Author Archive
Is SEIU’s Purple Brand Fading to Pink?
Posted by Don Loos in ACORN, Featured Story, Politics, Wade Rathke on October 6th, 2009
Stern’s New Big Labor Same as the Old Big Labor
For the past four years, the highest profile Big Labor Boss was Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Andy Stern. Stern has deliberately parlayed his controlling style as that of a New Labor Boss, and he has painstakingly worked on the SEIU “purple brand.” And yet, Stern and the SEIU union have failed to live up to the New Labor Boss identity that he claimed in his New York Times Magazine and CNN/Fortune Magazine articles.
Stern tried to separate himself from the herd of “old-styled” labor bosses in several ways, most noticeably with his dress. He conscientiously wore his beloved SEIU purple with its slight pinkish hue. Apparently, Stern is trying to replicate for his union what brown does for UPS.
Stern’s limitless purple attire led some to refer to him as the Lavender Labor Leader. And recently, SEIU’s Anna Burger looked very chic in her purple suit as Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC) grilled her about SEIU’s relationship with ACORN.
Whatever color of scarves, suits, or hats Andy Stern decides to wear, you cannot deny his influence with the White House, U.S. Congressional King Pins, the Democrat National Committee, and ACORN among others. But, has Stern’s smash-mouth organizing and relationship to ACORN begun to turn SEIU’s purple into black and blue? You bet it has!
Clearly, ACORN’s partnerships with SEIU and other Big Labor outfits has begun to drag down SEIU’s image. SEIU has decided, now that ACORN is damaged goods, to cut ties for now. But, that will be very difficult because ACORN and ACORN’s training programs are totally interwoven into the purple fabric that makes up SEIU.
From 2005 through 2008, SEIU spent $9 million on ACORN training programs and contracting out ACORN organizing services. SEIU even hired ACORN founder Wade Rathke to command SEIU national organizing programs. The ACORN listings below illustrate that the SEIU-ACORN relationship is much deeper than SEIU may want publicly known:
ACORN is not the only Brand Destroyer for SEIU
But, SEIU cannot blame its deteriorating image solely on it incestuous relationship with ACORN. The “New Labor Boss” Stern has failed to live up to the image he created.
New Boss Stern is the same as Old Big Labor Bosses that Robert F. Kennedy described in his book, “The Enemy Within.” Those Old Bosses would consolidate power and control over local unions by placing and threatening to place locals into trusteeships (Taking over operations of a local union and ousting of the elected union officials). In addition, these bosses would cut deals with employers that allowed union members to be paid below contract rates.
Local SEIU officers have claimed that Stern aggressively eliminates local autonomy via trusteeships and approved payoffs (e.g.An indictment alleged that in exchange for payments, SEIU local president Danny Iverson’s resigned so that Stern associate Debra Timko would became president.); and, at least one SEIU contract allows an SEIU contracted employer to pay below contract rates (of course, workers are still forced to pay SEIU union dues and fees for its representation):
“In any instance where the Company signatory hereto desires to submit a bid to perform unit work at a building being serviced by a contractor not a party to a collective bargaining agreement with the union which would cover the work in question, it is agreed that the wage and fringe benefit provisions of this Agreement may be waived …”
Stern’s internal self-serving tactics have resulted in minimal public image damage because most of these actions primarily involve SEIU internal politics. However, internal struggles combined with SEIU’s ruthless corporate campaigns and associations with groups like ACORN are causing even mainstream columnists like Kathleen Parker to question why anyone would want to be associated with SEIU. She wrote:
While everyone in Washington is suddenly pretending they’ve hardly ever heard of ACORN, they might want to pretend they’ve never heard of the SEIU, one of the nation’s largest unions.
Since the 1990s, SEIU used ACORN-type tactics in so-called “corporate campaigns.” As previously mentioned, ACORN trained SEIU organizers, and ACORN founder Wade Rathke spearheaded SEIU national organizing campaigns.
During these corporate campaigns, SEIU coordinates personal attacks against employees, customers of targeted employers, and the employers. SEIU organizers systematically increase their attacks with assistance from outside pressure groups in accordance with SEIU’s corporate campaign stratagem.
Here is the real kicker in SEIU’s corporate campaign; SEIU’s harassment is not designed to force the employer into allowing employees a secret ballot union representational election, but SEIU pressures employers to sign away employees’ opportunity to have a secret ballot election. That’s right; SEIU developed the corporate campaign to prevent employees from having a secret ballot election.
