Lawsuit: ObamaCare Navigators Used as Union
Recruiters
(Watchdog) – A lawsuit filed by an organizer for
Battleground Texas accuses a labor group established by ACORN founder Wade
Rathke of instructing an Obamacare navigator to spend time recruiting union
members.
The complaint echoes decades-old criticisms of Rathke and
ACORN: They use federal money meant for services to the poor in pursuit of
their own labor organizing activities.
Cedric Anthony, who went to work for the
Democratic Party’s Texas recruitment operation, filed a wage-and-hour lawsuit
in June against two groups he says jointly employed him as a “federal navigator
assisting people with the Affordable Care Act” – Southern United Neighborhoods
and Local 100 United Labor Unions.
Both groups were founded by former ACORN organizers, the
latter by its founder, Rathke. In his federal suit, Anthony alleges that while
he worked as a federal navigator from Dec. 12, 2013, to April 1, 2014, in the
Houston area, his “responsibilities included traveling to school campuses to
register cafeteria workers to the labor union and attending community events to
register individuals for the Affordable Care Act.”
The watchdog group Cause of Action discovered the
lawsuit recently, and sent a letter to the Inspector General of the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services calling for an audit to determine
whether the two groups misused federal funds for their own benefit. The group
notes SUN has received $1.4 million from HHS to employ Obamacare navigators,
and its sub-grantee United Labor Unions spent $189,000 in 2013 as part of its
contract to provide navigators to enroll people in Obamacare.
Anthony says he was hired by SUN, which holds the navigator
contract, and later directed to enroll union members for ULU. Although he
worked for both groups, he said his instructions came from the same person. His
complaint depicts blurred lines between the two groups, which “shared the same
offices in Houston, Dallas, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Little Rock.”
The lone attorney for both defendants denies SUN
and ULU acted jointly; he says the labor group was Anthony’s sole employer. He
also denies the two “shared the same offices,” although he admits they each “have
offices located in the same building in each of the five cities.”
Fox News reports that four other SUN employees
have joined the lawsuit.
Rathke’s groups have a long history of using workers hired
with federal funds for political purposes. ACORN’s implosion amid scandal in
2009 is widely known, but the very first complaint against the group is much
the same as Anthony’s. In 1977, ACORN had a $470,000 federal contract to assist
the poor through the Volunteer in Service to America program, which it lost after
a congressional investigation found VISTA workers were being used as union
recruiters.
A congressional report on those events bears an
uncanny resemblance to the present case. If you change a few names – ACORN to
SUN, ULO to ULU, and VISTA to ACA – the old story sounds rather familiar:
“The ULO (United Labor Organizations), which was described
as a ‘separate entity’ that ACORN ‘is helping to get started,’ shares space in
the same building as ACORN in New Orleans. The sign in front of the building
says ‘ACORN’ on one side and 11ULO11 on the other. The HWOC (Household
Workers Organizing Committee), also located in the same building, was said to
be a ULO ‘subsidiary organization.’ It was stated that ACORN rents the building
and that both ULO and HWOC rent space from ACORN, but the Investigative Staff
was unable to verify this arrangement without access to ACORN’s accounting
records.
“Five
VISTAs were actively working with the HWOC, reporting directly to the chief
organizer, until late this past spring when the ACTION Office of Compliance
directed that the assignments be terminated. There is as yet, however, very
much of an indirect involvement of VISTAs and the use of grant money in the
labor organizing activity of ACORN. First, ACORN has only limited staff
resources …. Without the VISTAs to take over neighborhood organizing chores, it
is doubtful whether the manpower would be available to mount a credible union
organizing effort. Thus, the availability of VISTAs is facilitating (if not
making practicable) the ACORN move into labor organizing. Second, there are no
safeguards, of which the Investigative Staff is aware, to prevent membership
dues solicited by VISTAs from being used for labor organizing.”
http://watchdog.org/175987/lawsuit-aca-navigators-used-union-recruiters/
Comments
Democrats using non-profits and government
temps as union organizers is as common as the UN hiring local terrorist groups
for their “peacekeeping” activities.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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