Special Report
ACORN's Labor Pains
Given how it treats its workers, the notorious group is a PR disaster waiting to happen.
(Page 2 of 3)
And for a group that poses as a champion of workers' rights, ACORN doesn't treat its own workers well. What follow below are just a few select examples from ACORN's sordid history of employee abuse.
The Industrial Workers of the World complained that Rathke's SEIU Local 100 sabotaged a union drive by employing union-busting techniques used by corporate America. In 2003 the National Labor Relations Board determined ACORN had unlawfully blocked its workers from organizing.
Fed up with long hours and paltry pay, four ACORN organizers were canned by ACORN two days after they started a union certification drive against the group in Portland, Oregon. "We felt there was a lot of deceit in the organization," organizer Sarah Manowitz told Williamette Week. Employees reportedly worked 54 hours per week, including Saturdays, for annual pay of just $20,200. Two organizers said they were often paid late.
In 1995, ACORN sued the state of California seeking an exemption from the law that requires that it pay its own employees a minimum wage. The group treated its workers as if they were mendicant friars, arguing that keeping its employees in poverty helps to boost their zeal to help the poor. ACORN lost.
In 2006, $250-a-week ACORN intern Sandra Stewart told Baltimore City Paper that the Baltimore chapter hadn't bothered to pay her for her work. Three other former ACORN workers told the paper that the group failed to pay them back wages.
A 2003 study of ACORN by the Employment Policies Institute found the group paid a wage of $5.67 per hour, which was "less than half the level demanded by many proposed 'living wage' ordinances that ACORN supports."
ACORN doesn't like paying its employees overtime. In 1996 the federal Department of Labor sued Citizens Consulting Inc. (CCI), a shadowy ACORN affiliate that traditionally took care of administrative matters for ACORN. The next year a federal court ordered CCI to cough up $10,000 in back wages.
ACORN has also been accused on flooding hospital emergency rooms with union goons demanding care in an effort to pressure hospitals to unionize.
Meanwhile, ACORN is pressing Congress on several issues.
ACORN is the lead player in Health Care for America Now (HCAN), which is pressing Congress to enact President Obama's ambitious health redistribution scheme.
ACORN is also listed as a "partner" in the Apollo Alliance, along with SEIU, and Center for American Progress president John Podesta. The "green jobs" group has significant pull in Congress and helped to write the February stimulus bill. It is a major player in the debate over economy-crippling cap-and-trade legislation.
The Apollo Alliance "is designed to bring together the elements of organized labor with the community organizers with the green groups, the environmental groups, and to access all of the big foundation money that's been supportive of those causes in the past," according to Phil Kerpen, director of policy for Americans for Prosperity.
ACORN also supports organized labor's top priority, the proposed "Employee Free Choice Act" (EFCA). Also known as "card check," the measure would take away the right of workers to cast secret ballots on whether to form a union.
The proposed law would open the door to harassing and intimidating workers that union organizers target for signatures indicating that they agree to be represented by a labor union. "Card check" is tantamount to having union officials follow you into the voting booth and stay with you until you vote the way they want.
ACORN president Maude Hurd joined Senate Labor Committee chairman Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and House Labor Committee chairman George Miller (D-Cal.) at a pro-EFCA rally outside the U.S. Senate in December 2006. She said, "ACORN members are low- and moderate-income workers and their families. We see with our own eyes how their lives improve when they are members of unions. When labor is weakened, we all are weakened and when labor is strong we all are strong."
About the Author
Matthew Vadum is an award-winning investigative journalist at a conservative watchdog group in Washington, D.C. Vadum is also author of Subversion Inc: How Obama's ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (106) | Leave a comment
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Ryan| 8.7.09 @ 8:51AM
Until there is an upheaval in the house, it's going to be up to state and local governments to fight anything that ACORN is pulling.
Bruce| 8.7.09 @ 9:26AM
I agree with Ryan. There is absolutely "no way" this is going anywhere in the House committee.
Face it; Congress practices the same tactics as ACORN: Do as is say, not as I do.
Tim| 8.7.09 @ 12:18PM
It seems to me that "Acorn's Workers" would be better served if they become unionized.
And why not, the other Federal Goverment/Party workers are all union and enjoy working under labor contracts why not the folks who work at Acorn? Are they second class citizens?
I smell a little discrimination here. Why do some Federal/Party workers get all of the tax payers bennies while others like Acorn don't?
I think Congress should investigate this discriminatory practice that is lurking in their own back yard.
I say all Goverment/Party workers should be treated the same.
Rocco| 8.7.09 @ 1:49PM
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." -- Napoleon Bonaparte
CO Defender| 8.7.09 @ 4:28PM
The Republican Party has nobody to blame but themselves for all of this statist crap sandwich we've been fed the last 200 days. Between "wide stances", infidelity, not to mention spending like a sailor on shore leave leading up to the 2006 elections--we deserve what we're getting thanks to them. It is truly time to throw out ALL of the incumbents--R and D alike. Professional politicians have ruined this once great nation--it's time to give it back to the taxpayers who's labor has gone unrecognized. I'm sick of this crap.
