"I just returned from Davos and the inability of leaders of the business community to take responsibility was everywhere, and it was disappointing...Too many leaders tried to justify their own or companies behavior rather than admit that the system they promoted that had made them wealthy, while creating gross inequities, and economic calamities was flawed," wrote SEIU President Andy Stern last week on the Washington Post's "On Leadership" online forum.

Andy records a video in a workshop at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Flickr Photo © 2009 Robert Scoble

"When Barack Obama raised his voice we saw what real leadership means. Is it any wonder that the public has less trust in big business than it had in President Bush when he left office?"

Stern recently returned from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he was a participant in two panels, "Renewing Trust in Corporations" and "Power to the People: Politics in the Internet Age."

In this YouTube clip recorded in Davos, Andy Stern discusses whether company executives should have a code of ethics. Watch it now:

Too often, in the global economy, companies--not countries--are making the rules of the global economy.

As standards of living continue to fall for millions of workers across the globe, SEIU President Andy Stern joined over 40 Heads of State and 1,600 of the world's most powerful CEOs in Davos for the World Economic Forum today to call for a renewed commitment to corporate responsibility, transparency, and accountability. This year's gathering meets under the fitting theme, "Shaping the post-crisis world."

"Despite the exponential increases in productivity and profits that have resulted from the globalization of our markets and economies, nearly half the world's population lives on less than $2.50 per day," writes Stern in an op-ed on Reuters today. "Financial manipulation, greed and deregulation have led to economic havoc."

"It is a humbling and mind-opening moment for those whose wholesale embrace of a privatizing, deregulating, free-market-worshiping ideology has put us on the fast track to global financial collapse," continues Stern.

As the only labor union president and one of only 12 labor representatives attending the Davos Forum, Stern will speak out against damaging corporate practices and call for increased enforcement and cooperation to build a more equitable and sustainable corporate model. Over the past decade, working people have experienced first-hand the effectiveness of vague corporate responsibility principles.

"This is not a time for more image polishing codes, charitable activity or more conferences; it's time for changes in reality. It is time for straight talk; for new values, new business models, new thinking, and most importantly bold action," writes Stern, emphasizing the point that as economies continue to stagger all around the world, corporate leadership needs more than just a change in image--they need a change in behavior.

Stern continues:

"For our global economy to thrive and grow again, corporations, governments, and non-state actors (like labor unions) must work together towards a system where competition is based on the quality and sustainability of goods and services provided--not by a race to lower costs at the expense of workers, the environment, and product quality.

[...] "With the philosophy of unfettered-greed-as-king being deflated by reality, and with a new president at the helm in the United States who respects the market but does not worship it, the time is ripe for change."

Stern is speaking on two panels in Davos--"Renewing Trust in Corporations" and "Power to the People: Politics in the Internet Age."

>> Read Andy Stern's entire Reuters op-ed.

>> Read more about Stern's participation at Davos here