SEIU, along with its partners ACORN, Justice for Janitors, Interfaith Worker Justice, and others stage disruptive demonstrations, place derogatory ads, hand out offensive flyers, send defamatory letters, and pressure politicians. SEIU organizers have even used children to hand out nasty flyers as they trick-or-treat. All of these actions are designed to irritate everyone in the community and hopefully focus the unrest on the employer, not SEIU. And, in the end, it’s all about money – union dues extracted from workers for the privilege of having a job.
All of SEIU’s in-your-face activities in numerous communities across the country has dramatically begun to weaken SEIU’s own brand.
Here’s three quick true life SEIU corporate campaign sagas that span across America over two decades:
-
In the 1990’s, Sacramento’s Randy Schaber endured an SEIU four-year battering of his company and his employees. SEIU’s attacks on Schaber included coordination with a Clinton Administration Big Labor appointee inside the U.S. Department of Labor that resulted in a Congressional investigation, headed by Rep. Pete Hoekstra, documenting SEIU’s corporate campaign and the removal of the SEIU insider.
-
In Indianapolis, David A. Bego, author of The Devil at My Doorstep, had an SEIU organizer tell him, “we enjoy conversation, but we embrace confrontation,” shortly before SEIU goons began to ratchet up the pressure. Bego’s book provides a concise description of his three-year SEIU ordeal, and details of hard-to-believe ACORN-modeled intimidation. SEIU even had trick-or-treating children handout out offensive flyers in Bego’s and a customer’s neighborhood.
-
Houston’s Brent Southwell story, as posted on BigGovernment.com by Bret Jacobson, repeats Schaber’s and Bego’s stories but with his own twist. Southwell filed suit against SEIU claiming, among other things, that a top SEIU organizer “has stated directly to Professional Janitorial Services (PJS, Southwell’s company) that SEIU wants ‘to kill’ PJS.” Certainly, this SEIU organizer was not concerned about the welfare of PJS employees. The lawsuit against SEIU is currently ongoing.
Conclusion
To borrow a phrase from ACORN’s Wade Rathke, no matter how you shake and bake it, a nationwide campaign that embraces confrontation and irresponsible personal attacks will eventually stick to the SEIU brand. Constantly filing unsubstantiated accusations with enforcement agencies and then using these SEIU-generated unsubstantiated claims to force politicians to act eventually hurts the credibility of the accuser.
Remember the childhood story of the boy who cried wolf?
In the end, SEIU’s smash-mouth, no-holds-barred organizing, internal power struggles, and associations with the likes of ACORN have irrefutably begun to bring down Stern’s SEIU purple brand.
.
Obama Administration Moves to Shutdown Disclosure of Big Labor-ACORN Connections
Posted by Don Loos in ACORN, Featured Story, Obama on September 24th, 2009
Even before U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis was sworn in, Big Labor insiders like AFL-CIO lawyer and Obama appointee Deborah Greenfield were busily dismantling useful union financial disclosures produced by former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao. It’s another Big Government – Big Labor partnership aimed at keeping individual workers, whom they claim to represent, in the dark.
Why the hurry? Perhaps Union Bosses wanted to prevent the Virginia GOP and inquisitive people like Patrick Semmens from visiting DOL’s UnionReports.gov website that clearly reveals the Big Labor-ACORN collusion. Semmens discovered that teachers’ union bosses gave about $500,000 to the same Brooklyn ACORN office exposed on BigGovernment.com. Both the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) awarded ACORN service contracts.
That’s right; union bosses gave teachers’ forced union dues to the same ACORN that appeared to have no problem facilitating child prostitution. No wonder Solis’ Big Labor friends want to shutdown financial disclosure!
In fact, UnionReports.gov provides detailed union financial reports and is a primary source for many union members, reporters, columnists, bloggers, and researchers. But, the days of disclosure are numbered. Big Labor has commanded Labor Secretary Solis to shut it all down.
Will Big Labor’s ties with ACORN be hidden again?
In 2003, some sunlight began to shine on union financial disclosure revealing payments to groups like ACORN.
Itemized ACORN payments were previously hidden somewhere in reports like the 2004 NEA LM-2 report below. A quick comparison of NEA financial disclosure reports appears below illustrating the value of the reformed 2008 report verses the 2004 pre-reform disclosure. (For the entire reports, please click the following links: 2004 and 2008 NEA LM-2 reports.)
