Lou Dobbs Attacks the SEIU and Acorn
By Heather Friday Feb 06, 2009 4:15pm
You Tube
Lou Dobbs and Drew Griffin go after the SEIU and the Employee Free Choice Act in this anti-union hit job. Dobbs even manages to squeeze in a shot at Acorn at the end of the segment. He doesn't seem to have much use for our First Amendment and the right to peaceably assemble either.
DOBBS: A bold threat tonight from one of the most powerful unions in the country, a bold threat to democratic lawmakers and President Obama. The Service Employees International Union marching on Capitol Hill today, marching to demand that democrats pass the so- called employee free choice act. The Service Employees Union, which did help many democrats win election, including the president, said that those democrats must keep their promises or else. Drew Griffin with our report.
DREW GRIFFIN: The battle has been waged inside this Indianapolis office building for three years. But the fight at the corner of Illinois and Market Streets is about to spread to every Main Street in the U.S. This noisy protest by members of the service employees' international union is specifically about janitors, but nationally, it's about the employee free choice act.
DAVE BEGO, EMS OWNER: Check is real simple. They want to eliminate the secret ballot election.
GRIFFIN: Dave Bego says in his case, the workers don't want the union.
BEGO: They've been after us for almost three years. And they've only got 10 or 12 people interested in what they have to sell.
GRIFFIN: Bego runs EMS, a national janitorial service based in Indianapolis. He started it 20 years ago and has never been unionized. Its workers, at least those chosen to talk to us, say that's the way they want it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the union, everybody needs a union, and unions are good, but with this company, we've been treated pretty fair and the work is good.
GRIFFIN: The SEIU says the real reason Bego's firm does not have a union is because workers who try to organize, like Shanika Brown and Harry Webster, are fired. Why has it been so hard to convince your other fellow employees of EMS to do that?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fear.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of intimidation.
GRIFFIN: Bego denies it but says if his workers want a union, fine, as long as they can vote in secret. He even took out this ad in the Indianapolis newspaper telling the SEIU to fish or cut bait.
BEGO: Let's have an election, let's have it now. If our people choose to join your union, we'll live with it. If they don't, pack your bags and go talk to another company or go to another city.
GRIFFIN: Did they fish?
BEGO: They did not fish. We never heard one word.
GRIFFIN: Andy Stern is the powerful president of the Service Employees' International Union. And says folks all over the country soon will be hearing from his union.
BEGO: Isn't our whole democracy based on you don't know how I vote, I don't know how you vote, and that is the basic fairness in the election?
ANDY STERNS, SEIU PRESIDENT: This isn't necessarily an election. This is people wanting to start an organization. This is the worker's choice. They can have a secret ballot or legally affirm by a majority of them signing cards.
GRIFFIN: Right now, it is democrats in congress and the white house who will have to deal with Sterns. The SEIU was the largest contributor to democratic campaigns this election, $85 million. And the union says 2,000 members of SEIU gave up their jobs to work full time for Barack Obama. Sterns says politicians who made promises better keep them or else.
STERNS: We can lobby, we can petition, we can use the same things we do in the electoral process to unelect people.
GRIFFIN: So everybody should be scared of you?
STERNS: Everybody should be scared of living up to their promise.
GRIFFIN: Lou, how serious is he about that threat? They have set aside millions of dollars on reserve to unelect any of these politicians that stern says don't come through with their campaign promises. Back in Indianapolis, that business owner thinks that the democrats will have no choice but to pass this freedom of choice act for employees.
DOBBS: That's a straight-forward threat, isn't it?
GRIFFIN: Yeah, it is. There's no beating around the Bush with Mr. Sterns. He says what he wants and he's, so far, getting what he wants. He has backed these democrats with money, time, effort, sweat from his union, and he expects some changes. That's what the American people voted for, he says.
DOBBS: We well, the American people voted for lots of things, but I don't know a lot of people voted to end a secret ballot. That's pretty radical, even in this era of nationalization and socialization of our economy, isn't it?
GRIFFIN: Well, that will be the hang-up, I'm sure, in congress if it gets that far. I asked him point blank is there any wiggle room on this. The answer's no, they want it.
DOBBS: Thank you very much, Drew. Drew Griffin.
The Service Employees' International has a long track record of lobbying amongst other things for amnesty for illegal aliens as well. The SEIU also has tied with the so-called community organizing group ACORN. In fact, it shares buildings with groups such as ACORN are included, by the way in the stimulus bill, a bill calling for more than $4 billion, by the way, for something called neighborhood stabilization activities. That means fund for advocacy groups such as acorn, which is partisan groups supporting President Obama and others through its voter registration drives and other activities. ACORN is under investigation in more than a dozen states. ACORN, a major supporter of the democrats across the country.






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http://www.heritage.org/Research/Labor/bg2027...
The Unions are no longer needed! They are parasites on the American economy!
You are referring to yourself, useless troll. Go crawl back under your rock.
have no clue what your talking about. Shouldn't you be commenting somewhere else?
think that it is to hard, even for you, to see the correlation between the decline in union membership and the decline of the standard of living in this country.
