.
• Stern also discusses the ways unions can globalize along with companies—for example, by "outsourcing" labor actions—and the possibilities for partnerships with employers.