Ken (Old Texican)| 8.7.09 @ 6:01PM
ACORN equals "Ghetto Lords".
Do we let this country become a "drive by shooting"?
Take a deep breath, productive Americans. We must cut the funds to these ghetto lords' welfare scams.
Their "ole ladies" get the money, then the ghetto lords steal it from them AND us, then addict another generation of children.
Pray a lot, then decide.
Hardius| 8.7.09 @ 7:51PM
CO DEFENDER hey bud I am with you.
Pfft!| 8.8.09 @ 5:35AM
Good article. But, White House trolls, shouldn't you be composing your email to flag@whitehouse.gov ?
Pingback| 8.8.09 @ 7:40AM
The Anchoress — A First Things Blog links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 8.8.09 @ 2:31PM
Jack’s Newswatch » Blog Archive » ACORN’s Labor Pains (1) links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Mayte| 8.8.09 @ 3:58PM
Why are there so many of these anti-Jewish crap comments on this article? If you all can't monitor your comments, do not allow for them. Who is writing this, a bunch of disgusting Muslims or Arabs, well known for their terrorism and inferiority. Please clean up your site!!
Pingback| 8.8.09 @ 5:38PM
Capital Research Center: links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Delete the Anti-Semitic Crap..| 8.9.09 @ 12:11AM
I'm with Mayte, if you can't monitor your comments, get rid of them. Makes your site look like a hate site.
Neo-Nazis, go away| 8.9.09 @ 4:28PM
I see that the monsters from the "Judenfrei Jew Review" are commenting here as well as after other TAS articles. In case any TAS readers don't know, the JJR is, according to its own Web site, "aiming to expose the Jewish crime network and set the stage for the expulsion of Jews from the United States of America as well as other Western societies."
Their Web site says that "Jews won't stop with their criminal agenda. They have to be stopped by us." JJR is "dedicated to the Jewish problem." It says that "the Holocaust is a hoax" and that "Jews did 9/11."
It also has a number of items against black Americans, including lurid cartoons. In a comment, one fan suggests writing articles that "present a detailed anecdote of black malfeasance, [but] don't cap it off with how much you hate blacks now. Let the reader live through your imparted experience, and come to dislike blacks on his own." Clearly, these monsters use the same tactic to try to turn people against Jews.
The person who writes the Web site notes the formation of the "One World Nazi Party," and says that "if they are serious or if some other serious contenders come up, then Judenfrei could join in to set up a formal movement to expel Jews."
I hope the TAS staff will find a way to keep these neo-Nazis out. Nothing they have to say is worth reading.
Pingback| 8.9.09 @ 6:06PM
ACORN's Labor Pains - Politics and Other Controversies - City-Data Forum links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Marc Jeric| 8.9.09 @ 7:33PM
Let us talk about Obama's ACORN BROWNSHIRTS and SEIU THUGS. You have to know what most Americans do not know - i.e.,
community organizations closely follow the Lenin'a concept of soviets; the word is the same. Obama had only one kind of "working" experience: a) as a community organizer; b) as a lawyer for community organizers; and c) as a law instructor for future lawyers for community organizer. The White House-sponsored alliance of the eco-nazis, ACORN, and SEIU are gearing up to communize America under the new name of that deadly combination APPOLO. The environmental cult of death is now combined with the ACORN attack brownshirts (paid by Obama's stimulus bill's $9 billion), SEIU union armed thugs, all "tax-free" benevolent associations. The White House members of Appolo now gather names of the "enemies of the people", just like the KGB, UDB, and STASI used to do.
JoeJazz2000| 8.10.09 @ 9:22AM
I think this thread is lost.
Pingback| 8.12.09 @ 2:36PM
ACORN's Labor Pains - Politics and Other Controversies - City-Data Forum links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Justin Roether| 8.12.09 @ 9:05PM
Interesting. I patiently await action from our government in addressing this issue. And I am curious why the mainstream media hasn't discussed this at all yet.
Juudas| 3.29.10 @ 11:15AM
Tuo on minullekin helpoin tyyli laittaa piilarit. Mulla on kirkkaat kuukausilinssit, tosin niitä tulee ostettua/ käytettyä silloin kun on ylimääräistä varallisuutta, köyhinä kausina kuljen silmälasit päässä. Tahtoisin semmoiset fairynvihreät piilarit, mutta ei ole vielä tullut hankittua vaikka ne kyllä saisi vahvuuksilla. Ja niin, mie en muista mistä noista lukuisista nettipuodista hankin linssini! olikohan se joku YourLenses tjsp?
Pingback| 9.14.09 @ 12:06PM
Big Government » Blog Archive » ACORN’s Lawless Ways links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 9.20.09 @ 12:32AM
Yet Another ACORN Scandal – Is This the Final Straw? « Lighthouse Patriot Journal links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 9.22.09 @ 9:32AM
Baby-Parenting.co.uk - Is this Labour? links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 9.24.09 @ 2:26AM
IRS severs ties with ACORN over scandal - AllDeaf.com links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
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