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Ctr for Union Facts

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Center_for_Union_Facts

The Center for Union Facts is 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. The domain name www.unionfacts.com was registered to Berman & Co. in May 2005.

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Berman's Non-Profits

A November 1, 2012 article in Bloomberg shows CCF in the following chart of non-profits created by Berman & Co. at the center of an IRS complaint filed in 2012 (used with permission):

Campaigns

Video ads by the Center for Union Facts portray union organizers as thugs who invade workers' homes to intimidate them into joining.

In May 2006 the Center for Union Facts, launched its first TV ad campaign. The 30-second spot, running on Fox News and local markets, has "actors posing as workers" saying "sarcastically what they 'love' about unions," like paying dues, union leaders' "fat-cat lifestyles," and discrimination against minorities. The ad campaign cost $3 million, which was raised "from companies, foundations and individuals that Mr. Berman won't identify." [1]

The group planned to film another TV ad in June 2006. Labor and economics professor Harley Shaiken said the effort "to create an anti-union atmosphere" more generally, as opposed to business-funded ads against a particular union organizing drive or strike, "is a new wrinkle." An AFL-CIO spokesperson called the ad's accusations "unfounded and outrageous." [2]

In June 2007, the group campaigned heavily against the Employee Free Choice Act, legislation which "would give employees at a workplace the right to unionize as soon as a majority signed cards saying they wanted to do so." The Center for Union Facts has spent "$500,000 on newspaper and broadcast advertisements this week alone," reported the New York Times on June 20, 2007. [3] The group's print ads for the campaign compared union leaders to Ugandan dictator :{Idi Amin:(style="background-color:#fff200"):}: and Iranian president :{Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:(style="background-color:#fff200"):}:, calling the bill a "scheme to eliminate workers' right to a secret ballot." [4]

The Center for Union Facts is behind the billboards with the web site TeachersUnionExposed.com which have been put up around Newark, New Jersey[5].

In August 2008, the group's "political arm," the Employee Freedom Action Committee, ramped up its campaign agains the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). It launched a $30 million campaign, including radio, television, print and online ads and "a substantial grassroots organizing effort." The group's anti-EFCA ads were slated to run in Maine, New Hampshire, Mississippi, Kentucky, Louisiana, Colorado, Oregon and Minnesota. At the same time, the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, which is comprised of "virtually hundreds of businesses, chambers of commerce and trade associations," was also spending millions to defeat the bill. "The folks behind the ad campaign fear that if Sen. Barack Obama, an Employee Free Choice Act sponsor, is elected president and power shifts to the Democrats in the Senate, the bill will become law," according to a New Hampshire paper. [1]

Personnel

The contact person on the initial media release is Sarah Longwell who has worked in public relations for Rick Berman at his Employment Policies Institute as well as for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and its Collegiate Network.

Funding

United Press International noted that "the group's spokesman refused to release the names of its donors or say where its funding came from." [7]

Berman told Bloomberg reporter Kim Bowman that he had raised "about $2.5 million from companies, trade organizations and individuals, whom he declined to identify." [8]

Sarah Longwell, a spokeswoman for the Center for Union Facts, echoed Berman's groups standard claim for secrecy on who funds their front groups. "The reason we don't disclose supporters is because unions have a long history of targeting anyone who opposes them, whether it be in a threatening way or by lodging campaigns against them," she told Detroit Free Press. [9]

The paper reported that while Wal-Mart Stores denied funding the group it stated that "it has a relationship in which it exchanges union information with Berman, the group's head." [10]

Contact details

The Center for Union Facts

PO Box 27455

Washington, DC 20038

Phone: 202-463-7106

Email: Sarah Longwell (longwell AT unionfacts.com)

Web: http://www.unionfacts.com

Articles and Resources

Related PRWatch Articles

Related SourceWatch Articles

External Resources

External Articles

References

  1. ↑ Deborah Mcdermott, "Groups lodge anti-union campaign: Employee Free Choice Act the subject of ads," Seacoast Online (New Hampshire), August 17, 2008.

