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© 2011 The Union Label Blog & Grassfire Nation
My friends over at Union Free America have an excellent report on the activities of ACORN and unions. As we all learn about the corrupt tendrils of ACORN we are more and more aghast at the extent of it.
ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has been controversial for many years. In the 2008 elections it achieved prominence both because of President Barack Obama’s previous association with it and because of the questionable legality of several of its voter registration activities. More recently ACORN has been demonstrated to be what some regard as a “criminal enterprise.”
Another ongoing controversy is the extent to which union officials give their members’ dues dollars to organizations not supported by the members. This issue arises most often in the context of employees trapped in compulsory unionism arrangements. Under several U.S. Supreme Court decision won by the National Right to Work Foundation, employees have the right to resign from the union and pay an “agency fee” instead of union dues. Further, they have the right to object to the use of their dues for anything other than union representation.
Both of those elements come crashing together when it comes to labor union support of ACORN.
Union members are assisted in the search for information about this by the U.S. Department of Labor’s very useful web site for union financial disclosure reports. (http://www.unionreports.gov) It contains a “payer/payee” search function so that by entering the name of the organization in question you can search the reports for all unions, and by modifying the reporting year, all the years of reports that are searchable online.
Between 2005 and 2008, the years immediately available online, labor unions reported giving a total of $8,618,092 to ACORN.
The big spender was the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) with $4,019,606 of the $8,618,092. The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) came in 2nd with a total of $2,189,270.
Also, of interest is that the totals were pretty even for the years.
2005 $2,469,139
2006 $1,985,921
2007 $2,032,856
2008 $2,135,176
The unions attributed these expenditures to different types of activity, as is required by regulations. Of the total, $7,013,081 was attributed to “Representational Activities”; $768,027 to “Political Activities”; and $592,783 to “Contributions, Gifts & Grants.” I’ve got some suspicions about this.
It is a real stretch of the imagination to think how giving money to ACORN can be regarded as a “representational activity,” but by so doing the union set it up so that they can collect contributions for ACORN from agency fee payers who object to paying for anything but the cost of union representation.
The Democrat leadership of the House of Representatives now wants to pay for H.R.3200 — the House healthcare bill — by charging a tax on the so-called Cadillac healthcare plans. This surtax is something that has been talked about in the Senate and forms an integral part of the Baucus bill, but this is the first time that House leaders have broached this revenue idea for inclusion in H.R.3200.
The idea, a classic class warfare styled policy, would tax what Congress considers high-end healthcare plans, purportedly only hitting “the rich.” But it is highly possible that this “rich man’s” surtax might also apply to millions of union members that have traded pay raises for higher levels of benefits over the last decade.
This surtax idea is one of the reasons that many of the unions had been pushing for the public option. Unions chiefs felt that the surtax would unduly affect their membership and that the public option would give union members a “free” place to go if they had to cut back on benefits or what have you.
Recently the administration has been trying to step back from the public option idea in order to make passage of Obamacare easier because so many Americans have come out against the public option. Consequently, many unions have stopped pushing for the public option in deference to pressure from the White House. One exception, though, has been the AFL-CIO, likely because its membership will really be hit hard by this surtax provision. On Sept. 22, Politico reported that AFL-CIO head Richard Trumka would fight against the surtax policy.
It is hard to imagine why the unions are bending over for this so easily? If this supposed rich man’s surtax is truly instituted and it does end up affecting unions, it really would hurt their membership. Of course, many expect that Congress will put provisions in the bill (and in some cases have already) that excludes unions from this tax. Still, no matter what it is, any provision put in a bill cannot be expected to be the end of the question. What’s in this bill is not in any way binding on any future Congress and cannot prevent a future Congress from taking out the union exclusions and opening that tax right on them regardless of what the unions think will happen. Once Obamacare is passed and it is found to be many times more expensive than it is claimed it will be, Congress will be sorely tempted to take out the union exclusions no matter how much the unions spend on pliant Democrats to prevent it. It is rare, indeed, when anyone can long stand in the way of Congress in search of a tax hike.
This surtax presents the left with a moral dilemma, too. Many on the far left hate “the rich” and want to tax the heck out of them to give everyone else “free” stuff. This has been a long-time sentiment among the far left, we all know. But recently, the far left has also claimed that healthcare is a “civil right.” So here is the problem: how can Congress put a confiscatory tax on a “civil right,” even if it does affect only the so-called rich? If healthcare is a civil right, taxing it for rich people would be little different than, say, requiring rich black people to pay a high tax in order to vote while allow poorer blacks to vote without being taxed at all? A leftist that supports this high tax and thinks that healthcare is a civil right is acting the hypocrite.
