Re: OT: more on the war against workers.

If Washington lobbyist Rick Berman and his seven-month-old Center for
Union Facts was trying to slip a multi-million-dollar ad campaign
slamming public employees past voters without anyone noticing the
connection between it and a handful of Taxpayer Bill of Rights ballot
initiative ALSO being funded by out-of-state interests, well, he didn't
do so well at it. Looks like most everybody in Michigan, Montana,
Nevada and Oregon caught onto the link before the ads were up and
running. One clue was that the ads were only running in those states
where TABOR may be on the ballot. Another was that they attack, out of
the blue, the people who get paid by state and local governments, and
who stand to lose some jobs if TABOR is adopted.

sandlapper's diary :: ::
Hmm. Voters tend to trust their neighbors when their neighbors say that
out-of-staters are trying to cut jobs and strangle the economy - and
ESPECIALLY when their neighbors are able to support the claim with
facts. And news articles. And newspaper editorials. And campaign
finance reports. And letters from businesspeople in Colorado testifying
to the damages done by TABOR there over 13 years. If you're one of
those out-of-staters trying to cut jobs and strangle a state's economy,
you have to figure out a way to discredit those pesky data-equipped
neighbors. Aha: A multi-million-dollar ad campaign will do it!

It looks like the outside interests were counting on the public
employees and their families to be still and take their beating like
good little targets. And it looks like the public employees and their
families didn't get that memo.

A full-page ad that ran last week in the Lansing State Journal
"features a menacing-looking woman glaring with a `Michigan Government
Office' sign behind her. ` `Service' Like This Doesn't Come Cheap,'"
writes the Journal's Chris Andrews here http://www.lsj.com/....

I don't know about you, but when I see ads of this sort, I wonder how
the pictured woman's agent sold her to the agency that produced the ad.
Did Morty call up and say he had a really sour-looking actress who
would work cheap? And how does that lady's family feel about their
mom/wife/sister's face being plastered across a multi-state ad campaign
slapping people who have jobs?

On Friday, here http://www.helenair.com/... the editors of the Helena
Independent Record said the ads running on television in their state
hit workers at the Division of Motor Vehicles. The ad claims the
workers are "hostile providers of poor service, and contends they are
overpaid because of union contracts."

The ad running on television in Oregon slaps teachers and other school
district employees, says Cathryn Stephens of KVAL-TV in Eugene, who
quoted its script in her report on Friday here:
http://www2.kval.com/... "Education union bosses are bleeding
taxpayers, blocking reforms, and spending dues money on politicians."
Nice.

Before we ask who would initiate a multi-million-dollar, multi-state
onslaught against public service providers in courtrooms, food safety
offices, schools, senior centers and everywhere else that public
dollars are spent to offer public services, listen to the initial
reactions to these ads.

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm's spokeswoman, Liz Boyd, told the
Lansing State Journal, "The advertisement is disrespectful to both
state employees and to their unions. It is another example of groups
coming from outside of Michigan trying to influence public opinion."

Montana Attorney General Mike McGrath told the Helena Independent
Record that employees serving his office do "an exemplary job at a wage
that is barely livable." McGrath said examiners in field offices make
$13.31 an hour on average, with license clerks starting at $8.37. Are
they overpaid? To say that is "laughable," he said.

The Independent Record's editors offered their own blistering review of
the campaign. "[T]here's nothing particularly funny about insulting a
whole class of workers to make a ham-handed anti-government political
point. State employees care as much about their jobs --providing vital
public services -- as any private-sector employee does. And the vast
majority of them certainly don't make more money than their private
counterparts," they write.

The Reno News Review went straight to the core of the matter, fingering
Washington lobbyist Rick Berman and his Center for Union Facts as just
the bagman, a "secretive front group for individuals and industries
opposed to union activities. It is part of lobbyist Rick Berman's
family of front groups including the Employment Policies Institute."

