Today the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) sent letters to television stations in Nebraska and Arkansas demanding that deceptive ads about the Employee Free Choice Act be taken down immediately. The ads are paid for by the Employee Freedom Action Committee (EFAC), the political action committee of anti-worker front group Center for Union Facts.

Said SEIU Political Director Jon Youngdahl:

"Arkansans and Nebraskans are losing their jobs, their benefits and their retirement security, yet the same greedy CEOs and corporate lobbyists who helped tank the economy aren't satisfied.

"Now, they want to take away workers' rights to bargain for better working conditions and higher wages. In order to do so, they're reduced to creating vicious and false ads that portray union members as mobsters. They need to stop this deceptive ad campaign and remove these lies from the air."

In a letter sent to television stations in both states today, SEIU debunked the false claims made in EFAC's ads, writing in part:

The ad falsely claims that organized workers do not have a say in negotiations over their wages and benefits, when nothing could be further from the truth. It is unorganized workers who have no mechanism to negotiate with their employer over their wages and benefits. At the same time, union members typically vote on whether to ratify their contracts.

Moreover, the ad falsely implies that employers are handing out raises to their employees with the union that is standing in the way, when the exact opposite is true. The fact is that union workers have higher wages and better benefits than non-union workers, which is why more than half of all workers--nearly sixty million--would join a union if they could. Indeed, according to the Center for American Progress Action Fund, union workers earn significantly more on average than their non-union counterparts, are nearly 54 percent more likely to have employer-provided pensions, and are 28 percent more likely to be covered by employer-provided health insurance. In 2007, union workers earned 30 percent more on average than non-union workers.

On Thursday, Media Matters also deconstructed the ads, deeming the campaign "inaccurate and offensive."

EFAC, like its affiliated organization Center for Union Facts, is run by corporate lobbyist Rick Berman. Berman, former labor counsel at the US Chamber of Commerce, is a virulent anti-worker and anti-consumer activist. According to a profile of Berman on NPR:

Berman's firm also runs the American Beverage Institute, which argues that drunk driving is over-hyped; the Center for Consumer Freedom, which argues that the obesity "epidemic" and mad cow disease, among other things, are over-hyped; and the Employment Policies Institute, which advocates against minimum wage increases.

• Download a copy of the letter (PDF)

View the letter below:

Letter to Arkansas TV Stations re: Inaccurate Advertising

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) demanded that ads from the Employee Freedom Action Committee (EFAC), the political action committee of anti-worker front group Center for Union Facts, be taken down immediately. The ads, running in Nebraska and Arkansas, make deceptive and false claims about the Employee Free Choice Act, legislation to allow workers to bargain with their employers for job security, better wages and benefits.

In a letter sent to television stations in both states today, SEIU debunked the false claims made in EFAC's ads.

• Download a copy of the letter (PDF)

View the letter below:

Letter to Arkansas TV Stations re: Inaccurate Advertising

You may remember Rick Berman from such corporate farces as, "Pesticides: Kids Love 'Em!" and "Second Hand Smoke: You Have Two Lungs for a Reason." Now get ready for the latest episode in Rick Berman's corporate hackery: planting a former employee and Wal-Mart lobbyist as a "Democrat against the Employee Free Choice Act."

Here's Ken Silverstein in Harpers today on the discovery of the plant:

The Orlando Sentinel ran an item Monday, "Growing Number of Dems Opposing EFCA," which cited a political consultant named Joe Kefauver and another local political official -- "both longtime Democrats who supported Obama" -- as being stern opponents of EFCA, with Kefauver adding that support for organized labor shouldn't be the only "litmus test for being a good Democrat." The article was instantly posted on a website run by Berman's Center for Union Facts.

What the article didn't mention is that Kefauver has long and close ties to Berman. The most recently available public disclosure forms list Kefauver as both a director of Berman's Center for Consumer Freedom, and as a compensated "director of development" for Berman's Employment Policies Institute Foundation. Berman and Company has also paid Kefauver's firm for consulting services.

Up until early-2007, Kefauver was in charge of all of Wal-Mart's state-level lobbying efforts in Florida. "Joe was responsible for prioritizing and developing the company's legislative and political agenda, their interaction with Governors, Attorneys General, Mayors and legislative leaders, as well as executing the company's aggressive store expansion program," says his firm's website. Wal-Mart is one of the vocal corporate opponents of EFCA.

Oops. Better luck next time, Rick.

Thanks to SouthernStudies.org for the find.

Image of potted plant used under Creative Commons license from Flickr user erix!

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.

Sam Stein, the political reporter for the Huffington Post, just published a vital article on corporate America's fight against the Employee Free Choice Act. Entitled "Bailout Recipients Hosted Call to Defeat Key Labor Bill," Stein writes about a conference call - hosted by Bank of America - and audio of the event that he's managed to obtain.

The call, which took place on October 17th of last year, included participants such as AIG, co-founder of Home Depot Bernie Marcus, and uber-lobbyist Rick Berman. Participants were encouraged to donate to the political campaigns of at-risk Republican senators, or even Berman's union-busting organization, the so-called "Center for Union Facts."

Stein writes:

"At one point, another individual on the call suggested that participants send major contributions to Berman's organization as a way of affecting the election without violating the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. 'Some organizations have written checks for $250,000, $500,000, some $2 million for this,' said the man, likely Steven Hantler, the director of free enterprise and entrepreneurship at Bernie Marcus' Marcus Foundation."

The call was laden with hyperbole, scare tactics, excessive drama, and Oscar-worthy performances. Marcus can be heard saying that the Employee Free Choice Act would be the "demise of a civilization," and that "if a retailer has not gotten involved in this...they should be shot."

How nice!

Overall, as stated on the call, the objective of their anti-Employee Free Choice campaign, says lobbyist Berman, is "is to make this issue so hot in some states so that even a Democrat who is up for election in 2010 has to think twice about whether or not they are going to let this thing go by."

Bank of America, of course, declined a request to comment on both the story and the audio recording. In the article, Stein notes that the bank's efforts to "drum up support for defeating" the Employee Free Choice Act "so soon after getting bail out funds from the federal government," has " left a bad taste" in some mouths.

Earlier today SEIU President Andy Stern called for Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis to be fired, citing the company's irresponsibile business practices and use of federal bailout money.

"Bank of America took taxpayer money and allowed Merrill Lynch to hand out bonuses to executives at the same time it was preparing pink slips for 35,000 employees," said SEIU President Andy Stern.

"It's time to start enforcing some basic standards for corporate behavior. Ken Lewis has failed Bank of America and he has failed taxpayers - and the Bank of America board should remove him."

Read the full article and listen to some excerpts of the call by visiting the original report here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/27/bank-of-america-hosted-an_n_161248.html