Union Threatens Hedge-Fund Pull-Out -- Dems Still Stupid?

May 9 (EIRNS)--The Union Network International Global Union--a worldwide federation which represents 50 unions, including the 700,000-member Communications Workers of America--has threatened to withdraw all member investments from the Blackstone Group hedge fund.

American unions alone control the investment of $400 billion in member pension assets, CWA spokesman Candace Johnson told Executive Intelligence Review today.

Blackstone bought 4.5% of Deutsche Telekom's shares in spring 2006. The hedge fund then pressured DT to dump CEO Kai-Uwe Ricke for Rene Oberman. Ricke had pledged to negotiate a worldwide contract to keep contract labor rights in place throughout DT companies worldwide. Under Oberman, DT is seeking to move 50,000 of its 180,000 German employees to subsidiaries at 40% less.

A letter signed by 300 delegates at the UNI International Conference in Athens, Greece in April 2007, called DT's current plans "drastic and unacceptable," and pointed out that Blackstone's head of communications, Lawrence Guffey, "has been a director or otherwise involved in several restructurings viewed by us as deliberate attempts by Blackstone to profit at direct cost to our members."

U.S. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney has also written Blackstone, warning it against the wage cuts.

The unions' threatened ban on pension investment in Blackstone is a refreshing contrast to the cozy hedge fund relations of the leading candidates for the Democratic Presidential nomination, Senators Clinton and Obama, and John Edwards have welcomed huge amounts of bundled contributions from hedge funds, as the Federal Election Commission reports for 1st Quarter 2007 document. Perhaps CWA and other unions will call on the candidates to return contributions from hedge funds destroying the workforce.