Uh-oh. Secretive? Individuals and industries? And they've appointed one
guy to be their hatchet man? Does this sound familiar? Does anyone know
where Howard Rich has been lately?

"The Center for Union Facts was established seven months ago, with
directors saying they receive funding from individuals, businesses and
foundations, but refuse to be more specific," reports Cathryn Stephens
at KVAL-TV in Oregon. Refuse to be more specific, she says.

The editors in Helena know a little something about operatives for
out-of-staters being secretive, and it sticks in their craw. "As is the
case with backers of Montana's spending-cap ballot measure, the Center
for Union Facts refuses to reveal the sources of its money," they
write. Refuse to reveal the sources, they say.

So who is Rick Berman? The News Review makes the formal introduction
here: http://www.newsreview.com/.... "Berman is a tobacco lobbyist and
public relations man who creates organizations with positive-sounding
names like `Center for Consumer Freedom' to promote his clients'
agendas. He once put up a Web site, http://fishscam.com, to promote the
mercury-is-our-friend views espoused by, among others, U.S. Rep. James
Gibbons of Nevada (`Eat your mercury,' Jan. 26, 2006)."

Eat mercury? Didn't his teacher tell him about the Mad Hatter? And
please, Reno News Review, don't tell me that he's in cahoots with
Wal-Mart...

Indeed, "a spokesperson for Wal-Mart has told the Detroit Free Press
that while it is not the source of funding for the Center for Union
Facts, `it has a relationship in which it exchanges union information
with Berman, the group's head'." For the love of God.

Hard-working Americans aren't pleased by the ambush. Sonja Reichwein,
who's a member of SEIU in Oregon, told KVAL-TV, "It's horrible and
you've got this group from Washington, D.C. coming in and running ads
in Oregon papers about Oregon public services and I think that's
wrong." Members of the SEIU Local 503 (Go 503!) were riled enough that
they held a rally Saturday at Eugene's Campbell Senior Center.

Alan Kilar, spokesman for UAW Local 6000 in Lansing, Michigan, told the
Lansing State Journal's Chris Andrews that his members "are outraged,"
partly because they, too, are taxpayers in Michigan. Just as
importantly, though, Kilar said that concessions from public employees
brought Michigan's economy back to good health in 2003. "They bailed
out the state three years ago," he told Andrews.

Helena Independent Record reader Eric Feaver shot back at Berman's
broadside against teachers here http://www.helenair.com/....
"Unfortunately, this badly focused ad campaign will not likely be the
last that state, county, and school employees and their unions suffer.
Out-of-state mystery megabucks see Montana as ripe for the picking.
They are wrong, but they will try hard to do so."

Well, you can imagine what happened when news of this development made
it to the blogosphere. Facts that hadn't seen the light of day in years
have been unearthed. People who had never heard of Rick Berman now know
that he attacked Mothers Against Drunk Driving on behalf of the alcohol
industry and tried to get pregnant mothers to eat more tuna despite
mercury warnings.

What? That can't be true. No one would accuse a man of attacking
Mothers Against Drunk Driving unless there was clear, incontrovertible
evidence that he... http://blog.aflcio.org/.... oh, well, okay, so
maybe he did that, but surely he didn't try to get pregnant women to
eat tuna with merc.... http://blog.aflcio.org/.... Hmm. Okay, I see
that he did.

Former Montana State Senator Steve Doherty takes particular offense to
Berman's delivery of "inflammatory, misleading advertisements" that
take "cheap potshots at hardworking Montanans."

"Make no mistake. In denying his connections with the shadowy
out-of-state groups that are currently facing numerous complaints
regarding violation of Montana law, Berman avoided reality. Berman,
Howard Rich of Americans for Limited Government, and Grover Norquist of
Americans for Tax Reform are peas in a pod--rich East Coasters who
think they can run a puppet show out here in Montana. They are in short
grass with bad camouflage," Doherty says. Short grass with bad
camouflage.

Hey, there's our old buddy Howard Rich, right there in the middle
between Berman and Grover Norquist!