Categories:

LA Times: Disclosure Failure

December 23rd, 2008 

In today’s Los Angeles Times a man named Bret Jacobson writes a virulently anti-union screed attacking Labor Secretary nominee, CongresswomanHilda Solis.  Here’s how the LA Times describes Jacobson at the bottom of his op-ed:

Bret Jacobson is founder and president of Maverick Strategies LLC, a research and communications firm serving business and free-market think tanks.

We’ve seen a lot of anti-union, anti-Obama, anti-worker, and anti-Free Choice op-eds penned by business consultants and “free-market think tank” types of late, so this isn’t a terribly shocking biography for drivel like this. Of course, this isn’t all Jacobson is. Here’s what the highly-informative BretJacobson.com has to say:

Prior to founding Maverick Strategies, Bret co-founded theCenter for Union Facts, overseeing that organization’s research activities, guiding its communications, launching its new-media capabilities, and helping plan its strategic national advertising and earned-media campaigns.

And just for those not paying attention at home, here’s Sourcewatch:

The Center for Union Facts is 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. The domain name www.unionfacts.com was registered to **Berman** & Co. in May 2005.

American Rights At Work is a bit more hard hitting in their assessment of the Center for Union Facts:

The Center is the latest public relations campaign and front group devised by “notorious D.C. lobbyist”1 and veteran spin doctor Richard “Rick” Berman with his firm, Berman and Company.

The Center for Union Facts is a front group focused on damaging the public image of unions, depressing workers’ rights, pushing legislation that would make it more difficult for workers to join unions, and furthering an anti-union business climate.

Berman earned his status as one of The Hill’s top lobbyists, along with Jack Abramoff,2 by working on behalf of unpopular clients like the tobacco, alcohol, and fast food industries. Berman’s campaigns have attempted to relax drunk driving laws, argue obesity is not a public health issue, prevent increases in the federal or state minimum wage, and attack advocacy groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).

…

  • The Center for Union Facts’ legislative agenda is strikingly similar to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s.   The big business lobbying group both adamantly opposes the Employee Free Choice Act, and is in strong support of the Secret Ballot Protection Act.  Berman formerly devised union avoidance strategies for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,18 and he still has strong ties to the Chamber through Randel Johnson, Vice President for Labor at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.19  Berman told The New York Times that he asked Chamber of Commerce officials at a state conference to recommend that businesses in their states donate to his anti-union campaign.20  Randel Johnson has repeatedly denied any Chamber funding of the Center, yet admitted “he had served as an adviser to the Center.”21
  • On its website, the Center claims it is “supported by foundations, businesses, union members, and the general public.”22  Berman will only divulge that several companies and a foundation fund the Center, but will not release the names of his donors.23
  • No individuals, foundations, or corporations have come forward to admit any sponsorship of the Center.  Why wouldn’t they want to distance themselves from Berman’s hyperbolic and unsupported rhetoric?  Berman gets paid to say what responsible business leaders don’t want attributed to them.  The Washington Post reported that food industry officials, who would only be interviewed about Berman, “on the condition that they not be identified by name or by where they work, said that by keeping the sponsors anonymous, Berman’s group can be more vociferous, provocative and irreverent in its criticisms.24

In short, the Center for Union Facts is the key organization in Big Business efforts to stop the progress of labor in America, most notably through fighting against the Employee Free Choice Act. One of their co-founders, Bret Jacobson, was given license to push the Center’s anti-union, anti-worker agenda in an op-ed against the nominee for Labor Secretary, while the Times failed to disclose the only informative part of his biography. He’s the founder of a research firm? What is that supposed to tell the Times’ readers? Pretty much every person I know who works in politics does some level of consulting. The most important piece of Jacobson’s biography – his professional connection to one of the biggest anti-union groups in America – is left out of a column that specifically pushes the Center’s agenda. In an AP article three days ago, a spokesman for the Center attacked President-elect Obama’s pick of Solis for Labor Secretary (though, amazingly, the AP cited the Center as “a group critical of organized labor”).

