Huffington Post's Sam Stein and AFL-CIO's Seth Michaels are both reporting on the latest news concerning the now-infamous Bank of America-sponsored conference call against the Employee Free Choice Act. In a joint complaint to the IRS, Change to Win and the AFL-CIO are alleging that the actions that took place on that call were illegal - under the tax code governing the tax-exempt status of the organizations that participated in the call.

Here's a quick video to fresh your memory:

The potential problem lies with lead participants Bernie Marcus and Rick Berman, from the Marcus Foundation and the Center for Union Facts, respectively. Seth Michaels put it this way:

"Marcus and Berman were organizing corporate donors to fight the Employee Free Choice Act and solicited donations to Berman's organization and to specific candidates hoping to influence the election and prevent passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that would protect workers' freedom to form unions and bargain."


The tax status of the Marcus Foundation and the Center for Union Facts prohibits them from soliciting such contributions, and therein lies the potential problem.

Here's an excerpt of the official complaint:

"Principals of the Center and the Foundation, while acting on their behalf, participated in a teleconference during which they explicitly endorsed Republican Party candidates for the United States Senate and solicited contributions to support their election, including, specifically and repeatedly, to the Center itself as a means to elect them. These activities warrant revocation of these charities' tax-exempt status and the imposition of appropriate taxes and penalties."

For the last month, we've been actively discussing this issue here at SEIU.org, having covered the conference call previously, asked the Treasury to hold Bank of America accountable, and calling for organizations to stop lobbying against the Free Choice Act when they receive taxpayer bailout funds.