Tom Chamberlain at Blue Oregon has Berman's rap *** here
http://www.blueoregon.com/... but here is ONE highlight: "The American
Prospect wrote an excellent expose which quotes Berman as saying, `Our
offensive strategy is to shoot the messenger. We've got to attack
[advocates'] credibility as spokespersons'." Hmm. That sounds a lot
like what I said at the beginning of today's post.

Okay, ONE more highlight - but really, there are so many of these that
you NEED to go to this link for yourself: "Berman's Center for Consumer
Freedom has attacked Mothers Against Drunk Driving, People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
on behalf of alcohol, fast food, and tobacco lobbies. His American
Beverage Institute was set up to fight laws aimed at increasing safety
regarding alcohol and drinking/diving laws. His Employment Policies
Institute fights minimum wage increases, especially in low-wage,
labor-intensive sectors such as the restaurant industry. His
FishScam.com web site encourages pregnant women to disregard federal
mercury guidelines and eat more albacore tuna."

As for denying the link between the anti-worker ads and the TABOR
campaigns ("yeah, it's just a coincidence," say the editors in Helena),
the AFL-CIO posts this interesting fact on their own weblog here
http://blog.aflcio.org/... "Berman denied the ads were tied to the
ballot initiatives. But the Associated Press reported Aug. 21 that
Berman attended a weekend conference of the group Americans for Limited
Government and made a presentation about the anti-union ads. The group
is backing the Montana measure and those in the other states. According
to a July report by the Salem, Ore., Statesman Journal the group has
funneled some $561,000 to back an Oregon TABOR-like ballot and more
than $1 million for efforts in Maine, Oklahoma, Arizona and Nevada."
Hmm. That would be called evidence of a link.

Meanwhile, the good folks at the Progressive States Network check the
usual suspects to answer the "who's funding it" question. "Two sources
that were the target of early speculation -- Wal-Mart and the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce -- have both denied funding the organization," PSN
writes here http://www.progressivestates.org/....

Yet unable to see the money changing hands, PSN wonders who has an
interest in slamming hardworking Americans, and what outcomes represent
the real goal.

Motive one: Privatization of services, which benefits big industry.
"While specific funding sources are unclear, one motivation may be less
in doubt. Attacks on public employees historically have served as a
rallying point for the disastrous privatization movement. Promoting the
notion of a more efficient private sector better able to handle
government services in a cost-effective way is a key component in
selling the idea of contracts to the public. Once those contracts are
inked, a different story emerges: privatization fails to improve
services or lower costs, instead serving mainly to open the door to
corruption. Given that Berman's shady backers are willing to
anonymously slander hard-working Americans, we do not think that
preventing corruption is their primary concern."

Motive two: Spending caps, which benefits big industry. "Astute
students of the 2006 election may have noticed something interesting
about the four states targeted by the ads: all four states are also
being targeted by Howard Rich and his libertarian network with ballot
measures modeled on Colorado's disastrous TABOR spending cap law.
Again, by playing up the notion of government waste, these ads
encourage voters to support spending caps as a means of punishing state
employees. While the connection between the initiatives and the ad
placement was noticed by more than a few labor leaders and journalists,
Rick Berman actually had the moxie to deny the association to a
reporter with the Associated Press -- telling them that there was no
relation whatsoever. That was a tough line to maintain given that
Berman's organization has been working publicly with Howard Rich's
Americans for Limited Government recently. And on the same day that
Berman was denying connections to one reporter in Montana, he was
admitting the connections to The Register Guard in Oregon. Needless to
say, the man got caught in his double-speak."

This is headache-inducing stuff, but maybe there's hope, in that Berman
and his gang can't feasibly bring this slash-and-burn crap to every
state, right?

THIS just in from Cathryn Stephens, KVAL-TV reporter in Eugene, Oregon:
"Organizers of `Union Facts' have said they plan a `state-by-state
push' against public employee unions, with the focus on state and local
employment."

Stay tuned.

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