Andy Stern Joins Georgetown University as Research Fellow

Andy Stern has just gained yet another job. Earlier this month, Stern also accepted a position on the Board of Directors for SIGA, a producer of anti-viral and biological warfare defense products.

But this job seems to have some policy teeth, with a think-tank title akin to Media Matters or the Center for American Progress, and it comes with perhaps some welcome company as well.

From The San Francisco Chronicle:

Andy Stern, former president of the Service Employees International Union, is joining Georgetown University‘s public policy school as a research fellow.

Stern, 59, retired in May after building his union into one of the largest in the labor movement and increasing his own influence with President Barack Obama and Democratic lawmakers.

Stern will coordinate research at Washington-based Georgetown on wage reform, labor policy and retirement security, according to an announcement on the school’s website.

Stern of course maintains his position as an adviser on Obama’s deficit-reduction commission, a post to which Obama appointed him in February of this year.

This announcement comes only weeks after the announcement that Ed Montgomery, who has been serving in the White House as both a member of President Obama’s Task Force on the Auto Industry and as the Director of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers, will leave the Obama administration to take over as Dean of Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute. As very active leaders in the labor movement, both Mr. Montgomery and Andy Stern certainly know one another, and have shared visits at the White House for such activities as Obama’s White House Forum on Jobs and Economic Growth.

Coincidentally, another Obama Adviser from the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute may be a familiar face to Stern. Patricia McGinnis, a Washington Post blogger for their “On Leadership” column, first appeared on Big Journalism during the JournoList fallout when a followup story revealed that the Washington Post failed to disclose her ties to the White House. As it turned out, McGinnis is not only a WaPo blogger, but she’s also an unpaid Adviser to the Obama White House on Leadership Programs for Presidential Appointees.

Then again, Andy Stern himself, frequent visitor to the White House, and adviser on Obama’s debt commission, also blogs for the Washington Post “On Leadership” column alongside Patricia McGinnis and other panelists.

This should be quite an interesting little gathering of recent and current Obama advisers over there at Georgetown University’s public policy institute – influencing policy from inside the White House, inside Academia, and inside the media, all at once. So very convenient. That revolving door to and from the White House just keeps on spinning.