My friend and colleague, Frank Salvato, has sent me this excellent Op Ed about ACORN and Unions that I felt fit perfectly on TheUnionLabelBlog.com.
-By Frank Salvato
The spotlight of scrutiny is shining brightly on ACORN these days and rightly so. Where ACORN’s defenders have the audacity to insist that the employees caught on undercover videotape giving advice to a perceived “pimp” and “prostitute” on how to defraud the Internal Revenue Service and internationally traffic in underage Guatemalan prostitutes were simply “a few bad employees,” anyone with a brain recognizes that the problem is systemic in the organization. But what some are misdiagnosing or not completely understanding is how President Obama could be so nonchalant about the issue in recent interviews. It’s because ACORN – for Mr. Obama – has served its purpose and just like Van Jones, Tom Daschle and the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, ACORN is about to be tossed under the bus.
In past articles and in many radio interviews, I have insisted that Barack Obama is just another Chicago machine politician, albeit a very successful one (If you don’t understand the phrase “Chicago machine” read the book Boss by legendary Chicago journalist Mike Royko). And like every good Chicago machine politician, Barack Obama is following the cardinal rules:
- Do what you have to in order to get elected.
- Once elected, consolidate as much power as you possibly can.
- Reward those who helped you get elected.
- Position yourself for re-election and your retention of power.
In each of the steps Barack Obama has performed so far he has done so in a most exemplary fashion.
In getting elected to the various and limited number of offices he has held Mr. Obama has done what he has needed to do in order to be victorious. From using legal avenues to get his competition removed from the ballot to leveraging his clout with the Chicago Democrat machine to pilfering the mantra of the 1992 Clinton campaign – “Hope & Change” – Barack Obama has said and done everything required to win elections.
Once Mr. Obama was elected to the presidency, he and his team – led by Chicago politicians Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod – started to consolidate power, not only amongst the ranks of the Democrat national organization but in the Executive Branch. In addition to his nominations for cabinet posts, Mr. Obama set to putting in place a shadow cabinet of “czars.” From Van Jones to Mark Lloyd to Cass Sunstein to John Holdren, Mr. Obama began empowering trusted and like-minded individuals to help oversee his agenda while enlisting special interest groups and community organizations to facilitate legislation of the agenda.
Additionally, once Mr. Obama ascended to the Oval Office, he began to craft ways to reward those individuals and organizations that aided him in his political quest for the presidency. But here is where the rubber meets the road. In order to position himself for re-election Mr. Obama has to retain the individuals and organizations among his supporters who performed and/or have the potential for providing superior campaign performance while dispensing with the non-performers and/or liabilities.
Do you remember all that talk by Mr. Obama about a civilian national security force?
“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”
The key words in that passage are “achieve the national security objectives.” While everyone else was focusing on the dichotomy of our US military and a civilian counterpart, the real focus should have been on the definition of what Mr. Obama believes to be our “national security objectives.”
Let’s take the aforementioned quote and put it into context by incorporating this quote by Mr. Obama:
“We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”
As we have witnessed over the past eight months, Mr. Obama has quite the different vision of what is and what isn’t important where the well-being of our nation is concerned. Therefore, his idea of what comprises our “national security objectives” is also quite different from what we have come to expect and understand. Truth be told, this above average Chicago machine politician has coalesced his need to consolidate power with the implementation of his agenda, facilitated by a mostly manufactured mortgage crisis and a perceived economic crisis, into a marketable set of new age national security objectives.
In the Stimulus Package Mr. Obama effectively raided the US Treasury to reward a plethora of special interest groups. If the intent of the almost trillion dollar stimulus package was to create jobs and kick-start the economy why then were millions and in some cases billions spent on:
- The San Francisco Salt March Mouse
- A magnetically levitating train line from Disneyland to Las Vegas
- Lithium battery research
- Zero emissions power plants & carbon capture projects
- Amtrak
- The National Endowment for the Arts
- “Global warming” research (even as temperatures continue to fall)
- Digital television conversion
- Medicaid
- Unemployment benefits, food stamps & earned income credits
In an effort to be accurate, there were provisions included that actually generated stimulus to our economy. $30 billion (or less than 5% of the spending in the bill) went to fix bridges and/or other highway projects. $40 billion was allocated for broadband and electric grid development, airports and clean water projects, even though protection against the threat of an Electro-Magnetic Pulse attack were ignored. When one includes the roughly $20 billion for business tax cuts approximately $90 billion out of $825 billion (or about 12 cents of every $1) was for something that could be considered a point of economic stimulus.
