The politically aggressive Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has quietly created a national network of at least eight community-organizing groups, some of which function alongside the Occupy Wall Street movement, a Daily Caller investigation shows.
Incorporated by the SEIU as local non-profits, the groups are waging concerted local political campaigns to publicly attack conservative political figures, banks, energy companies and other corporations.
Each local group has portrayed itself as an independent community organization not tied to any special interest. But they were founded, incorporated, and led by SEIU personnel.
The individual activist groups use benign-sounding names including This Is Our DC; Good Jobs, Great Houston; Good Jobs, Better Baltimore; Good Jobs Now in Detroit; Fight for Philly; One Pittsburgh; Good Jobs LA; and Minnesotans for a Fair Economy.
In reality, they are creations of the wealthy and influential labor union, amounting to a secret network of new SEIU front groups. . . .
The principal IP address of the SEIU’s main Web server reveals an inventory of 69 Web domains representing union and advocacy groups throughout the United States. All of the sites corresponding to the city-specific SEIU front groups are on that server. . . .
SEIU is a well-endowed labor union with national reach, receiving dues from more than 2 million members, mainly workers in the service and hotel industries. Its annual budget exceeds $209 million. In 2011 the union spent more than $1.5 million just lobbying Congress, according to records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Carl Horowitz, who directs the Organized Labor Accountability Project at the National Legal and Policy Center, said creating new organizations out of whole cloth is a time-tested labor union strategy.
“Unions very commonly disguise their motives behind some seemingly innocuous nonprofit citizen group — some concerned, ad hoc grassroots group of citizens who are simply concerned about jobs, their neighborhoods, their country,” he told The Daily Caller.
“Deep down, when you look at who’s providing the money and the leadership, it’s directed by a union. This is their style.” Finish reading @AmerVisionNews