NEA Disclosure before Bush Administration Reforms (2004)
Somewhere in the NEA’s 2004 LM-2 Schedules 12 and 13 are disbursements to groups like ACORN, but how was anyone to know? Where did the union dues go?
After years of battling big labor lawyers, the Bush Administration prevailed in court creating a LM-2 financial disclosure report that union members and researchers have found informative. The image below is just one of the several hundred 2008 itemized NEA disbursement.
NEA Disclosure after Bush Administration Reforms (2008)
“Nonpartisan voter registrant*CONTRIB DONATIONS/GIF”, Really? Well, at least the reformed disclosure provides the recipient ACORN and its address.
Note: In 2003, the AFL-CIO’s disdain toward ‘informed’ workers was apparent in its 2003 official comment to the Labor Department. It claimed that these reports would be too confusing for union members:
Such enormous masses of data do nothing to simplify, condense and aggregate financial information into meaningful totals that unions’ members could use to understand the financial status of their union. Rather, the proposal would disclose massive amounts of non-material financial data, with the result that union members will be distracted and confused in their efforts to parse out what is meaningful in the LM-2 versus what is simply noise.
U.S. Big Labor Department swings into action
Instead of focusing on the economy or the alarming unemployment trends, Obama’s Big Labor Department seems to have focused little on the men and women behind those numbers. Instead, Secretary Solis has focused like a laser beam on eliminating disclosure of labor bosses perks and their spending of money collected as a condition of employment from millions of workers.
This screenshot of Obama’s Big Labor Department swinging into action to help union bosses clearly illustrates the priority:
Regulations.gov
And that is not all; Obama’s Labor Department creatively and without rulemaking eliminated 2008 Bush Administration reform of Labor Officer conflict-of-interest reporting. The following is the de facto rulemaking:
Note: The Office of Labor-Management Standards will publish in the spring 2009 Semi-Annual Regulatory Agenda notice of an intended rulemaking to revise the Form LM-30 (Labor Organization Officer and Employee [Conflict-of-Interest] Report). The rulemaking is intended to review questions of policy and law surrounding these reporting requirements. The rulemaking will focus on the changes resulting from a 2007 regulatory revision of the Form and instructions. This revision dramatically altered the old Form LM-30 and instructions, which had not substantially changed in over 40 years. Despite the promulgation of the new Form LM-30, fundamental questions regarding the scope and extent of the reporting obligations are unanswered, and litigation challenging some aspects of the form remains pending. Yet, by March 31, 2009, reports for calendar year 2008 must be filed. In light of this uncertainty, the pending regulatory action, the pending litigation and the rapidly approaching filing deadline, OLMS has determined that it would not be a good use of resources to bring enforcement actions based upon a failure to use a specific form to comply with the statutory obligation to report certain financial information. Accordingly, OLMS will refrain from initiating enforcement actions against union officers and union employees based solely on the failure to file the report required by section 202 of the Labor-Management and Reporting Disclosure Act (LMRDA), 29 U.S.C. § 432, using the 2007 form, as long as individuals meet their statutorily-required filing obligation in some manner. OLMS will accept either the old Form LM-30 or the new one for purposes of this non-enforcement policy. [Emphasis added]
So, Big Labor Bosses can submit whatever they want. The action by Secretary Solis and her Department essentially allows officers to create their own reporting form. If only the IRS were so accommodating.
Why has there been no more action?
Secretary Solis had been rolling out the elimination of union financial disclosure on a monthly basis; however, since the LM-2 rescission comment period ended in May, the Obama Administration eraser has yet to be applied.