What is unquestionable about the Stimulus Bill is that in each of the instances where a special interest was served – this group is dominated by eco-zealots and unions – an Obama supportive voter block was rewarded for their campaign efforts. With much of the $825 billion yet to be spent, it isn’t hard to understand that the bulk of this “embezzlement” will be allocated to Obama supportive groups just prior to the 2010 and 2012 elections.
In the auto industry bailout, the United Autoworkers Union was awarded a handsome package under the guise of GM trying to restructure outside of declaring bankruptcy, which it eventually had to do anyway. The bailout facilitated the General Motors Corp. giving the United Auto Workers union 17.5 percent of its common stock, $6.5 billion of preferred shares and a $2.5 billion note to fund a trust that will take over retiree health care costs starting in 2010.
For his support, Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric – the parent company of NBC and MSNBC, which all but fielded cheerleaders for the Obama campaign – was rewarded with a position on President Obama’s Economic Advisory Board. Today, NBC and, in a much larger degree, MSNBC have been idiotically supportive of anything and everything Obama almost to the point of comedy. Immelt is most certainly an influence in these efforts.
The AFL-CIO was rewarded in the appointment of two of their brethren. Dennis Hughes was appointed to the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and former special assistant to the United Steel Workers Union, Ron Bloom, was appointed the Manufacturing Czar.
And Mr. Obama said this in addressing the SEIU (Service Employees International Union):
“The question I want the SEIU to ask yourselves is not who’s talking about your agenda, but who can change our politics in Washington to so we can actually make your agenda a reality…Your agenda has been my agenda in the United States Senate. Before debating healthcare I talked to Andy Stern and SEIU members. Before immigration debates took place in Washington I talked to Eliseo Medina and SEIU members. Before the EFCA (Employee Free Choice Act) I talked to SEIU. So we’ve worked together over these last few years and I’m proud of the work we’ve done. I’m just not satisfied because I know how much more we can accomplish as partners in an Obama Administration. Just imagine what we could do together…Imagine having a president whose life’s work was your work…”
Meanwhile, ACORN, who was slated to be a major player in the upcoming census taking, has become a political liability to Mr. Obama and his agenda. In Chicago machine politics liabilities are shunned, disassociated, disavowed and, essentially thrown under the bus. In discussing ACORN, President Obama had this to say to George Stephanopoulos:
“…are there folks in the Democratic camp or on the Left who haven’t always operated in ways that I’d appreciate? Absolutely…”
When asked about Congress cutting off funding for ACORN, Mr. Obama said:
“Frankly, it’s not really something I followed closely. I didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money. What I know is what I saw on that video was certainly inappropriate…[but] this is not the biggest issue facing the country.”
So, ACORN will be cast on the ever increasing political ash heap amassed by the Obama Administration, not because they didn’t perform, but because they became a liability and because they became unusable for future endeavors.
But with or without ACORN, Mr. Obama, the quintessential Chicago machine politician, is well on his way to adhering to the machines cardinal rules. He has attained elected office. He has consolidated power. He has rewarded his minions. And he is positioning for re-election.
Do you remember when I mentioned Mr. Obama’s quote about the “civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded?” Have you figured out just who and/or what organizations the “force” is comprised of yet?
Here’s a hint: “…just look for the union label…”
Once again we see that unions are little else but an arm of the Obama campaign. In this case we see the president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, Ronald Demicheli, being suspected of engaging in political activism while being paid by a federal agency. Naturally, it was all for the Democrat Party and The One, Obama.
Demicheli is an employee of the Energy Department and is president of Local 1916 representing the employees of the Energy Dept. and the research facilities of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health.
The special counsel’s office, which polices compliance with a law restricting political activities by federal employees, seized Demicheli’s office computer, said Mark Roth, general counsel of the government employees union in Washington.
The Energy Department inspector general’s office also is investigating whether Demicheli was inappropriately on government time at an April 2008 Pennsylvania AFL-CIO convention when he helped escort then-candidate Obama from a holding room to the stage for a speech, Morrow said. The department’s interest may stem from a photograph on Local 1916’s Web site showing Demicheli and Obama shaking hands, Morrow said.
A few Republicans made comment on this incident.
“These are certainly serious and troubling allegations,” said Michael Steel, spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner, an Ohio Republican. “We’ll have to see whether the Obama Administration does the right thing for the American people by allowing a full and complete investigation, or chooses to put the needs of its special interest allies first.”
Once again we see the arrogance of leftist union leaders that imagine that they can flagrantly defy the law and illegally engage in left-wing activism while on the clock. This civil servant didn’t see any reason not to engage in left-wing political activities while WE THE PEOPLE paid him on the clock!
Disgusting abuse.
Here is yet another story where union members undergoing disciplinary procedures can sometimes spend years being paid their full salary to sit home and watch TV, doing nothing, working not a minute of their day. In this case it is costing a local school system at least $2.25 million to pay teachers that aren’t teaching.
This story focuses on teachers in Buffalo, New York but it is a story repeated in unions of all sorts all across the country.
The problem is that unions are allowed to become so meddlesome in member’s disciplinary procedures, the unions are allowed to block them so easily, that disciplinary procedures take an inordinate amount of time. All too often boards of review and other provisions to determine the culpability of bad teachers and arrive at a suitable punishment are opposed tooth and nail by unions. Unions especially fight the ultimate punishment: firings.
To be sure, no one thinks that unions should be so powerless that teachers can be fired on a whim. There certainly must be fairness for both parties, teachers and school administrations (the employer) alike.
But what ends up happening in unions of all sorts is that the unions are so reluctant to agree to a speedy address to disciplinary issues that individual union members sometimes languish for years — all the while being paid at full salary — waiting for their cases to be decided. And in the case of teachers, this means that the state is being forced to pay millions of dollars a year to pay teachers who aren’t teaching.
In the Buffalo case, for instance TV station WGRZ found that a mere 12 teachers are costing the school system $2.25 million a year to sit around waiting for their disciplinary cases to be adjudicated. And this doesn’t even count the costs of the substitute teachers that have to be hired to replace those teachers that are being paid to do nothing.
Now this situation happens in many other professions, as well. In the auto industry, for instance, the problem is called the “rubber room” effect. This is the practice of having a “jobs bank” where members spend months and years sitting around reading newspapers and drinking coffee every day at full pay while disciplinary measures are taken up or as they wait for job openings in other parts of the industry.
Again, these people are being paid at full salary to sit about doing nothing.
There are solutions for things like this, of course. Creating policies that adjudicate these matters faster is the first measure to consider. Finding ways to fire troublemakers is also an important goal. But unions simply do not want to allow such a sensible solution. Unions want these issues to be long and drawn out costing employers millions, perhaps billions when all unions in the country are added together.
And who eventually ends up paying for all of this? You guessed it. We the People.
Bill Zettler recently submitted a Freedom of Information request on the pensions of 13 retiring public school employees from District 211 in Palatine, Illinois and he found that the people of Illinois are on the hook for over $50 million in pension benefits promised to people retiring at the average age of 58.
Zettler found that these school employees are seeing an average of $96,000 a year in pension benefits whereas the average Social Security benefit is $13,500 a year. SS recipients also don’t get their benefits until they’ve reached 63 at least while the average retirement age of these public employees is 58.
I’ll get right to Mr. Zettler’s pullout quote, one that really puts the whole situation in perfect focus. “If the purpose of taxation is to provide for the common good,” Zettler said, “we may ask what common good is provided by making public employees multi-millionaires in their fifties?”
What could be a better question? When Social Security only begins to kick in after 63, and when these pensions pay out five times more than the average SS payout, why are citizens footing the bill for these lavish pensions? How can anyone imagine that this is financial sustainable for the public treasury?
It should be reiterated that this $50 million in out going tax money is only the payout to 13 employees. There are thousands upon thousands of other retiring Illinois employees with similar drafts on the public treasury. Further, Illinois isn’t the only state in the mess. And it is supposedly a “law” that these pensions cannot be cut or denied to current retirees. This is simply unsustainable if allowed to continue to grow.
Why should these public servants get far and away more than anyone in the private sector?
Now, let’s be clear, here. I absolutely do not begrudge anyone getting a deserved and earned pension no matter how luxurious it is. But NOT at the public’s expense. If these teachers and school employees want a luxurious retirement, then they should make provisions of their own as it should be. They should not be the beneficiaries of compliant politicians that are handing unearned goodies to union thugs for fistfuls of campaign cash. Because that is how these unearned pensions become so rich; politics. It certainly isn’t because school employees somehow deserve benefits at five times everyone else’s!
What could be more galling than lower middle class Illinoisans struggling to get by day-by-day in their golden years while they are paying taxes that end up funding publicly created millionaires in their late fifties? It just isn’t right.
As I said, it isn’t just Illinois school employees that are enjoying an undeserved pension. This is happening all over the country. For instance, Jack Dean of PensionTsunami.com wrote a great little piece in 2004 about the coming pension tsunami that will swamp government and bankrupt them all. In it he decries the fact that California’s state pension system will make millionaires out of public employees after only 22 years on the job.
This is simply unacceptable.
Eric Odom (Media Director)
Warner Todd Huston