In a wide-ranging interview, SEIU President Andy Stern sat down with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo this weekend on the Wall Street Journal Report. Topics included in their discussion include the current state of the economy, H1N1, healthcare reform, the White House visitors list, the state of the Employee Free Choice Act, and the role of unions in an increasingly globalized economy.

Watch now:

Wall Street has a message for Americans who think it's unfair that they take our tax dollars and pay themselves huge bonuses: they need that money for all their hard work.

SEIU's Stephen Lerner went on CNBC today to debate a representative of Wall Street over the Obama administration's decision to cap exec pay at seven bailed out firms.

According to Reed Smith's John Martini, Americans need to stop "getting caught up" in this notion of fairness when it comes to Wall Street pay. Martini said the billions of dollars in pay and bonuses are required to keep attracting the talent that are responsible for big banks' success.

That begs the question: what success? As Lerner points out, it's the big banks that drove our country into a financial crisis; now they expect us to give them a multi-billion dollar pat on the back?

"People around the country are so tired of this myth that it's such a sacrifice to make a half a million dollars," said Lerner. "Next week at the bankers association meeting in Chicago from the 25th through the 27th, thousands are going to gather because they're sick and tired of the whining from people who make enormous sums of money and then say 'I'll quit my job if you don't give me a big bonus.'"

It's three very entertaining minutes of television. Take a look:

Citigroup - recipient of $45 billion in bailout funds - apparently isn't feeling the economic crunch. In fact, it's considering paying a $100 million bonus to one of its employees, protesting that it can't tear up a contract.

Tell that to California state employees.

Almost 100,000 state employees in California are feeling the effects of California's budget crisis - facing furloughs and wage cuts, thousands of state employees are realizing the realities of today's economy.

SEIU's Stephen Lerner compares the two vastly different situations in a segment on CNBC. Watch it:

Late Friday afternoon, SEIU's Stephen Lerner debated the new executive compensation regulations approved by the House of Representatives on CNBC. Lerner argued that the insatiable desire for limitless pay and bonuses amounted to a Wall Street "Bizarro World."

Watch it:

It was reported last week that the top six U.S. banks set aside $74 billion in 2009 for bonuses and other compensation. In fact, bonuses at big banks have even outpaced earnings. CBS News reports that while Goldman Sachs earned $2.3 billion last year and received $10 billion in TARP funds they paid out $4.8 billion in bonuses--more than double their income.

Today, average CEO pay is 344 times higher than average pay for workers--the average CEO today makes in one day what the average worker is paid in a year. Skyrocketing CEO pay and bonuses have not slowed since our economic crisis hit.

While curbing excessive executive pay is an important first step, as SEIU President Andy Stern noted when the House passed its bill, "we need to act more boldly and more broadly to help Main Street recover."

"Congress must pass the Employee Free Choice Act to ensure that workers can negotiate for higher wages and benefits, hold corporate executives accountable, and win their piece of the American Dream," Stern concluded.

CNBC isn't exactly a shining example of responsible journalism. The financial news network has been ridiculed for enabling the financial crisis with flawed reporting and fawning coverage of failed CEOs.

Well, CNBC is at it again. Yesterday, CNBC's Jim Cramer and Erin Burnett made a ridiculous, irresponsible statement. Cramer and Burnett compared the aftermath of Iran's recent election to what would happen under the Employee Free Choice Act.

Huh?

This is the height of irresponsible journalism. Jim Cramer and Erin Burnett need to hear from you now about their reckless reporting.

Click here to send an email directly to Cramer and Burnett. They need to get the message that this kind of coverage is unacceptable.

Here's what Burnett and Cramer said yesterday while discussing the Iran election:

BURNETT: And it wasn't a secret ballot. I think that's important. They're going to know - they know everybody and how they voted. CRAMER: Absolutely. BURNETT: It makes a strong point for this whole union conversation we're having in this country. CRAMER: The card check, the card check.

Let's get our facts straight.

