SEIU = ACORN

[PJABBER]

The following article goes into some detail about the ties between ACORN and SEIU.

In fact, one of the fascinating consequences of the examination of ACORN is the consequent exposure of ACORN ties to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). You will hear more and more disclosure of the intimate ties between the two organizations in the future.

Why is this important in the context of increasing discovery of the corruption rife throughout ACORN?

SEIU is the fastest-growing union in North America and is focused on workers in three sectors:

* SEIU is the largest healthcare union, with more than 1.1 million members in the field, including nurses, LPNs, doctors, lab technicians, nursing home workers, and home care workers

* SEIU is the largest property services union, with 225,000 members in the building cleaning and security industries, including janitors, security officers, superintendents, maintenance workers, window cleaners, and doormen

* SEIU is the second largest public services union, with more than 1 million local and state government workers, public school employees, bus drivers, and child care providers

The SEIU has been involved in political campaigning for legislation backed by President Barack Obama and the US Democratic Party. It has often helped organize and attend meetings in support of President Obama's push for healthcare reform. SEIU members have often been involved in confrontations with conservative demonstrators who oppose healthcare reform.

... the union has conducted an intensive national campaign over the last several months and plans to organize more 400 events this month alone around the country advocating health care reform and economic recovery. (Wiki reference)

SEIU Money to Congress: 2008 Cycle (Federal Election Commission)

Dems: 94% Dems: $2,204,963
Repubs: 5% Repubs: $ 132,750

Like ACORN, with whom they conduct campaign activities, they are, in effect, a Democrat organization based on declared positions and political support of Democrat politicians.

Like ACORN leadership advising Democrat leadership on housing loan lending standards, SEIU leadership (in fact, one and the same individuals) is intimately advising President Obama and Democrat Congressional leadership on how to structure the future of America's health care. ALL of the Democrat health care / health insurance legislative proposals come from SEIU or are only incorporated after they are vetted by SEIU.

I don't trust that ACORN activities have been in the best interests of the country and may have, in effect, significantly contributed to the meltdown of the US housing sector.

I do believe the intimate relationship between SEIU and ACORN bears close examination.

I do believe the role of SEIU in the Democrat proposed restructuring of America's health care /health insurance bears the closest of examination.

Don't you?

********************

SEIU: ?One of the Pillars of the ACORN Family?

SEIU: ?One of the Pillars of the ACORN Family?

by Don Loos

Don Loos is Senior Advisor to the President of National Right To Work.

Don served in the George W. Bush Administration for over seven years at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). At the Labor Department, Don received two Secretary of Labor?s Exceptional Achievement Awards from Sec. Elaine Chao for his significant roles in labor union financial transparency revisions (Form LM-2) and union officer conflict of interest financial disclosure revisions (Form LM-30).

After resigning from DOL on January 20, 2009, Don joined others committed to individual worker freedoms and protections at The National Right To Work (NRTW) located in Springfield, Virginia. NRTW is a single-purpose citizens' organization dedicated to the principle that all Americans must have the right to join a union if they choose, but not one should ever be forced to affiliate with a union in order to get or keep a job. At NRTW, Don has the privilege of being involved in all aspects of NRTW?s battle against forced unionism.

For one of Big Labor?s most notorious organizing partners, ACORN, the ?chickens have come home to roost? thanks to the James O?Keefe and Hannah Giles continuously unfolding ACORN exposé. If you rely on MSNBC for your news, you may not have noticed ACORN?s very thin ?community organizer? veneer being sanded away exposing the rotten termite-infested wood underneath.

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.?

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)

2006

SEIU #100 - OFFICER - Chief Organizer/C
SEIU National Headquarters - EMPLOYEE - Campaign Project Coordinator

2000

SEIU National Headquarters - OFFICER - Executive Board/C
Hospitality Hotels and restaurants - OFFICER - President/C
SEIU #100 - OFFICER - Chief Organizer/C

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.[/b], 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.

 

[umbrella39]

FOADIAF with your c&p BS

 

[dainthomas]

My eyes glazed over after the first three feet of text.

 

[PJABBER]

Originally posted by: dainthomas
My eyes glazed over after the first three feet of text.

Well, I tried to preserve the formatting of the article as it really is presented in that way.

The linkages are myriad and complex, the description also is necessarily complex.

How about a Cliff Note summary for you?

ACORN + SEIU = OBAMA & DEMOCRATS = MORE BAD NEWS YET TO COME

 

[marincounty]

I've got a summary for you:

Rush=Nazi=Pervert=Blackwater=Fox News=Tea Baggers=Republicans=Fail

 

[PJABBER]

Originally posted by: marincounty
I've got a summary for you:

Rush=Nazi=Pervert=Blackwater=Fox News=Tea Baggers=Republicans=Fail

Another happy ACORN supporter!

