Persuasion of Power

From an interview of Andy Stern on PBD, conducted by Bill Moyers:

BILL MOYERS: Who are your members?

ANDREW STERN: Our memb-- we have about two million members. Significantly, they're people who are janitors and security officers. They're childcare workers and home care workers, nurses, doctors, hospital, nursing home workers and public employees. They're people in the service industry, the new part of the economy. They're not-- jobs aren't going overseas. And just like steel workers and auto workers were the jobs we needed to make sure-paid enough money to raise a family, the service sector jobs are now the new jobs in America. You need to own a home and raise a family, have that kind of income if we're going to have an America with a middle class again.

BILL MOYERS: So, what kind of leverage do they have against these huge private equity firms?

ANDREW STERN: Well, when people organize their voices, it's amazing that, you know, the private equity firms are paying attention to what we have to say. You know, they have-- we've met with many of them. We've talked to them about, you know, "Why don't you adopt a policy that all your workers have health care? Why don't you do something about how we create wealth for some of the people that work there, not just for a handful of individuals."

We're trying to use the power of persuasion. And if that doesn't work we're going to use the persuasion of power. Because there are governments and there are opportunities to change laws that affect these companies. I'm not naïve. We're ready to strike. We're ready to talk. We're saying America is going to work better when everyone shares in the success.

Hummm...persuasion of power to redistribute wealth.  Nice.