Monday, July 18, 2011

The SEIU Intimidation Handbook

There has been considerable civil unrest nationwide because of sensible governors and legislators who decided that the need to cut costs was vital to their states' survival. The fattest cats on the cat farm are the public employees unions, and their turn to join the rest of us in recession mode has come. They don't like it, and they've acted like a mob on multiple occasions as a result.

The mainstream media have treated the "spontaneous demonstrations" as proof that unions are viable, popular, and righteously indignant. But those with the ability to see through the hype have long suspected that these demonstrations and occupations of public property were hardly spontaneous. Most have reasonably suspected that there was some sort of vague but organized effort among union management and membership to interfere with the workings of government and private enterprise. Recently, in regard to the most visible of the unions and its agitators, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the nebulous plan has become concrete.

During the discovery portion of a pending court case, the blueprint for union disruption of government and businesses and intimidation of individuals has turned up. In a seventy-plus page manual which will be entered into evidence, the SEIU sets out its demands, strategy, and tactics for use by the thugs and unwitting SEIU membership in disrupting civil society in order to strengthen the waning union movement. It is the first, but likely not the last smoking gun that will turn up during the unions' self-created class war.

The manual contains the usual garbage about predatory businesses and heartless corporations which had some truth decades and even a century in the past. But after justifying unionism even in the public sector, the manual goes on to describe tactics that can only be described as "mob-like." Though aimed largely at damaging medium to large businesses and corporations, the manual also includes elected officials among its targets. Worst of all, it encourages mob action against high-profile business owners and corporate management as well as boycotts and personal action against public officials, at their homes, not at their workplaces.

The SEIU manual, addressing banking institutions, promotes "outside pressure jeopardizing relationships between the employer and lenders, investors, stockholders, customers, clients, patients, tenants, politicians, or others on whom the employer depends for funds." It also encourages "lawfare," advising the use of lawsuits and regulatory shenanigans to threaten employers with cripplingly expensive action in the courts and at regulatory agencies (NLRB anyone?).

The manual encourages slinging mud with [phony] charges of exploitation of immigrants, racism, sexism, and rape of the local economies by taking money out of the community to pay dividends to rich shareholders. In the words of the manual: "Leafletting outside meetings where targeted managers are speaking (not to mention shouting the speaker down), their homes, or events sponsored by community organizations they are tied to are some ways to make sure their friends, neighbors, and associates are aware of the controversy."

It gets better: "It may be a violation of blackmail and extortion laws to threaten management and public officials with release of dirt about them if they don't settle a contract [favorable to the union]. But there is no law against union members who are angry at their employer deciding to uncover and publicize factual information about individual managers and elected officials." In short, a smear campaign. This is what former SEIU CEO and frequent overnight White House visitor Andy Stern calls "the persuasion of power."

This is not abstract theorizing. It's a manual for action. This past May, the SEIU organized busloads of demonstrators and ferried them to the home of Bank of America deputy general counsel Greg Baer. Unlike the AWOL union mob, Baer was at work, and his wife was at a local charity event. Only Baer's young son was at home, and he was terrified. The mob went onto the property from time to time, but mostly shouted into bullhorns and waved scurrilous signs which attacked the character of the boy's father. The boy was comforted by Fortune Magazine's bureau chief. He asked her, in tears, "when are they going to leave?"

As so often happens with leftist organizations, the SEIU invokes the names of legitimate human rights icons as if racial discrimination and colonialism were on a par with union contract demands. "Union members sometimes must act in the tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi and disobey laws which are used to enforce justice against working people." The manual doesn't include an explanation of why public employee union members should be paid substantially better than their private sector counterparts, or have their outrageous pensions paid for by the taxpayer. But clutching that manual (in spirit, at least) hundreds of union demonstrators occupied the Wisconsin state capitol, doing considerable property damage during their "spontaneous demonstrations."

We now no longer need to infer that there is an organized and thuggish movement on the part of SEIU and its union allies. We have their roadmap.

In case you're interested, the court filing involves a RICO case launched against the SEIU by Sodexo, Inc. Filed in the Virginia federal court, the case alleges that "S.E.I.U. has waged a relentless campaign to damage Sodexo’s reputation, interfere with its contracts, make false allegations of serving contaminated food to its customers, and otherwise bring the company to its knees. Sodexo claims this campaign has cost it millions of dollars in lost business and the Complaint specifies several contracts it contends were lost as a direct result of the union’s tactics."

Sodexo already had many union employees from various unions. The remainder of its employees had shown no interest in unionizing, but the SEIU came to Sodexo and demanded that all employees not already affiliated with another union be organized under the SEIU banner via card check. The company refused to negotiate on that basis, demanding that any such unionization be done by traditional secret ballot, and the intimidation campaign began.

24 comments:

Tennessee Jed said...

There is so much good stuff for Republicans to use in their campaign ads this time, I sure our side "gets it." For some reason, S.E.I.U. really, really, really bothers me. Oh, and did I mention they really bother me. Maybe there was some room for this stuff during the days of the Molly Maguires, but no longer.

AndrewPrice said...

Wow! I have to wonder if this doesn't qualify as proof of RICO?

Anonymous said...

Tennessee: Even when I was a liberal Democrat I didn't much care for unions. I was happy to see them declining over the years. Back then, there was no real SEIU. Public employees had OSHA and civil service protection and "service" employees had their choice of unions, if they cared to choose any union at all.

