Remember Brent Southwell, the business owner who says SEIU threatened to “kill” his company? Sadly, his experience isn’t unique. While BigGovernment.com readers have become increasingly acquainted with the tactics of unions like SEIU (and their allies in ACORN) to demonize American employers, the practice remains unknown to millions of Americans. Yesterday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce held an event in Washington to spotlight smear campaigns (known in the jargon as “corporate campaigns”).
David Bego, a business owner in Indianapolis whom my fellow BG bloggers have referenced, gave an often emotional keynote speech outlining in great detail the nightmare experience of SEIU attacking his company. After telling the union he would not sign away the secret-ballot rights of his employees, he says the union responded that it would begin its attack, warning: “We enjoy conversation, but we embrace confrontation.”
In his book, The Devil At My Doorstep (Amazon), Bego writes:
One minute, we were enjoying the fruits of our labors minding our own business, and the next attacks begin lambasting the company as a “rat contractor” that cleaned buildings dubbed “Houses of Horror” for janitors who were exploited, intimidated, threatened, and abused all in the name of corporate greed. For the first time in our history, multiple National Labor Relations Board filings, frivolous charges with questionable evidence, would be filed against us for employee rights violations and for firing union supporters as the EMS image was dragged through the mud.
Americans have to wake up to what’s going on on shopfloors and in boardrooms across the country. U.S. businesses are being attacked and forced to swallow bad contracts and sign away employees’ rights to remain union-free — sometimes they are even denied the right to vote on whether they want to be union-free.
For those aware of ACORN and SEIU’s philosophical roots, an analysis of corporate campaigns by George Washington University professor Jarol Manheim uncovered strikingly familiar tactics and language:
- The corporate campaign was invented by the New Left in the 1970s, and by the 1990s was in widespread use by the labor movement. To date, unions have waged nearly 300 campaigns against employers, primarily, though not exclusively, to facilitate organizing.
- Corporate campaigns employ “power structure analysis” to identify and exploit vulnerabilities in the critical stakeholder relationships on which all companies depend. This broad strategic approach is then implemented through tactics that range from highly sophisticated financial and governance initiatives to street theater and even psychological warfare.
- Typically, the role of the corporate campaign today is to force management to accede to union demands for “card check and neutrality”—a process by which the union certification procedures administered by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) are effectively circumvented. A recent innovation here is the substitution of non-NLRB elections for card check, which has been coupled with a widening attack on the NLRB itself.
(emphasis added)
MORE READING:
- For a great BG post on corporate campaigns, see this from Don Loos.
- For more information on the ways ACORN gets hired by unions for corporate campaigns, click here.
- For those interested, be sure to see how SEIU uses its vicious corporate campaign tactics on its own union brethren.
View full post on Big Government
The SEIU has a sympathetic administration doing the lifting for them presently but this will change. Stern and his goons had better enjoy it now because as the light of truth is shined upon them, they will be targeted for extermination. I say we go toe to toe with this bunch and see who's standing when the dust clears.
You are right. Fringe Media.
They have relegated themselves into the dustbin of history.
The cutting edge will be Breitbarts "Big Journalism".
He shifted the paradigm on them. They are sitting out in the cold, and don't even know it, yet………
msm? nope fringe media!!
I keep repeating as often as I get the chance, public sector labor unions ought to be legislated out of existence and it ought to be cemented into perpetuity. No business in the public sector, NONE.
Hey, they embrace confrontation right? I mean they're tuff, they have lots of thugs to back them up right? THEY EMBRACE IT! So will I.
Scorched Earth, never has the phrase found a more fitting application. Burn their goddamned houses down, now your talking the only language they speak. Effing punk crook thieves.
Grrr these stories tick me off and often times they're not the half of it as I know from personal experience.
It is time to go John Gault, it is easy for me. For those not in a position to adopt this philosophy, research it, do your best to get in that position. Especially if we fail in November of 2010.
2010 – time for "CHANGE "
My God people….. it's truly getting out of control … I'm not sure when the riots will start but they will !!!!!! He is killing off America and turning us into a HUGO state !!!!!
http://michellemalkin.com/2010/01/14/demcares-big...
Along with the political class, and the MSM, unions must be part of the purges starting in 2010. This kind of activity is unacceptable in America, the land of the…until recently…free! Business owners move your companies to “Right to Work” states like Boeing from Washington state to South Carolina. Remove the host, and the parasites will die.
Goons … mob goons
Purple Peter Eaters acting up again! Still! Stand Up and embrace the Confrontation!
When they hit, hit back twice as hard!
Time to pass the Right to Work (without threat of union organization) and make it illegal for unions to organize government employers. It would also help if we could make it illegal for unions to secure government contracts or lobby on behalf of their union. The whole problem is the quid pro quo that exists between the government slush funds and politicians who depend on unions to be elected.
Is anyone really surprised that this is the corrupt result? We are at war for the future of our country, and pretending that is not the case guarantees our failure. We have to be willing to fight fire with fire.
America- take back your country Chapter Three…
None of what you are reading here is hyperbole. None of it is rumors, or supposition, or flights of fancy. This is an education in what happens when Communist revolutonairies (not-so-cleverly disguised as garden variety fascists)
seize control. THEY are agenda, not governance driven.
SEIU and Head Red Andy Stern are particularly onerous, and he has only been at the White House 20-odd times…
So, remember this. Tell your friends. Heck, tell your foes- get active, and take back your country!
Love the pic – had to steal it for my facebook pic and to share ….
Looks like UNIONS have struck a deal with the Government !!! WTF !!!! I REPEAT WTF????
Were the government UNION employees going to go on strike ???? This "CRAP" is BU11SH1+"
Dam I am pissed and can anyone tell me why they get a deal … anyone ?????
http://www.nationaljournal.com/congressdaily/hca_...