There has been a heavy, persistent trend in the mainstream press of anti-union articles and op-eds. The business lobby has been very good about getting their surrogates’ op-eds placed in big papers like the LA Times, NY Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. There is a major fight going on between big business and America’s workers about the future of organizing to increase worker rights in America. The fight is centered around the Employee Free Choice Act, but clearly the Secretary of Labor is now another front in this fight.

As frustrating as it is to repeatedly read columns, like Jacobson’s, which include outright lies about what the Employee Free Choice Act is and does, I am 100% willing to take part in a national debate about how our country relates to working families. There are obviously different sides in this debate and there is nothing wrong with the debate being played out in the press. But in this atmosphere of daily volleys back and forth between big business front groups like the Center for Union Facts and the Obama administration and the American labor movement, it behooves the press to be honest about who is taking part in the debate. The LA Times was brutally negligent to not disclose Bret Jacobson’s employment at the Center for Union Facts, the only piece of his biography that had any bearing on his column. By not disclosing Jacobson’s ties to this anti-worker group, the LA Times succeeded in giving their pages over to a press release from a big business front group, with no means for their reader to discern it from a non-partisan piece on President-elect Obama’s pick to chair the Department of Labor.

So editors of the Los Angeles Times, let me show you how this is done:

Disclosure: I’m proud to work for the Service Employees International Union…so proud that I disclose it when I write about issues that relate to my employer. That said, this post was not approved by nor written with the knowledge of SEIU. It is representative of my views alone.

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http://maverick-strategies.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/ACORNs-Troubling-Ties-to-Labor-Maverick-Strategies.pdf

anti union, voter suppression?

http://maverick-strategies.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/RightOnlinePresentation2011.pdf

leadership inst faculty bio

Bret Jacobson is a leading communications specialist with extensive experience in devising and executing high-impact, research-based national advocacy campaigns. His work has been covered by radio, television, and new media, as well as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press,and major regional and local news outlets. In January 2008, Bret launched Maverick Strategies LLC to assist businesses and their advocates in improving the effectiveness of their communications capabilities. Prior to founding Maverick Strategies, Bret co-founded the Center for Union Facts, overseeing that organization's research activities, guiding its communications, launching its new-media capabilities, and helping plan its strategic national advertising and earned-media campaigns. Bret is frequently quoted by media outlets as an expert on the modern labor movement and speaks to free market advocacy organizations on effective opposition and issue research. Bret is a graduate of the University of Oregon.

http://holdfastblog.com/2008/12/23/somone-call-a-blogge... /

December 23rd, 2008 · 2 Comments

In today’s Los Angeles Times a man named Bret Jacobson writes a virulently anti-union screed attacking Labor Secretary nominee, Congresswoman Hilda Solis. Here’s how the LA Times describes Jacobson at the bottom of his op-ed:

Bret Jacobson is founder and president of Maverick Strategies LLC, a research and communications firm serving business and free-market think tanks.

We’ve seen a lot of anti-union, anti-Obama, anti-worker, and anti-Free Choice op-eds penned by business consultants and “free-market think tank” types of late, so this isn’t a terribly shocking biography for drivel like this. Of course, this isn’t all Jacobson is. Here’s what the highly-informative BretJacobson.com has to say:

Prior to founding Maverick Strategies, Bret co-founded the Center for Union Facts, overseeing that organization’s research activities, guiding its communications, launching its new-media capabilities, and helping plan its strategic national advertising and earned-media campaigns.

And just for those not paying attention at home, here’s Sourcewatch:

The Center for Union Facts is 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. The domain name www.unionfacts.com was registered to Berman & Co. in May 2005.

American Rights At Work is a bit more hard hitting in their assessment of the Center for Union Facts:

The Center is the latest public relations campaign and front group devised by “notorious D.C. lobbyist”1 and veteran spin doctor Richard “Rick” Berman with his firm, Berman and Company.

The Center for Union Facts is a front group focused on damaging the public image of unions, depressing workers’ rights, pushing legislation that would make it more difficult for workers to join unions, and furthering an anti-union business climate.

FULL story at link.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4710059

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