 

[irwincur]

Look at all of the intelligent replies...

 

[BarrySotero]

SIEU is often called "Son of ACORN" (and they especially want illegal alien membership). Keep in mind Wade Rathke admired the Cloward Piven method os sowing chaos to damage administrative systems and create chaos that communists could manipulate. In a new book of his Rathke endorsed an "orchestrated ciris" as a means to cause poltical upheavel change. ACORNS massive and sloppy registrations were in part designed to overwhelm the agencies charged with keeping elections orderly.


"Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) founder Wade Rathke wants to use the Internet to overthrow the capitalist system.

He said so in his new book, Citizen Wealth: Winning the Campaign to Save Working Families, in which he serves up some community organizing war stories, and offers his thoughts on the future of organizing.

Rathke, a pioneer of the so-called welfare rights movement that aims to get Americans on welfare, devotes an entire chapter of his book to what he calls "The 'Maximum Eligible Participation' Solution." It is a strategy for orchestrated crisis that savvy leftist groups across America are likely to embrace...


Rathke acknowledges his support for the Cloward-Piven Strategy, an approach to radical social and political change articulated by Marxist university professors Richard A. Cloward and Frances Fox Piven in a 1966 Nation article, "The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty." The two academics called for "a massive drive to recruit the poor onto the welfare rolls" in an effort to overwhelm the system.

The strategy helped to bankrupt New York City in 1975. Years later, the Big Apple's mayor, Rudy Giuliani, denounced the academic activists by name.


In his book Rathke hails "Cloward and Piven's exciting call to arms." He notes that the activist group they created and that he organized for in the late 1960s, the now-defunct National Welfare Rights Organization, caused "a flood tide from its work that allowed many boats to rise, including the level of participation in government assistance programs."

http://spectator.org/archives/.../wrathful-wade-rathke/

It's no accident the stimulus bill unhinged welfare reform. The present gov and many of their associated organizations is stocked full of people who would like to end America at its core. Dem party is basically hijacked by radical elements (and using useful Prozac saturated idiots like Bela Pelosi).

 

[MovingTarget]

ugh...

 

[CitizenKain]

My god, a union comprised of lower income people has ties to an organization that caters to poor people?

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Originally posted by: dainthomas
My eyes glazed over after the first three feet of text.

It's as bad or worse than reading a Harvey C&P linkfest.

 

[jteef]

tl;dr but what kind of doctor would join a union???

 

[PJABBER]

Originally posted by: CitizenKain
My god, a union comprised of lower income people has ties to an organization that caters to poor people?

Nope. A corrupt union that rips off working Americans that is tied at the hip to a corrupt organization built from the ground up to destroy America from within while using taxpayer funding to rip off the poor.

C'mon, it's not that hard to get to know some of the facts about both of these groups. Who founded them and their backgrounds, how the groups evolved, what their goals are, why they are stumbling as they got more arrogant, careless in their hubris and beyond the principals' ability to withstand the light of day and examination.

Easier still is to find out how they influence government and access taxpayer funding, much more dangerously now as the current One Party government was highly dependent on them to gain office.

Stop being an apologist for political allies clearly in the wrong and fellow travelers that will turn on you in an instant for any personal gain they can get, as ACORN and SEIU demonstrate with exemplary dispatch. Turn off the BSNBC, Huff and Puff Post and Daily Kross propagandists and open your eyes with some critical reading. You might just learn a little bit about how the world turns.

 

[First]

The ex-stalker blog is back. Oh noes!

 

[imported_gardener]

Originally posted by: PJABBER
open your eyes with some critical reading. You might just learn a little bit about how the world turns.

Critical thinking is where you fail. There's nothing critical about you cutting and pasting some proganda from your favorite rightwing porn site.

Reading your posts is like going to the pound to listen to dog sh*t dropping on the floor.

 

[Patranus]

Glad to see Obama offering the SEIU/ACORN a seat at the table to help "shape" his administration.

I wonder how he will try and distance himself from those comments.

Funny, if you don't believe these two organizations are one in the same, in many cities they share the same facilities. Good times.

 

[JSt0rm]

single payer healthcare would bust up virtually every union in the country.

 

[cubeless]

Originally posted by: JSt0rm01
single payer healthcare would bust up virtually every union in the country.

hardly... the unions would get to organize a huge new gov't agency...

and of course, it will take many more years before some 2bit org like acorn could be anywhere as corrupt as the lowliest union...

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: First
The ex-stalker blog is back. Oh noes!

:laugh:

 

[CitizenKain]

You anti-union are so cute, what with your childlike opinions of them. I'll be sure to start listening to Glenn Beck to help get critical thinking skills, because when I think of great thinkers of our time, I think recovering alcoholic adult mormon converts.