Could it be that several well reasoned comments, such as the submissions filed by Mark Mix and Bob Hirsch to name two, actually reminded Secretary Solis that the congressional intent of the Act was to provide the disinfecting benefit of sunlight to the old-boy networked secretive union financial world? I would like to think so, but likely it has more to do with a 1959 congress well aware that the success of the Labor-Management Reporting Disclosure Act depended on the Labor Secretary’s desire to protect the individual workers rather than curry favor with labor bosses. And, that point was brought out in The National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation’s comments:
Rescission Exceeds Secretary’s Authority
Rules and regulations; simplified reports*
The Secretary shall have authority to issue, amend, and rescind rules and regulations prescribing the form and publication of reports required to be filed under this subchapter and such other reasonable rules and regulations (including rules prescribing reports concerning trusts in which a labor organization is interested) as he may find necessary to prevent the circumvention or evasion of such reporting requirements. In exercising his power under this section the Secretary shall prescribe by general rule simplified reports for labor organizations or employers for whom he finds that by virtue of their size a detailed report would be unduly burdensome, but the Secretary may revoke such provision for simplified forms of any labor organization or employer if he determines, after such investigation as he deems proper and due notice and opportunity for a hearing, that the purposes of this section would be served thereby. (Emphasis added)
Based upon the Department’s reasoning, the Secretary will exceed her statutory authority if she rescinds the 2009 LM-2 reform. The LMRDA limits the Secretary’s ability to rescind a rule to specified circumstances: if it will prevent the circumvention or evasion of the Act. The Department has provided no reason how rescission will enhance disclosure by reducing circumvention or evasion. Rather the Secretary concedes disclosure will be undermined by rescission.
It was 1959, only two years after Robert F. Kennedy, author of The Enemy Within, exposed one corrupt union after another during senate hearings, and perhaps Congress was all too aware of the dangers of allowing disclosure to disappear.
Clearly, the words, “The Secretary shall have authority to issue, amend, and rescind rules and regulations … as he may find necessary to prevent the circumvention or evasion of such reporting requirements.” do not grant Secretary Solis the authority to rescind disclosure that by the Department’s own admission will aid in the evasion of the Act. Undoubtedly, Solis’ plan to eliminate disclosure will only aid in circumventing the disclosure, not preventing it.
The lesson from history is that the most effective solution to the corrupting influence of union monopolistic bargaining power is not trying to tame it as tried in 1959; rather it is to eliminate the act of forcing workers to pay a labor union as condition of employment. The monopolist bargaining power granted to labor bosses by President Franklin Roosevelt established a tax on workers and essentially gave a non-governmental entity, labor unions, the power to tax every working American and control each worker’s ability to stand apart from others. And, this monopoly bargaining power can be awarded without a worker’s consent.
Now is not the time to relax
But, don’t relax. Even though it appears that Secretary Solis’ first attempt at reducing disclosure may be on hold for now; all you would be James O’Keefes and Hannah Gileses out there looking for another ACORN in union reports, had better act quickly before the Obama Administration finds another way to douse the sunlight.
*U.S. Code – Title 29, SUBCHAPTER III—REPORTING BY LABOR ORGANIZATIONS, OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS, AND EMPLOYERS, § 438. Rules and regulations; simplified reports
Another Big Labor Operative in White House has ACORN Ties
BigGovernment.com continues to wake-up America to Obama Administration relationships with ACORN and Big Labor. BigGov’s latest story highlights Presidential Advisor Valerie Jarrett’s crew member Buffy Wicks who is the former political director of forced union dues financed WakeupWalmart.com (Wakeup). In the conference call, Wicks highlighted the important role United We Serve (Serve.gov) has in President Obama’s Organizing America strategy. See Dana Loesch’s article about Serve.gov directing volunteers to ACORN.
The Obama campaign boastfully promoted Wick’s moniker, “Buffy the Wal-Mart Slayer†that highlights her community organizing experience with Wakeup’s efforts to increase costs for Wal-Mart and the prices for its customers. However, the Obama White House press release tones down Wicks past position:
Buffy Wicks, Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement. Wicks has a long history in grassroots organizing and civic engagement. Most recently she was the Director of the Renew America Together effort, the call to service issued by then President-elect Obama. She also served on the Obama for America campaign in a variety of roles, including California Field Director and Missouri State Director, and helped develop the national grassroots field strategy. She has also worked in the labor movement, fighting for better health care and wages for disenfranchised workers. She is originally from California and graduated with a double major in Political Science and History from the University of Washington.
It appears that Wicks may be continuing to influence Wakeup on behalf of President Obama’s agenda, because Big Labor-funded Wakeup resources were used to harass Glenn Beck for his opposition to President Obama’s vision for America. Wicks’ former employer Wakeup currently boasts that it forced Wal-Mart to pull advertising from the Glenn Beck Show. Here’s Wakeup’s post:Â
You won. Walmart has bowed to pressure from activist groups and over 14,000 WakeUpWalmart.com supporters to end its direct support of Glenn Beck. Finally, Walmart has distanced itself from Beck and his hateful rhetoric.
