06.17
I’ve seen a few stories over the past couple of months addressing Obama’s ties to various unions, but I don’t think they really got to the heart of the matter. They basically paint him as being very cozy with unions and willing to put their interests above most everyone else. All of that is true, but it’s a very surfacy type of explanation. The truth is that Obama’s entire agenda is based on bolstering these various unions and liberal community organization groups. Let’s all remember that before public office, his biggest gig was being a lawyer for ACORN. And what is ACORN? It’s a community organizing operation that acts as a front for all sorts of radical liberal agendas, and it gets lots and lots of tax payer subsidy. ACORN has been around since the 70’s, and it’s founder, Wade Rathke, also founded SEIU(Service Employees International Union) local 100. It has been at the forefront of liberal political action for a long, long time, pulling together all sorts of other groups into it’s fold. The biggest groups that frequently partner with ACORN are the UAW(United Auto Workers Union) and the SEIU. This should give you some insight into Obama’s agenda already.
It’s no coincidence that the two biggest things on Obama’s plate right out of the chute are taking over the car companies and nationalized healthcare. The UAW has always been perhaps the most politically active of all the large unions. They have been partnering with ACORN and other liberal groups since, at least, the early 80’s. The fact that Obama basically handed control of Chrysler to them and gave them a significant windfall stake in GM, over the heads of all of the other investors shouldn’t surprise you. That was the plan from day one. Funnel money to the unions that play ball with ACORN. The UAW has already said that it has no intention of keeping it’s controlling share of Chrysler. It’s going to sell it’s shares to the UAW healthcare fund:
The United Auto Workers president is seeking to distance his union from direct responsibility for the future of Chrysler LLC, noting 55% of the auto maker will be owned by a retiree health care trust fund and not the union itself.
“It’s this independent trust that will own these shares,” UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said on the Fox Business Network Friday morning. Mr. Gettelfinger’s office did not immediately respond to interview requests.
The trust–known as a Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association, or VEBA–is supposed to take ownership of 55% of Chrysler as part of a government-brokered cost-cutting plan that union workers ratified earlier this week. Chrysler filed for federal bankruptcy protection Thursday.
“This creates additional risk for the retirees’ health care; however, with the company being successful, we’ll need to turn that stock around, and we have provisions worked in the agreement that even though it won’t be a public company until later on, we’ll be able to sell those shares under certain circumstances,” Mr. Gettelfinger said in his television interview.
He also defended the union’s position, which may have placed the UAW in a better position that Chrysler’s secured lenders.
And with that context, let’s move on to Obama’s other priority de jour: healthcare. Again, whenever Obama makes some big policy push, the first thing you should ask yourself is “which union does this new policy or law benefit?” In the case of healthcare it would be the long-time ACORN ally, the SEIU. The SEIU boasts on it’s website to be the largest healthcare service worker union in the country, with over a million healthcare workers as members. That’s a lot of votes, and a lot of campaign dollars. You’ll remember the SEIU as being the ones that Obama came to bat for in the California healthcare worker layoff fiasco:
Officials in the governor’s office say a politically powerful union may have had inappropriate influence over the Obama administration’s decision to withhold billions of dollars in federal stimulus money from California if the state does not reverse a scheduled wage cut for the labor group’s workers.
The officials say they are particularly troubled that the Service Employees International Union, which lobbied the federal government to step in, was included in a conference call in which state and federal officials reviewed the wage cut and the terms of the stimulus package.
California Secretary of Health and Human Services Kim Belshe said she could not recall another instance in which the federal government invited a significant stakeholder group into such government-to-government negotiations.
“The involvement of a stakeholder in this kind of state-federal deliberative process is unusual at best,” she said. “This was really atypical and outside any norm I am familiar with.”
The SEIU president, Andy Stern, let the cat out of the bag earlier in the year also when he basically laid out how much influence they have over Obama:
As for SEIU, every four years, two things happen: our union’s convention and our country’s presidential election. For four years we save our money and then on the fourth year we spend it all. If we were trying to be a bank and not an advocate for our members’ interests, our members would be really disappointed. We are not a savings institution.
We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama – $60.7 million to be exact – and we’re proud of it.
But clearly there have been a number of appointments that have been enormously important to labor and more are coming. Patrick Gaspard, for one, is White House political director. He comes from SEIU.
And they are the single largest driving force behind the Obama nationalized healthcare push:
Rivera runs a war room that’s now the epicenter of the left-wing mobilization in support of the reform legislation.
From the ground floor of the Service Employees International Union headquarters in Washington, Rivera is preparing for the moment a bill drops.
At that point, he must make sure the right members of Congress are contacted, the right message is delivered, and his shaky coalition of industry, labor and consumers stays intact.
“We are running a political campaign, and our candidate is basically health care reform,” said Rivera, head of SEIU Health Care.
Rivera and his team have been laying the groundwork for months, with a war room staff of more than 50 and more than 400 organizers in the field.
They have developed profiles on more than 100 members of Congress, collecting mounds of data on voting records, district demographics and health statistics – and influential allies – “people closest to them who could, at some point, talk to them and be more persuasive than us,” Rivera said, citing clergy, former staff members and business leaders.
With a reputation for getting the job done, Rivera helped SEIU become the most aggressive and ubiquitous player in the health care debate, forging unorthodox partnerships if that’s what’s required to win.
The union has forged marriages of necessity with pharmaceuticals, insurers and hospitals. Rivera talks to his new allies several times a week, if not every day, and will play a key role in deciding how closely they all move forward together.
And so what happens when we nationalize healthcare and the UAW doesn’t need those funds any more to pay for member coverage? They cash out and pocket the money. Basically, Obama’s presidency so far has just been one union gift after another, after another. Combine that with the bone he threw the NEA(National Education Association) by deep sixing the DC voucher program and you get the very clear picture that Obama is fully in the pocket of these unions and community organization groups. They paid for him, and now they are forcing him to deliver. And it’s all to our detriment.