Despite Erin Burnett's delusions otherwise, the Employee Free Choice Act does not take away the secret ballot. To suggest otherwise is just plain wrong.

But to extend that delusion to the Iran election is more than inaccurate. It's irresponsible. It has no place in our national dialogue, and CNBC needs to know that.

Let Erin Burnett and Jim Cramer know what you think. Click here to send them an email now.

Burnett and Cramer need to know that today's union elections are undemocratic. They bear no resemblance to democratically-held elections that we would all recognize in a free country.

The Employee Free Choice Act is an important piece of legislation that reforms the rigged system that prevents employees from having a free choice to improve their lives. The aftermath of the Iran election is proof of what happens when voters don't have a free choice, when the deck is stacked against the electorate.

For some reason, CNBC doesn't understand the difference. Make sure they do.

Thanks for writing to CNBC - with your help, we'll make sure they get the message.

SEIU's Stephen Lerner appears on CNBC to discuss Take Back The Economy and why Bank of America's CEO, Ken Lewis, needs to go.

"You knew what the banks were doing, and yet were touting it for months and months. The entire network was." -- Jon Stewart

In an interview last week with CNBC's Jim Cramer, The Daily Show's Jon Stewart cut through the bull and did what few others in the traditional media were willing to do: expose CNBC's strategy of climbing in bed with the CEOs who created this financial crisis, instead of asking tough questions and reporting the truth.



Cramer is not the broadcast news station's only offender by far: reporter Erin Burnett is a repeat offender of relentlessly spouting Wall Street talking points on Meet the Press. Adam Green describes NBC's "Erin Burnett Problem" at the Huffington Post, giving this recent example of her 'reporting' from last week:

This morning, on Morning Joe, for no apparent reason, [Erin] blurted out, "I'm going to throw this out there, it's just a question..." and then went on a long rant about "the whole question about unemployment benefits themselves." As in, should they even exist?

After all, she pointed out, they don't have them in China (the epitome of a pro-worker country). She asked, "Does that encourage people in places like China to go get jobs more quickly rather than waiting to exhaust their unemployment benefits?"

You can't even make this kind of stuff up.

Responsible journalism that holds Wall Street accountable has been sorely lacking from this once-credible broadcast news giant, who in recent months has seemed to be doing PR for Wall Street--instead of investigating and debunking lies to report the behind-the-scenes facts the public needs to know.

From the "Fix CNBC" website:

You've been so obsessed with getting "access" to failed CEOs that you willfully passed on misinformation to the public for years, helping to get us into the economic crisis we face today. You screwed up badly.

Don't apologize - fix it!

CNBC should publicly declare that its new overriding mission will be responsible journalism that holds Wall Street accountable. As a down payment, we ask you to hire some new economic voices - people who have a track record of being right about the economic crisis and holding Wall Street executives' feet to the fire.

The momentum to pressure CNBC to hold Wall Street accountable has been building at a rapid rate. Since launching yesterday at 12:15 p.m., the open letter at www.FixCNBC.com has gathered over 17,000 signatures from leading progressives and economists demanding that the network publicly change its mission to focus more on Wall Street accountability.

Americans need CNBC to do strong, watchdog journalism--don't you agree? Click here to sign the "Fix CNBC" open letter.

Last week, in a CNBC interview with John Harwood, Vice President Joe Biden talked about the timeline for passing the Employee Free Choice Act. Here's what the Vice President said:

"We're going to try to push for (it) prudently. By that I mean there's only so much on the plate these first couple months." "We both believe it's very important, making and--taking away the roadblocks that were built up...So we do think making it--taking away the impediments to organization is in the self-interest of labor, but also I believe in the self-interest of economic growth."

Harwood then tried to read into Vice President Biden's words, asking him if, by his words, the Vice President meant that the legislation will be taken up in a year or two. Biden was adamant that the issue will be taken up this calendar year:

"This year. This year, we hope. Our expectation is this year, this calendar year, that we will move, and hopefully with some bipartisan support, to dealing with this issue."

Watch the video here: