The woman known as the “Queen of Labor” is living up to her promise to focus on “building a sustaining progressive infrastructure.”  Anna Burger, former SEIU Secretary-Treasurer, has just joined the board of directors at the Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAP Action).

CAP Action is a sister organization to the liberal think tank, Center for American Progress.  While the Center for American Progress focuses on developing new policy ideas and on “critiquing the policy that stems from conservative values,”  CAP Action focuses on how to put those policies into action – by organizing liberal grassroots groups, labor unions and other progressive partners as advocates.

John Podesta, Chairman of the Board of Directors for CAP Action, offered the following statement in the organization’s December 9th press release:

“The Center for American Progress Action Fund is pleased to welcome Anna Burger to our Board of Directors. She has been a longtime friend of the Center for American Progress and CAP Action and we’re very happy that she has agreed to help us advance our mission by serving in this new capacity.

Anna Burger has been fighting hard for progressive ideas and policies for nearly 40 years, including the visionary leadership she has provided for the progressive movement over the past decade. We face numerous opportunities and many challenges over the next two years and look forward to Anna’s help in charting our course. As we continue to push for an economy built on a strong middle class that works for all Americans, Anna’s continued leadership and experience could not come at a more important time.”

In addition to her previous post at SEIU, Burger has held many prominent positions that have played significant roles in advancing the progressive movement, including:

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It’s no secret that Democrats and organized labor have long shared a love affair that’s lasted for decades and burns even stronger under the Obama administration.  As more and more legislation has been enacted over the years in the interest of protecting workers, including state and federal safety and environmental regulations, voluntary union membership in the private sector has decreased.  Yet, public sector unions have grown under big government policies.  And they continue to grow.

Creating union jobs has become far less of a worker protection issue and far more a political tool for vote pandering.  With 12% of the overall workforce, labor union leaders invest their members’ dues in Democrats and rally their members to turnout at the polls and check off the box for those candidates.  Democrats in turn reward the unions with bigger government – more public sector jobs, more government projects, more schools and other facilities…more spending means more union dues.  And more union dues means more money to spend on political campaigns.  And so the cycle goes.  All too often, big government is a reflection of special interest paybacks, not of well-intended policy.

But for the other 88% of us equally hard working Americans who, primarily by our own choice, are NOT union members, where does that leave us?  Usually, with more taxes and without much of a voice.  And nowhere near as much voting power as Big Labor has amassed over all these years.

But all that is about to change, thanks to The Concord Project.  Finally, a tool for liberty-loving Americans that’s sure to bring out the community organizer in all of us.  And give the average voter a fighting chance against powerful unions and overbearing lefty groups during election season. (more…)

The Democracy Alliance is alive and well, and its Vice-Chair is about to be born again.

Today, the “Queen of Labor”, SEIU Secretary-Treasurer and Chair of the Change to Win labor federation, Anna Burger, announced her retirement.

Anna Burger was defeated by current SEIU President Mary Kay Henry when she ran against Henry for the spot vacated by outgoing President Andy Stern.  Despite that loss, Burger had insisted that she’d be staying on as Secretary-Treasurer of SEIU.  Instead, she will be replaced as the head of Change to Win by United Food and Commercial Workers president, Joe Hansen.  Henry is likely to appoint one of her own insiders as SEIU Secretary-Treasurer, a practice that was already causing tension between Burger and the new guard of SEIU (even though both guards are not all that different from one another).

Burger’s departure marks not just the end of an era for SEIU, but more importantly it’s indicative of a new era for the Progressive movement.

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When it formed in 2005, the Change to Win coalition was heralded as a dynamic organizing force that would rejuvenate the labor movement and swell membership rolls for constituent unions.  However, U.S. Department of Labor figures show that only one union organization has benefitted from its affiliation with Change to Win while the others have lost out.

The Service Employees International Union’s (SEIU) membership has risen from about 1.5 million to more than 1.8 million and its annual receipts are up to about $75 million since 2005, according to government records. SEIU has in turn contributed $5.7 million to support the coalition, which is far more than any other coalition member. By contrast, the other six unions that split off from the AFL-CIO to form Change to Win have either flatlined or declined.

In 2006, the first year Change to Win filed Labor Department financial disclosure forms, the coalition claimed over 5.3 million members but its most recent filing in 2008 shows it had less than 4.8 million members; that’s a decline of almost 11 percent. In 2006, Change to Win listed $11.7 million in assets, a figure that dropped to $8.8 million in 2008. During that time, liabilities spike by more than 130 percent from about $550,000 in 2006 to more than just $1.25 million in 2008.

Annual receipts have also plummeted, falling from $18.7 million in 2006 to just $6.5 million in 2008. In 2006, revenues far exceeded expenditures, but this ratio was turned upside down in 2008 with Change to Win’s spending outpacing its revenues.

“Despite being a coalition of several unions, Change to Win has been of material benefit to one union only, and that is the SEIU,” Glenn Spencer, the executive director of the Workforce Freedom Initiative with the Chamber of Commerce has observed.   “The coalition started with great fanfare and was meant to be an alternative to the AFL-CIO – the new front of labor organizing, but it just hasn’t worked out that way.  It’s now an organization struggling to justify its existence.”

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SEIU’s New Lavender Lady Labor Boss

Politico’s Ben Smith was first to publish that Service Employee International Union (SEIU) Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger would not be the Purple Union’s  new union boss, he created a shock heard round the world; well at least, at SEIU’s Dupont Circle Headquarters. The breaking news was that Executive Vice President (EVP) Mary Kay Henry (MKH) would become the abruptly resigned Andy Stern’s replacement. Some claimed that this indicated an SEIU shake-up; actually it is merely an SEIU insiders’ game of musical chairs that will result in little change.

Don’t let the cheery atmosphere surrounding her anointment ease concerns about her nor the SEIU and its agenda; because for her, ObamaCare and its potential for 21.1 million forced unionism conscripts are just the beginning steps for SEIU’s steady march towards domination of U.S. labor markets.

Mary Kay Henry’s intentions to further radicalize the labor movement and the American economy are clearer than Stern’s vision.  With the hundreds of millions of union dues and fees flowing into SEIU’s treasury, she has the financial fuel needed to fund her ambitious desires.

SEIU’s Growth by Forced Unionism Fiats

Under Stern direction, SEIU had focused on the takeover of the healthcare industry through forced unionism obtained primarily through government fiats or from intimidated and cowed employers signing away worker freedoms to keep “labor peace.”  SEIU’s purple machine is unlikely to change their top-down intimidation operation with  Henry running the show.

Mary Kay Henry the Queen of ‘SEIU Grassroots’ (more…)

If you haven’t read by now all the headlines on this story, you’ll want to start at the beginning and read the first post, SEIU Storms Private Residence, Terrorizes Teenage Son of Bank of America Exec.  Because as each day passes, new facts are popping up.  The story seemed so outrageous at first.  After all, the thought of over 500 screaming and chanting protesters surrounding a Bank of America lawyer’s private residence while the man’s teenage son, home alone, hid frightened inside a bathroom – it’s just so extreme, even by SEIU’s standards.

I knew something was up when the following day, Fortune magazine editor Nina Easton, a neighbor of the targeted residence, published an account of the incident and was almost immediately attacked by what seemed like practically a coordinated dogpile of writers from several specific sources.

In almost mirror fashion to the Town Hall events last August, when both the Huffington Post and Media Matters seemingly tried to cover up and dismiss the violent acts that SEIU committed against Kenneth Gladney, the same players were again out in full force.  As our Larry O’Connor wrote, both outlets behaved less like journalists and more like arms of the SEIU press office, dismissing SEIU’s bad behavior and attacking an innocent party with fabricated conflicts of interest as a method of distraction and intimidation.

Bob Borosage, Erica Payne, and John Podesta

And now we learn this:  Erica Payne, the guest who was invited to appear Friday on Megyn Kelley’s Fox News show and proceeded to blame the Tea Parties for the behavior of SEIU?  She was co-founder of Democracy Alliance, the very organization that spawned and is a donor to Media Matters.  SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger is also the Vice-Chair of its Board.

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“After a great amount of my own thought, hearing opinions from many of you, and holding them up against my own criteria—I recommend that Anna Burger not only temporarily—but then permanently—become the 10th President and first woman to lead our union.”

That’s what outgoing SEIU President Andy Stern requested in his April 16th letter to the International Executive Board of SEIU, as he named Anna Burger as his preferred successor.

But locals from New York, Los Angeles, Oregon, and Washington State, as well as Canada, all lined up behind Mary Kay Henry tonight to commit their votes.  According to Politico’s Ben Smith,

“It’s done,” an SEIU insider emailed moments ago.

Tonight’s development comes only days after Anna Burger’s plea to the International Executive Board:

“During my 38 years in SEIU, I’ve held every position but one and now I’m asking for your support… to be the next International President.”

However, building tensions between locals across the country that saw Stern as a divisive figure, too politically entrenched and connected to the DC complex, have left the union itself divided.  Some have seen Mary Kay Henry as a more uniting force that might break the national union away from the chains of the DC operations and bring the power of the locals back to the members again and keep the peace amongst other locals. Others (including me) speculate that she’ll infuse new life into those very DC operations and could possibly even accelerate some activities; she apparently has fewer enemies than Stern or Burger did.  As Politico reports,

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Consider this irony: Democrats and their special interest allies are in the fight of their lives to keep the seat formerly held by the champion of socialized medicine in the bluest of states.  Democrats should be tap dancing on the foreheads of Republicans in Massachusetts.  But instead, they’re racing against the clock for a deal on health care reform because they run the risk of losing their critical 60^th vote in just a few days.

So the Democrats strategy is clear:  seek forgiveness of American voters in November instead of permission now because the probable message from Tuesday’s election will not be in favor of ObamaCare.  Democrats are “hoping” to have an overall deal on health care reform, the tax-dodging Ways and Means committee chairman Charlie Rangel told NationalJournal.com, just in time to avoid the Tuesday Massachusetts vote.

The Huffington Post quoted SEIU vice president Anna Burger as saying, “Let’s go on and actually pass this bill.”  Anna’s wish is, of course, this White House’s command.

The special election this week in Massachusetts can easily be viewed as a referendum on Obama, his policies and specifically government-run health care.  And in a state that is navy blue, it’s a dog fight, with SEIU stepping in to plop down over $600,000 for TV ads savaging Republican candidate Scott Brown.  And RedState.com reported House Democrats are spending beaucoup bucks to elect a Democrat to the Senate.  It’s pure panic time for Democrats in Washington.

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It’s amusing to watch President Obama try to stick it to his friends in organized labor by proposing a tax on union-negotiated health care benefits.

If it weren’t for the fact that the tax proposal would have a  devastating effect on the American economy, the situation would be downright hilarious.

Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO President

On Monday, a group of top leaders from the American labor movement gathered at the White House to share their concerns with the president.

The irony of the discussion was delicious. During the campaign, Obama and the Democratic Party (including the unions) attacked John McCain for suggesting that health care benefits should be taxed as income.

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The current state of the economy has placed a large burden on private business, especially on small businesses and the self-employed. Subscribing to a Keynesian tenet of financing debt and increasing government spending to boost output, lawmakers are repeatedly giving themselves cover for splurging.  After the first bailouts came the massive $787 billion stimulus bill, an urgent remedy that Congress and the White House insisted was all about “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.”

And as spending has increased, so has the size of the public employment sector. Meanwhile, the private sector will soon be close to earning a coveted placement on the endangered species list.

As the union leaders’ plundering of the private sector has continued, this doesn’t mean that they have abandoned unionizing private sector workers altogether.  In fact, while the number of private sector jobs overall is down, the number of unionized private sector jobs is trending upward, right alongside the public sector growth.

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As one Change to Win labor union blocks a Red Cross blood delivery today, what will a health care system taken hostage by labor unions look like tomorrow?

As Change to Win’s Anna Burger is leading her coalition of unions to lobby all around the country “until every man, woman and child has quality, affordable care they can count on,” one of her unions is busy blocking the delivery of a Red Cross blood donation to a hospital and picketing private companies’ blood drives.

The Red Cross, which has union workers in various locations who are covered both by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and SEIU, says union leaders are trying to disrupt the Red Cross Blood Services operations by going on strike.

That’s right.  At a time of year when blood donations are at their lowest levels and are the most urgently needed, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, SEIU’s sister union and member of Burger’s Change to Win labor coalition, took advantage of the opportunity to go on strike on December 4th against the American Red Cross Blood Services Penn-Jersey Region.  Local 929  initiated the strike at midnight just as their contract expired.  Hours later, the Red Cross was forced to take legal action when some strikers illegally blocked one blood delivery in particular

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As if Andy Stern and Anna Burger lobbying without being registered wasn’t enough for the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) to deal with, they are still trying desperately to pass the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). Unsuccessfully, I might add.

However, they have developed a new tool of misinformation — “Language Tips on Employee Free Choice.”

SEIU EFCA Tip Sheet_Page_2 PDF –

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The Service Employees International Union has demonstrated a history of blatant “pay-to-play” political tactics. And “pay-to-play” is probably why the SEIU has been at the forefront of promoting ObamaCare, with a “robust” public option.

In 2002, the union spent well over $1 million and worked tirelessly getting Rod Blagojevich elected governor of Illinois.  Shortly after he was sworn in, he signed an executive order, allowing SEIU to unionize 20,000 state health care employees.  It was the first such move by any governor on SEIU’s behalf.  Dozens of campaign contributions from the SEIU to Blogojevich are compiled in a list posted on shopfloor.org, a blog maintained by the National Association of Manufacturers.

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As President Obama concludes his first jobs summit, almost a year into his presidency, the nature of the guest list hints at a deliberate initiative that’s been underway for over 15 years – and it’s not one of the obvious presumptions that most would make.  Notice that of the list of leaders invited, the majority are labor union leaders, leaders of businesses with government contracts, or leaders of businesses that operate on partial public funding.  There is a common element across most of the businesses represented:  in one capacity or another, even if they are private sector businesses, most on the list benefit from some form of public money.

There is a legal precedent over 15 years old that is the pervasive push behind such a premise, one that was the product of ACORN and labor union coalitions.  And judging by Change to Win / SEIU’s Anna Burger’s plan for today’s jobs summit, it’s evident that this precedent is in play as we speak.

It’s no coincidence that in the wake of America’s economic crisis, some lawmakers have been pushing for infusions of public funds into the private sector.  No, we’re not just talking bank and insurance company bailouts. We’re talking about tax credit and incentive programs, health care reform proposals, green jobs programs, energy efficiency initiatives,  and even real estate development companies.  As the conservative accusations of socialism have begun to sink in with progressive leaders -especially with union leaders, who are especially sensitive to being perceived as public spenders – the language has been changing.  Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand” doesn’t sound so scary when it’s wrapped in the glove of words like “co-ops” and “public-private partnerships” and “national service”, which are now quickly being mainstreamed into the rhetoric.

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Successfully demonizing Washington insiders on the campaign trail, President Obama needed to find a way to meet with lobbyists without appearing hypocritical. The administration’s advice to lobbyists? De-register.

For an administration that promised to renounce interest groups, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) certainly has the president’s ear and is sure to be a major player in the December jobs summit. In 2008, SEIU donated nearly $28 million to the Obama campaign setting the stage for SEIU President Andy Stern to become the White House’s most frequent visitor in 2009, according to White House visitor logs. Anna Burger, Treasure of the SEIU and Chairwoman of their Change to Win campaign was even appointed to Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board earlier this year and will represent SEIU at the December jobs summit held by the White House.

To the objective observer, it is clear that Andy Stern and Anna Burger are meeting with members of the White House to advance goals of the SEIU, they are lobbying. However, in 2008 both Stern and Burger de-registered as lobbyists providing the Obama administration cover to meet with them while avoiding cries of duplicity. Yet, neither Stern nor Burger changed positions or job responsibilities, they just stopped registering as lobbyists.

So who has to register?

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The Labor-Management Disclosure and Reporting Act (LMRDA) requires labor union officials to report potential or certain conflict-of-interests they might encounter if they receive gifts or cash payments from employers. Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Andrew Stern may be in violation of that requirement since he has not filed a report disclosing $140,000 in advance payments from publisher and service industry employer Simon & Schuster.

In addition to this, documents made public during an intra-union California lawsuit and obtained by a “BigGovernment researcher” (posted on NRTWC.org’s Scribd, seen below) reveal that SEIU Treasurer Anna Burger recommended that the union use general treasury money, much collected from employees as a condition of employment, to promote Stern’s book, A Country that Works.

It’s not as if Stern has never filed a conflict-of-interest disclosure report; in fact, he has filed two in 2004 and one in 2005. But, why has he not filed any reports related to his special book deal?

