Group Starts Anti-Union Campaign

[LiviaOlivia]

February 14, 2006
Group Starts Anti-Union Campaign
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

A new business-backed group is mounting a highly visible attack against organized labor, just as unions are trying to pick themselves up after suffering a schism and years of decline.

The group, the Center for Union Facts, ran full-page advertisements in national newspapers yesterday and started a Web site, UnionFacts.com, asserting that many unions are corrupt and have hurt airlines, steel makers and automakers.

"Obviously I'm putting out information that's not very flattering," said Richard Berman, a longtime lobbyist for the restaurant and beverage industry who is executive director of the Center for Union Facts. "The average person today, including the average union member, doesn't have any idea how unions operate and what the realities are. Everybody knows what unions are good at, but not what they're bad at."

The Center for Union Facts shot onto the public stage yesterday by running full-page ads in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. The ads, which cost a total of $240,000, say "The New Union Label," and then show a sign with the word "Closed" in capital letters hanging from a plant gate. Then it adds, "Brought to you by the union 'leaders' who helped bankrupt steel, auto and airline companies."

~snip~

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/14/business/14labor.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[jamesinca]

1. here we go somemore

I don't think this is an again thing, I think it is some more of what they have been doing.

[Scooter24]

2. The Center

probably receives a hefty amount from Wal-mart.

[tsuki]

3. And the RNC.

[tsuki]

4. The Union should take out an ad, who is bankrupting whom and

list the all the Company CEO pay and how much they pay lobbying firms. That would open some eyes.

[Greyhound]

11. And add the terms of separation in the executive contracts, and their

salaries, and perqs, and how the company performed under their administration, and the average salary of the line employees w/b4 and after comparison.

[tsuki]

15. Like that also. Also like the fact that the courts have upheld high

executive salaries of companies that are trying to force cuts on their employees.

[Greyhound]

19. What? All those librul judges are too busy legislating from the bench

to question the systematic looting of a company by the shit-heels that ran it into the ground.

[Blue_Tires]

12. good idea n/t

[Kolesar]

5. featuring plenty of ad revenue for the papers-buying the media silence.eom

[Upfront]

6. Bull Shit!

Union dues were the best money I ever spent. I used to here someone bitch about paying Union dues and I would offer to pay their dues if they would give me their next raise. Never had a taker.

[Jamison]

7. Slave driving a$$holes.

I'm sure this group wants everyone in America to be working for $5.15 an hour with no benefits.

[meganmonkey]

8. These are the same kind of folks who call unions "special interests"

in a derogatory way during elections, trying to put them in the same category as corporate lobbyists. But in reality, the unions represent CITIZENS in our deMOCKracy, the very people who are supposed to be represented in Washington. They do this with the AARP, too, as if it is some big evil entity pushing a minority position, but (while I don't always agree with their positions) their power comes from the fact that they represent a huge part of our population, NOT from money.

Okay, my coffee hasn't kicked in so that didn't make sense the way I wanted it to but you get the gist of it.

[momster]

9. A Bumper Sticker

I saw on a teacher's car --

Labor Unions -- The People Who Brought You The Weekend.

[sofedup]

10. keep this hope-giving thought in mind...

...the nurse's union kicked the gropenator's hiney all over the state of California and were instrumental in defeating the garbage he tried to foist off on the state in his very special election. When the awareness that the unions are "us" is kept front and center- people are supportive (except for the inexplicable "right-to-work" knuckle-draggers).

Hmmm...:think: ...seems I've just partially explained the renewed antiunion effort.

[cosmicdot]

13. here's a link to its website, and links to SourceWatch

http://www.unionfacts.org/
I couldn't find any organizational chart w/bios ... what's there to hide?

IRS 501 codes need some serious reform ... secretive funding of an organization organized under tax exempt laws just doesn't seem right ... it's a nifty way to set oneself up in income and a comfy DC office and lifestyle ... Source Watch notes that Berman & Co. front groups are typically headquartered at the same address:

Berman & Co.
1775 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Suite 1200
Washington, DC 20006


The Center for Union Facts is a secretive front group for individuals and industries opposed to union activities. It is part of lobbyist Rick Berman's family of front groups including the Employment Policies Institute.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=The_Center_for_Union_Facts
who are Rick Berman and Sarah Longwell? They seem to work together on all of these front groups.

Seems like a racket setting up all of these 501(c)(3) groups.

An article in the Washington Times in 2004 quotes Sarah Longwell speaking on behalf of the Collegiate Network: "The rise of a conservative media counter establishment and today's dominance of conservatism in the broader American society is no accident. It came about because of the vision and dedication of those who labored over the past quarter century to win the hearts and minds of an entire generation." http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sarah_Longwell

The Collegiate Network - "the home of conservative college journalism" - a part of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, provides assistance including funding and ideological direction to more than 70 conservative student newspapers in the United States.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Collegiate_Network

Coulter was part of the Collegiate Network


EPI's IRS Form 990 for the year 2000 shows $1,163,248 in income for the year, most of which ($940,593) came from 17 anonymous donors. Of that amount, $717,812 went to Berman & Co. for "management services," and another $165,766 in salary and benefits went personally to Rick Berman. Comparable figures appear in EPI's Form 990 for previous years.

According to the Right Guide, funders of EPI have included the John M. Olin Foundation and the Claude R. Lamb Charitable Foundation.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Employment_Policies_Institute

[Rainscents]

14. Swift Boating Union now?

Theses baster will never stop!

[Ignacio Upton]

17. Unions have been "Swiftboated" since the 19th Century

Portrayed as communists or anarchists

[indigo32]

16. it would be so much easier

if we were all just slaves.

[LiviaOlivia]

18. More info on these lying scumbags

How Corporate Right Lies About Union Corruption
Feb. 14, 2006
By Nathan Newman

Well, the corporate right has launched a new anti-labor front group called UnionFacts.org, dealing in dark tales of union corruption promoted by the former head of the Beverage institute, the nice folks who tell the public soda pop has no role in childhood obesity.

But it's a good chance to walk folks through how corporations lies about things like union corruption. Not that among the 15 million union members and tens of thousands of union staff, there aren't a few bad folks, but what's amazing is how much the opposition has to lie and pump up the numbers to make it seem at all significant.

For example, check out the site's page on "Union Leader Fraud & Corruption". They list $400 million in "labor racketeering" fines and civil restitution in the last five years. Sounds bad for the union leaders, but since the information come from the Labor Departments Office of Inspector General, let's go to that department's labor racketeering site.

~snip~

Any union illegal conduct should be rooted out, but in a world of multi-billion corporate corruption, unions are pure as snow, especially in comparison to the criminals running corporate America.

read the entire piece at:

http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/26678