ACORN joins with unions

Political activists who masquerade as non-partisan community organizers have joined with organized labor to pressure elected officials into supporting left wing causes, according to a top analyst with the Capital Research Center (CRC).

Matthew Vadum, a senior editor and analyst with CRC has determined that the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) is best described as a “multi-headed hydra” with over 400,000 member families positioned in 110 cities fiercely opposed to the capitalist system.

“ACORN claims to be non-partisan but there are mountains of evidence that show it is flagrantly partisan,” Vadum said. “It celebrates the most left-wing politicians and endorses Democratic Party candidates. Whenever ACORN is called out for activity that might violate their tax status, the standard operating procedure is to deny responsibility and to place the blame on rogue actors. Their network is deliberately set up to avoid scrutiny and to create confusion.”

While the organization’s complicated structure makes is difficult to determine how many affiliates and subsidiaries are tied in with ACORN’s vast apparatus, its connection with organized labor, especially the Service Employees International Union, is well-established, Vadum observed.

SEIU Locals 100 and 880 are identified as allied organizations on ACORN’s web site. U.S. Department of Labor LM-2’s (financial disclosure forms) point to over $600,000 in transactions between these same SEIU locals and other ACORN operations. A 2007 LM-2 form shows SEIU Local 880, which is active in Illinois and Minnesota, donated $60,118 to ACORN for "membership services." Organized labor has kicked it back in the form of gifts and grants to ACORN totaling $2.4 million, the LM-2’s reveal. 

Top officers with ACORN have been consistent supporters of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) also known as the Card Check Bill. ACORN’s president Maude Hurd took part in a pro-EFCA rally outside of the U.S. Senate in 2006.

“ACORN members are low- or moderate-income workers and their families,” she said. “We see with our own eyes how their lives improve when they are members of unions. When labor is weakened we are all weakened and when labor is strong we are all strong.”
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) reintroduced the Card Check bill earlier this year but with fewer co-sponsors than it had back in 2007. Card check would effectively end the use of secret ballots in unionization election and impose binding arbitration.

Wade Rathke, who founded ACORN back in 1970, remains a chief organizer for SEIU Local 100, which covers Louisiana Arkansas and Texas. ACORN’s board voted to remove Rathke from his position as chief organizer of the parent organization last June after it was revealed his brother Dale Rathke had allegedly embezzled almost $1 million. Rathke also remains active with ACORN International and Affiliated Media Foundation Movement Inc.

SEIU is part of an aggressive push for Card Check because it recognizes that it would translate into increased union membership, more dues and more money for the left, explained James Sherk a labor expert with the Heritage Foundation.

“The left has an organizational advantage in that unions get to suck dues money out of workers who in many cases are actively hostile to the union’s political goals,” Sherk said. “The right does not have anything like this. It’s a structural disadvantage that the right competes under.”

The LM-2 disclosure rules are of great value because they show how unions often use other left-wing organizations to advanced their agenda when they don’t want to appear too “nakedly self interested,” Sherk said.

In 2008 SEIU spent over $42 million on independent expenditures and communications, more than any other group aside from the Republican and Democratic National Committees, according to OpenSecrets.org. SEIU’s political action committee (PAC) also contributed about $2.3 million to candidates in the 2007-2008 cycle,  with 94 percent of its donations going to Democrats.

“ACORN is designed to keep the left in power and to exert pressure on the Democratic party to remain as far left as possible,” Vadum said. “Right now President Obama and the congressional Democrats are getting a lot of grief over card check as it loses support.”

ACORN did not respond to a request for comment.