SEIU President Andy Stern’s Book Advance and Past Conflict of Interest Reports (LM-30s)

Unfortunately for rank and file workers forced to pay dues or fees to the SEIU, rather than spending its resources investigating potential LMRDA violations, the Obama Labor Department (DOL) is busy rescinding conflict-of-interest and other union financial reporting requirements.

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Throughout the debate over health care reform, there has been a great deal of discussion over the role of special interests in influencing the votes of lawmakers. Liberal democrats, progressive think tanks and mainstream media have repeatedly accused anyone who opposes government run health care of standing with special interests instead of with needy Americans, painting them as greedy and selfish. And now that a bill has passed in the House and is on its way to the Senate, big government proponents of a ‘public option’ are already attacking their fellow Democrats’ own bill, insisting that it may as well have been written by special interests.

Funny they should mention that. Because, just like the stimulus bill, it was written by special interests.

While it’s true that Republicans certainly receive their fair share of donations from the health industry, the surprising truth is that Democrats actually receive more.  Because there’s one giant special interest sector that everyone seems to be leaving out:  Big Labor.  And in the monarchy of labor these days,  there is one queen that’s at the top of the money chain, and that’s the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the top billing union in its parent coalition, Change to Win. Especially when it comes to the issue of health care.

Let’s start first by breaking down the numbers.

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Most average Americans know little about the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Some know them as the people in purple shirts that beat up attendees at the town halls this summer.  Some equate them to ACORN, or to the Obama administration.  While there is some truth to all of the above, there is for certain one title that every voting American should be bestowing upon SEIU, and that is the title of “special interest”.

From 2000 to current, SEIU has spent at least $187,500,000 through combined lobbying, PAC and 527s group donations and expenses on candidates and policy issues – nearly 100% of which went to Democrats and to liberal policy initiatives.  Much has been focused on influencing universal health care, as well as other indirectly related health legislation, such as public nutrition, food safety, research, and environmental health – all part of SEIU’s supposed plan for Building a New American Health Care System. Because, in their words, they “will not stop until every man, woman and child has quality, affordable care they can count on.”

So really…why is SEIU so invested in health care?

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Now that ACORN is drowning is an ocean of adverse publicity, its longtime ally the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) claims to have broken with the embattled radical left-wing activist group.

Last week SEIU international secretary-treasurer Anna Burger dropped this political bombshell that has been ignored by the mainstream media.

In response to a question from Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) posed during a meeting of the House Financial Services Committee, Burger casually noted that her union “cut all ties to ACORN.”

In an interview Monday night I asked SEIU spokeswoman Michelle Ringuette what Burger meant when she said SEIU had cut all ties with ACORN.

Ringuette replied, “We have suspended all contracts and active work with ACORN,” pending the results of a panel of inquiry looking into ACORN. SEIU boss Andy Stern sits on that supposedly independent panel.

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Stern’s New Big Labor Same as the Old Big Labor

For the past four years, the highest profile Big Labor Boss was Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Andy Stern.  Stern has deliberately parlayed his controlling style as that of a New Labor Boss, and he has painstakingly worked on the SEIU “purple brand.”  And yet, Stern and the SEIU union have failed to live up to the New Labor Boss identity that he claimed in his New York Times Magazine and CNN/Fortune Magazine articles.

Stern tried to separate himself from the herd of “old-styled” labor bosses in several ways, most noticeably with his dress.  He conscientiously wore his beloved SEIU purple with its slight pinkish hue.  Apparently, Stern is trying to replicate for his union what brown does for UPS.

Stern’s limitless purple attire led some to refer to him as the Lavender Labor Leader.  And recently, SEIU’s Anna Burger looked very chic in her purple suit as Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC) grilled her about SEIU’s relationship with ACORN.

Whatever color of scarves, suits, or hats Andy Stern decides to wear, you cannot deny his influence with the White House, U.S. Congressional King Pins, the Democrat National Committee, and ACORN among others.  But, has Stern’s smash-mouth organizing and relationship to ACORN begun to turn SEIU’s purple into black and blue? You bet it has!

Clearly, ACORN’s partnerships with SEIU and other Big Labor outfits has begun to drag down SEIU’s image.  SEIU has decided, now that ACORN is damaged goods, to cut ties for now.  But, that will be very difficult because ACORN and ACORN’s training programs are totally interwoven into the purple fabric that makes up SEIU.  

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