Union Facts (well, you know, the negative ones)
On Tuesday (4/11) I noticed a full page ad in USA Today, the 6th page in the first section of the paper. The ad attacked unions, and I just couldn’t resist visiting their website UnionFacts.com and digging deeper. Turns out this is a campaign that began mid-February in The NY Times and The Wall Street Journal, essentially by a Washington lobbyist trying to undercut public support for unions. Now, I’m a union member, and while I sometimes throw my hands up at the bureaucracy it injects in my life, I still thank God they represent me. Without my union I might not have insurance, a pension plan, and I certainly wouldn’t have such thorough work/safety guidelines.
The non-profit organization that placed the ads is the Center for Union Facts, which claims to be supported by “foundations, businesses, union members, and the general public.” Their stated mission says they’re “dedicated to showing Americans the truth about today’s union leadership.”
So who are they? Essentially they’re Rick Berman’s lobbying company Berman & Co. So who's he? He began as a labor law attorney representing Bethlehem Steel in the 60's, which is almost all you need to know. He founded his lobbying group in the 80's, and had a hand in creating the Employment Policies Institute, an opponent of minimum wage, the Center for Consumer Freedom, a pro-tobacco organization, and the American Beverage Institute, who oppose drunk driving laws. I’m not making this up. Good stuff.
SourceWatch.org has a great web page on Berman and his history. I did find that UnionFacts.com had an interesting database that you can search through for unions and litigation, but there’s absolutely no source for comparison, so its difficult to determine whether the numbers provided are high, low, or average. I’d love to see what sort of litigation comparable businesses deal with (say, a corporation like GM) to get a little perspective.
(Update 6/15/06: since posting this we've had three visits from someone surfing the web from bermanco.com. They're certainly thorough over there at Berman & Co. They're checking up on what bloggers are saying about them)
The non-profit organization that placed the ads is the Center for Union Facts, which claims to be supported by “foundations, businesses, union members, and the general public.” Their stated mission says they’re “dedicated to showing Americans the truth about today’s union leadership.”
So who are they? Essentially they’re Rick Berman’s lobbying company Berman & Co. So who's he? He began as a labor law attorney representing Bethlehem Steel in the 60's, which is almost all you need to know. He founded his lobbying group in the 80's, and had a hand in creating the Employment Policies Institute, an opponent of minimum wage, the Center for Consumer Freedom, a pro-tobacco organization, and the American Beverage Institute, who oppose drunk driving laws. I’m not making this up. Good stuff.
SourceWatch.org has a great web page on Berman and his history. I did find that UnionFacts.com had an interesting database that you can search through for unions and litigation, but there’s absolutely no source for comparison, so its difficult to determine whether the numbers provided are high, low, or average. I’d love to see what sort of litigation comparable businesses deal with (say, a corporation like GM) to get a little perspective.
(Update 6/15/06: since posting this we've had three visits from someone surfing the web from bermanco.com. They're certainly thorough over there at Berman & Co. They're checking up on what bloggers are saying about them)
posted by Stomple at 11:03 PM
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