The SEIU is a cancer. It has combined all the thuggish tactics of the dockworkers unions in the 40s and 50s with an agenda of getting as many illegal immigrants as possible unionized and on their way to amnesty. Their strategy and tactics have more to do with forcing unwilling workers to join their union and forcing government workers to support the Democrats than protecting those who don't really need much protection in the first place. They know they can't increase their membership by persuasion, so they use violence, intimidation and stacked federal agencies to do their dirty work.

Anonymous said...

Andrew: It sure looks like it to me. If the SEIU isn't a corrupt organization, then there is no such thing as a corrupt organization. Even the Mafia didn't attack the families and friends of their "enemies." And when the [former] head of the SEIU proudly repeats the words of the Communist Manifesto as being applicable to American workers, we have what looks very much like a clear and present danger.

AndrewPrice said...

Lawhawk, I think there really is something to this. From what you've described, the SEIU is encouraging criminal behavior including extortion and fraud. That should qualify as the predicate acts (plus the wire fraud and mail fraud that will come with it). And their intent is criminal as evidenced by their tactics. That makes them a RICO organization.

Businesses and others should think about this. If abortion protesters could be gotten under RICO then sure SEIU can!

Anonymous said...

Andrew: I think we're off to a good start. So far, Rodexo has been very successful in exposing SEIU's nefarious tactics, and is building a fine RICO case. The discovery process is not going at all well for the SEIU.

On another front, the SEIU is actively involved in NLRB hearings which are designed to cut union certification votes from 30 days (in certain cases, 45 days) to 10 days. If the union can get 30% of a company's non-union employees to sign up (preferably by card-check, but any way they can), then the company would have only 10 days to mount a campaign stating its position and the advantages of remaining non-union. Given the makeup of the current NLRB, they have a good chance of pulling this heavily pro-union scam off.

T-Rav said...

We had a lot of issues with the SEIU in Missouri (especially St. Louis) last year during the town halls; at least a few people were beaten up at the rallies, one or two of them pretty badly. No doubt half the organization's members need to be locked up for something or other.

Anonymous said...

T-Rav: And the other half need to be deported.

Notawonk said...

this delighted me (bring that evil to the light) and horrified me at the extent to which these thugs will go.

good to know. good for everyone to know.

great post, bud.

Joel Farnham said...

LawHawk,

The next president should direct DOJ in prosecuting SEIU and other unions under the RICO act.

Hopefully, after a successful prosecution, Unions will go the way of the Dodo bird. That is, become extinct. :-)

Anonymous said...

Patti: Thanks. I had just published when Fox News started talking about the story. They got a few minor facts wrong, and they weren't quite sure how the manual turned up, but they got the essentials right. It will be interesting to see if the story develops legs. I've gotten so tired of the "working-class hero" crap put out by these mammoth unions. Maybe this story, if it does spread, will make enough people aware of who the real oppressors are. These big unions see the workers as fodder for their political goals. And just like the steel workers and dockworkers before them, the rank and file don't see that their "leaders" are pricing them out of the market (except for the government workers of course, since there is no price that the government sees as too high).

Anonymous said...

Joel: Let's hope the next [Republican] administration will have a gutsy attorney general willing to take these thugs on. He (or she) will have to be aware in advance that the union will go after his family and will undoubtedly threaten his home and try to destroy his private life. This won't be a cakewalk, but it's a vital necessity.

Joel Farnham said...

Let us then Hope that the next Attorney General is a homosexual orphan with no religion and his or her adoptive parents are dead.

Anonymous said...

Joel: That might be a little radical, but whatever works. Between thee and me, that sounds more like a "focus group" Democrat.

AndrewPrice said...

Lawhawk, Like all bullies, they have met their match in a company that is willing to fight back. Still, I would like to see this expanded to other companies and individuals, i.e. to break them with litigation costs and having to defend themselves all over the place.

Anonymous said...

Andrew: Too bad it won't be GE or GM. They're already in bed with the administration. But there's always 2012. Didn't my mother tell me "turnabout is fair play?"

Anonymous said...

It's a shame that things aren't a little more like the late 40s and 50s. The communists and organized crime were largely driven out of the major unions, almost entirely because of cooperation between Congress, the White House, and legitimate union leaders. Today, there are no legitimate union leaders, and as I've mentioned, the head of both the SEIU and the AFL-CIO are fond of quoting Marx. Where's Jimmy Hoffa when we need him?

T-Rav said...

Tsk, tsk, LawHawk. Don't you know those were the days of McCarthyism and jingoism, when innocent, patriotic Communists had their lives ruined by power-hungry fascists? You need to get with the program, dude.

Anonymous said...

T-Rav: The irony is that I lived it as a kid, then learned about it as a college student. The two versions of history didn't seem to match up very well. LOL

StanH said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
StanH said...

This must come to a screeching halt! These are the kind of associations that should have been vetted completely by out complicit press, Barry’s ties to SEIU, and most especially Andy Stern. The good news these jerks are out in the open, it’ll make it much easier to find and prosecute after the 2012 conservative earthquake that’s coming.

Anonymous said...

Stan: Alinsky's plans are alive and well and living in the SEIU handbook. The MSM will ignore this and spin it to Obama's advantage. They already acted as if Stern's regular overnights at the White House were no big deal.

Tehachapi Tom said...

Hawk
Does Sodexo market any products that can be purchased in California?
My interest is that I want to buy their products in preference to their competitors.
Union is the most offensive four letter word in the dictionary now a days.

Anonymous said...

Tehachapi Tom: I'm not sure where one would look for Sodexo-related products in California. I do know they have worldwide connections. Just as an informational comment, here is Sodexo's mission statement: About Us. Look particularly at "The numbers behind a better day."

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