But, even though Bentonville has pulled its ad dollars from the Glenn Beck Program, it still advertises on his parent station. We think it’s time Walmart fully commits to keeping the airwaves free from offensive hate-mongering. Write Walmart and demand they pull all ads from Fox until Glenn Beck apologizes for his absurd remarks about President Obama.
 ACORN & Big Labor partnership
United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) union bosses have paid ACORN over a half-a-million dollars. While Wicks coordinated UFCW sponsored Wakeup’s “political†organizing campaign, UFCW bragged about its coordination with ACORN. UFCW also coordinated numerous voter registrations with ACORN.Â
After Howard Dean’s presidential quest crashed and burned, Wicks became the Political Director for Wakeup, an outfit supported by forced union dues under the direction and control of UFCW bosses. On October 13, 2005, UFCW announced its new partnership with ACORN:
‘We are witnessing the creation of a new social and political movement led by ordinary Americans, from all across the country, who are coming together to change Wal-Mart into a responsible corporation,’ said Paul Blank, campaign director for WakeUpWalMart.com. ‘The national momentum to change Wal-Mart is both incredible and unprecedented.’
Today, WakeUpWalMart.com also announced an exciting new partnership with two of the largest grassroots organizations in the country – Jobs with Justice and ACORN. The alliance between Jobs with Justice, ACORN, and WakeUpWalMart.com builds an unparalleled force for change with thousands of activists, on-the-ground organizers and community groups ready to help change Wal-Mart in every town and city in America. Jobs with Justice and ACORN will be instrumental in helping WakeUpWalMart.com raise public awareness of why Wal-Mart needs to change beginning with Wal-Mart Week in November and extending through the entire holiday season.
‘This is a new day in the fight to change Wal-Mart. We have created an unprecedented, bottom-up force for change which will demonstrate why Wal-Mart needs to change now,’ added Maude Hurd, ACORN’s national president. [Emphasis added]
‘We are building the largest grassroots movement in history to change Wal-Mart. Our movement is led by community coalitions who believe America’s largest corporation should reflect the best in American values,’ said Fred Azcarate, executive director of Jobs with Justice.
ACORN
ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is the nation’s largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families, working together for social justice and stronger communities. Since 1970, ACORN has grown to more than 175,000 member families, organized in 850 neighborhood chapters in 75 cities across the U.S. and in cities in Canada, the Dominican Republic and Peru.Jobs with Justice
Jobs with Justice (JwJ) is a national network of local coalitions that connect labor, faith-based, community, and student organizations to work together on workplace and community social justice campaigns. JwJ coalitions now exist in over 40 cities in 29 states in all regions of the country.
Translation
What the Obama Administration’s Buffy Wicks did with Wakeup, and it continues to do with an apparent partnership with ACORN, is to engage in a “corporate campaign†against Wal-Mart in an attempt to inflict as much financial stress on its target as possible. For an insiders view of what it is like to be a target of a corporate campaign a good read is Dave Bego’s book, The Devil at My Doorstep, a chronicle of the shameless three-year corporate campaign he and his employees endured.
These corporate campaigns are not about worker choice, they are about inflicting financial costs and public image damages to companies like Bego’s and Wal-Mart.Â
Essentially, this means that Buffy Wicks was a professional troublemaker hired by Big Labor to work hand-in-hand with ACORN in an effort to inflict pain to bring one of the nation’s largest employers to its knees. So far, the efforts by Wicks and ACORN have only served to reduce Wal-Mart’s ability to hire new people and lower prices for its customers.Â
Now, ACORN collaborator Wicks is inside the Obama White House as it oversees record unemployment. If the White House continues to place Big Labor staffers like Wicks who worked for organizations hostile to worker freedom throughout its Administration, then the Obama Administration will likely become the antithesis to job growth and the primary obstacle to any future U.S. economic recovery.
SEIU: ‘One of the Pillars of the ACORN Family’
Posted by Don Loos in ACORN, Hannah Giles, Wade Rathke on September 16th, 2009
Part of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now’s (ACORN) rotten core includes a very cozy relationship with Big Labor. In fact, in many instances ACORN and Big Labor are one and the same. In 2008, Big Labor funneled ACORN millions of dollars for so-called organizing activity. But, that is only the tip of the Big Labor iceberg.
ACORN controls or significantly dominates several Big Labor unions and organizations. ACORN created and controls SEIU 100 (Gulf Region) and SEIU 880 (a recently expanded SEIU mega-local that covers Chicago, Illinois, Indiana, and Kansas).