Wasn't the whole point of unions that corporations could not be trusted to be fair to their employees? I mean I know unions can get over the top sometimes, but there is a reason for their existance and it's not cause business are all sweet and loving.
it's like a commented the other day. According to the right we are supposed to count on the power of the free market and the benevolence of big business. Big business has made it clear that human rights are to be subordinated to the need of profits for shareholders. Unions agreements are a hell of a lot better than being left at the mercy of their whims. And, no Unions aren't perfect, but they are all we got and besides imagine where we would be without them.
that's pretty easy to answer. There used to be 25-39% of the work force in unions. Now there is less than 12% union. Look how the wages have declined in the last 30 years. I think you can pretty well come to the right conclusion. We can't do without them.
on. And it's not only about wages and working hours either. Unions bring people together and they give a platform from which to organize and fight for lots of causes. They help to break the isolation among us that the powers that be benefit from. Any time people are organized in groups they get to talking and when they get to talking, they realize that they are not alone and that they can make a difference TOGETHER. The only power that we have is the power that comes from strength in numbers and unions are one of the best ways to harness that. That's what this secret ballot shit is about, isolation. It's much easier to break people down when they are isolated and away from the strength in numbers. it's the same way lions hunt. They try to isolate their prey. Secret ballots are a big joke.
This crazy fuck is probably nostalgic for slavery.
Who needs unions?
this douche-bag and his buddies at the Heritage Foundation don't.
"The Unions are no longer needed! They are parasites on the American economy!"
Would that it were so.
That the laws we passed would be abided by.
That decent human beings would share the wealth of a bountiful nations.
Until such time as this is so, we must gather in number too big to be ignored.
We used to have elections for union membership, and until the NLRB stated turning a blind eye to bosses who fired everyone who was in favor of a union, we didn't need card check. Now we do.
SEIU. It makes me proud that this is coming out of Indiana, my home state. Indiana has been a notoriously bad state for workers and unions. It is a very business oriented state, which makes this pretty impressive to me. I really hope that this thing gets passed, especially with a president that will enforce it. Oh yeah and Lou, SHUT THE HELL UP you grumpy racists old bastard.
You are polluting your minds.
Give it up.
TV sucks.
It's hard to stop looking but you're right. I've taken to moving on as soon as a familiar face starts yapping. that way at least you can scan the real TV news of the day and go back to the internet.
I just watch food and house porn. Some of the house porn is actually very progressive. They often have couples that are gay and lesbian or mixed-race on House Hunters. Living in on Puget Sound I can't believe what 200k will get you in Texas! Damn, enough to make you say "ya'll."
and is a fascist hater. I quit watching him over two years ago. I didn't realize this KKK member is still on the air.
unfortunately he's still on the air, but I think that he still squeezes in a front yard cross burning from time to time.
Dobbs is an idiot and should be checked for dementia.
i'm personally pro-union at least have the free choice to have a union. union(s) are a working persons version of too big to fail/get pushed around. getting rid of the unions is a strategy by corporations to reduce labor wages. corporations/certain businesses love "cheap labor". "cheap labor" has undermined existing labor. now people are less inclined to go into the "trades" and vocational schooling. it doesn't pay i believe partially due to "cheap labor". why can't people negotiate as a group?
cheap labor and automation, it doesn't pay. You're absolutely right. Big business has came up with some pretty neat tricks to marginalize the union and break it's back. The EFCA may be the only thing to stop them.
Why is the right-wing always anti-choice?
Why do the right wing hate Americans?
It's all about the psychotic need to control people, I think...
They're fearful and uncomfortable with change and variety.
Isn't Lou Dobbs in a union?
Where is you independant rationalization here Lou? Your repeating republican talking points about ACORN.
CNN, like MSNBC, Comedy Central and other basic cable nets, has signed a "Letter of Understanding with AFTRA, which covers newspeople. though, he like Limbaugh, may be "Fi-Core" in, but no voting rights or the right to run for Federation office
Ya know, I met about 600,000 people last month that would love to have a union job.
.
Why does Lou Dobbs hate the poor and hardworking American?
O.K. I can see how he fears immigrants... but Americans?
.
Anyone seen Miss Kitty today? Is all good with her?
Another republican pretending to be an independent.
The odd thing is repugs like dobbs are against the Employees Free Choice Act, because supposedly it works contrary to the sacred secret vote.
But that vote didn't seem to matter in 2000 or 2004.
They fear Union retribution against those who vote against them, but in actuality the Union is trying to protect those who do want them avoid retribution from their bosses.
Lou Dobbs is a nazi.
Dobbs is an elitist pig...what can we expect?!
Most( not all ) of the folks who work for EMS are probably Trolls who are high school drop outs and being under paid janitors is most likely the best that they are ever going to get!What a concept, non-union janitors being treated "right"! I bet they are all making minimum wage or maybe a tiny bit more, with NO BENEFITS!Yeah, EMS is treating you brain- dead morons real good!
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