Here's the 'praise' from the article at HuffPo:
Conservatives cannot cheer unions overseas and then be blindly anti-union here at home. There are legitimate historic reasons for workers to organize together, and there is a strong need for a healthy, competitive, union, movement that helps improve the lives of its members and the competitiveness of our country.
Andy Stern, the head of the Service Employees International Union, is the union leader who probably best understands the challenge of the world market and the need to make American union members productive in the face of world competition. Sadly, he is a distinct minority among union leaders.
All Newt 'praised' is his understanding of the challenge of the world market and the need to make American union members productive.
Reminds me somewhat of the words of another great American reaching out to the working men and women in unions: "To my hardworking, patriotic brothers and sisters in the labor movement: you don’t have to put up with the scare tactics and the big government agenda of the union bosses. There is a different home for you: the commonsense conservative movement," Palin also said.
They are going on the info they got from Glenn Beck about Andy Stern and SEIU on his TV show years after Newt said this.
Most of us before 2009 wouldn’t know enough about either to have said much.