ACORN founder S. Wade Rathke referred to mega-union SEIU 880 as “one of the pillars of the ACORN Family.â€
- Wade Rathke: “SEIU Local 880, one of the pillars of the ACORN family of organizations”
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Andy Stern hand picked ACORN’s Rathke to direct SEIU’s nationwide organizing projects.
In addition to Rathke’s and ACORN’s SEIU involvement, Rathke controlled Louisiana HERE Local 100, was Secretary-Treasurer of a New Orleans based AFL-CIO labor organization, and served on the board of a hotel employees union organizing committee.
A search of financial disclosure reports (UnionReports.gov) filed with the U.S. Department of Labor for the years 2000 and 2006 disclosed the following positions that Rathke held in labor unions while he concurrently served as ACORN’s Chief Organizer:
Wade Rathke DOL Reported Union Positions (2000,2006)
ACORN’s connections extend to several other Big Labor funded organizations such as the Wal-Mart Alliance for Reform Now (WARN), Site Fighters, and Community Labor Organizing Center (CLOC).
An Inside Look
An internal ACORN memo disclosed by Michelle Malkin provides more insight into the ACORN-Big Labor collaboration:
WHICH CORPORATIONS? Local 100 was nurtured by ACORN, but I think US Labor law prevents ACORN from interfering in Local 100 affairs. And it is not clear that ACORN wants to bother with Local 100 anymore, except to collect money Local 100 has borrowed from ACORN affiliates (some $250,000). There are some Local 100 subsidiaries which ACORN probably doesn’t care about, e.g., some Baton Rouge Teachers organizations, a couple Texas organizations…. they are nonprofits set up to TRY to represent workers who are not allowed to organize themselves into collective bargaining units. I assume ACORN is ready to let these go to Local 100.
–L100. To what extent does the Local 100 Board and Local 100 members know about the perfidy of their Chief Organizer? Do they know how hokey their LM-2 filings are?
–DOL and Local 100. To what extent should ACORN monitor Local 100 activities and filings and report them to the DOL? Apparently a new election of Local 100 officers is due to happen in September 2008.
–Local 100’s debts. An initial review of Local 100’s LM-2’s suggests that Local 100 owes some $250,000 to ACORN affiliates. When will those debts be called in?
–CCI. [received union funds, provided bookkeeping for SEIU 880 in Chicago] The point here is that if ACORN wants nothing to do with WR [Wade Rathke], then presumably CCI needs to terminate its contracts with any WR tainted organization. These conflict of interest issues are about to come to a head with CCI attorneys. So far our model has been “Well, in the past we wait to see if conflict can be worked out—THEN we worry.†In the past conflict has been resolved. In the present crisis the CCI lawyers may have to face these issues shortly. As an ethical if not a legal matter, the whole of CCI will have to face these issues also.
–WARN. [received union funds] This corporation is WAL-MART ALLIANCE FOR REFORM NOW, INC., and its Board members are –Wade Rathke, 3810 Burgundy Street, New Orleans, LA, 70117; –Rick Smith, 1344 W Cass St, Tampa, FL, 33606; and –Tamecka Pierce, 6537 Chantry St, Orlando, FL, 32835. The corporate name somewhat resembles ACORN’s. If it is a membership organization I find it hard to believe it is anything more than laughable. However, it may have a lot of grant money from some people somewhere? Bottom line is I don’t know much about this, and I don’t know if ACORN should care, or how to find out if ACORN should care.
–Acorn Institute. [received union funds] I think this is clearly an ACORN corporation, but I have to observe that it seems to me that WR has been trying to fill it with shills. I think it is one of ACORN’s major 501c3s, and control of it needs to be monitored
–ACLOC. [received union funds] I think control of this organization is up for grabs, but the more critical question is who gets business from SEIU and ACORN. One could almost give this to WR because it’s worthless without business—yet if ACORN gave it to him it would have to be under the condition that the ACORN name was deleted. By way of additional information, WR seems to have founded a “CLOC†in Florida a while back. Maybe ACORN should keep ACLOC and WR should see what he can do with CLOC.
–ARC . [received union funds] This used to be a key 501c3 feeder for labor projects. Right now the Board supposedly consists of Steve Bachmann and Mildred Edmond. And Dale Rathke and Cornelia have supposedly left this Board. ACORN should advise Wade Rathke that this corporation is going to be cleaned up, and should probably be closed down. Steve Bachmann is going to ensure that if WR wants to try any tricks with this corporati[o]n, then WR is going to find his Mumsy is going to be very VERY upset.
–SEXUAL HARASSMENT. Mitch Klein has filed a complaint against Chaco Rathke for harassment, and against Wade, Beth and Dine for retaliation. It is not clear that these items are subject to much negotiations, because they are matters of law. Depending upon what Alex Mora finds and recommends, ACORN will have to take whatever steps will pass muster with the EEOC, the DOL, and ultimately, the Courts. Another player in this play is EFC, because as landlord EFC must provide its tenants with safe environments, that don’t have its property managers engaging in sexual harassment, and that don’t allow its tenants to intimate other tenants. Again, much of this will turn on what Alex Mora finds, and generally what the law requires. ACORN has little room for negotiation or discretion here, but since it involves the Rathkes, its existence must be acknowledged and noted. [Emphasis added]
(Note: According to two conflict-of-interest reports filed at the U.S. Labor Department, ACORN’s SEIU 100 actually had a union position called “child of the chief organizer†listed. Better view the reports now, because the Obama Labor Department is busy eliminating future conflict-of-interest reporting by union officers and employees.)
Big Labor – ACORN Organizing Partnership
From the early days of Saul Alinsky-styled union organizing, ACORN and Big Labor learned that forced unionism provides the financial fuel to perpetuate their organizational schemes and political clout. ACORN and Big Labor have turned organizing into a numbers game; it is no longer about improving working conditions, as Randy Schaber’s and David Bego’s stories clearly illustrate that SEIU was not escalating pressure to improve working conditions. The tactics that SEIU used border on sadism.
According to Vanessa Tait’s book, Poor workers’ unions: rebuilding labor from below, ACORN and Big Labor have grown more politically powerful and more militant together:
ACORN’s autonomous labor organizing projects – Unite Labor Unions (ULU) – were quite different. Drawing on labor’s traditions, the ULU locals reached out to other unions and community groups to build solidarity around campaigns.
… In New York, workfare organizing lead to strong relationships between ACORN and some progressive unions such as CWA 1180, which worked with ACORN to gain permanent ballot status for the state’s Working Families Party.
… Networks of activists both inside and outside of mainstream labor spread this philosophy of new militant unionism. By the late 80’s, organizers with social justice or community organizing experience had made headway inside local, regional , and national trade unions. Experience with … ACORN was common … Mark Splain and Stewart Acuff, both community organizers with ties to ACORN who directed the AFL-CIO’s Organizing Department.
Ms. Tait describes in some length ACORN’s rise and its long intertwined relationship with the new more militant Big Labor movement. And, she exposes Rathke acolytes Stewart Acuff and Mark Splain, who coordinate the AFL-CIO’s entire Organizing Department.
Further, according to Washington Times reporter S. A. Miller, ACORN operates mob-styled protection rackets:
ACORN provided liberal causes with protest-for-hire services and coerced donations from the targets of demonstrations through a mob-style “protection†racket. ACORN called it the “muscle for the money†program, according to prepared testimony…
The “unofficial†program collected payments to organize protests. For example, the Service Employees International Union [SEIU] hired ACORN to harass the Carlyle Group, a global private equity firm. Other paid protests targeted Sherwin-Williams, H&R Block, Jackson Hewitt and Money Mart, according to the testimony.
If you want first hand reports from the front lines of an SEIU ACORN-type campaign, listen to the National Right to Work Committee’s Interviews with two victims of separate multi-year card check unionization campaigns: Randy Schaber and David Bego. They describe the “protection racket†in detail.
ACORN and Big Labor’s Ultimate Goal
Just prior to the BigGovernment.com ACORN exposé, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Ranking Member Darrell Issa (R-CA) sent five letters to Departments and Federal Agencies asking questions about ACORN’s illegal activities. Now, the Senate and House are voting to cutoff federal funds.
Because of what Tait referred to as the “new militant unionism,†American workers can expect to see more ACORN-orchestrated Big Labor organizing harassment campaigns in their neighborhood if the Card Check Forced Unionism (S 560) bill is passed as promised by President Obama (who likely has a very close relationship with ACORN and SEIU 880 from his Chicago “community organizing†days).
ACORN’s and Big Labor’s ultimate goal is to force more workers to pay labor union dues as a condition of employment.