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Author Topic: ACORN getting trashed by Republicans, mainstream media
Michelle
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Babbler # 560

posted 29 October 2008 04:24 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I'm just watching CNN right now (yeah, I know, I know), and they're reporting that ACORN has not only done their best to squash union drives among their own employees, but also tried to pay their employees less than minimum wage.

Please say it ain't so! Let's debunk this if it's not true (and I sure hope it isn't).

[ 29 October 2008: Message edited by: Michelle ]


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 29 October 2008 04:28 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Okay, here's an article with ACORN's side of the story in it.

quote:
The New York Times ran a full page advertisement today in the front section of the paper featuring an attack on ACORN, or the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, whose voter registration practices have come under fire this election season. Directing readers to the Web site www.rottenacorn.com, the ad accuses ACORN of a list of abuses that suggest hypocrisy on some of the group’s signature issues: intimidating and firing its own employees if they try to unionize, misappropriating millions of dollars from taxpayer-funded government grants and advocating minimum wage hikes while paying its own employees less than minimum wage.

quote:
Kest said accusations of hypocrisy in the ad were untrue.

“At one point there were workers at one of our offices who wanted to form a union, and we invited all of our workers in and pledged complete neutrality,” he said in response to the union busting charge. “They decided not to the pursue [the union], so nothing came of it.”

Kest said ACORN has never paid its workers less than a minimum wage or sued to be exempt from minimum wage laws. “In the mid 80s, we were involved in some litigation with the state of California around how to count overtime, but none of that was about the minimum wage. We even eventually withdrew that lawsuit.”



From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
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Babbler # 15681

posted 29 October 2008 04:41 PM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Michelle:
I'm just watching CNN right now (yeah, I know, I know), and they're reporting that ACORN has not only done their best to squash union drives among their own employees, but also tried to pay their employees less than minimum wage.

Please say it ain't so! Let's debunk this if it's not true (and I sure hope it isn't).

[ 29 October 2008: Message edited by: Michelle ]


Actually it IS true, at least in Toronto. Sorry to disappoint. It's even worse than that

Ask anyone they've tried to recruit or hire.

[ 29 October 2008: Message edited by: TVParkdale ]


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
social democrat
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posted 29 October 2008 05:30 PM      Profile for social democrat        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
#1) It saddens me that Michelle has to apologize for watching CNN. I suppose she is not allowed to read the Star, G+M, or National Post either.
#2) ACORN briefly hires low-income people to sign up and organize their neighbours into membership organizations in low-income communities. (This structure is also helpful for voter registration work.) If their staff were permanent and unionized, their organizing model would fail.
#3) Are you really endorsing the McCain campaign criticisms of an organization with the pedigree of ACORN, which goes back to the Saul Alinsky days of 1960's community organizing? Especially when their community-organizing approach (now linked to the very similar contemporary work of the founder of FACEBOOK who runs Obama's on-line efforts) is critical to the electoral success of the Obama campaign?
PS--NDP candidates would never have won the recent YSW provincial by-election, or the Ward Eight Toronto municipal election, without the explicit help of ACORN, which now works in Canada.

From: Toronto | Registered: May 2005  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
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posted 29 October 2008 06:25 PM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by social democrat:
#1) It saddens me that Michelle has to apologize for watching CNN. I suppose she is not allowed to read the Star, G+M, or National Post either.
#2) ACORN briefly hires low-income people to sign up and organize their neighbours into membership organizations in low-income communities. (This structure is also helpful for voter registration work.) If their staff were permanent and unionized, their organizing model would fail.
#3) Are you really endorsing the McCain campaign criticisms of an organization with the pedigree of ACORN, which goes back to the Saul Alinsky days of 1960's community organizing? Especially when their community-organizing approach (now linked to the very similar contemporary work of the founder of FACEBOOK who runs Obama's on-line efforts) is critical to the electoral success of the Obama campaign?
PS--NDP candidates would never have won the recent YSW provincial by-election, or the Ward Eight Toronto municipal election, without the explicit help of ACORN, which now works in Canada.


If you really believe they treat their employees in Toronto fairly and that they actually do any productive organizing, not just publicity hounding, bandwagon jumping and fundraising--all I can say is...

Go work for their Toronto office.

Come back and tell us about it.

Just add it to their lead paint scam.


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
Joe Strummer
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posted 01 November 2008 07:33 PM      Profile for Joe Strummer        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I assume Parkdale is a master community organizer and not a disgruntled former ACORN organizer.

I think he/she might be a little jealous of the attention ACORN gets in Toronto, not to mention in the USA.

A lot of people hate ACORN on the right and the left. Most people see this as proof of their superior work.


From: West of ontario | Registered: Aug 2008  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
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posted 01 November 2008 07:53 PM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Joe Strummer:
I assume Parkdale is a master community organizer and not a disgruntled former ACORN organizer.

I think he/she might be a little jealous of the attention ACORN gets in Toronto, not to mention in the USA.

A lot of people hate ACORN on the right and the left. Most people see this as proof of their superior work.


Your assumptions are erroneous.

Why is it, when a "left" organization is criticized, you are jumping right in there to protect something, you know NOTHING about?

This is how corruption, malfeasance and lack of accountability continue in these organizations. Then out come the complaints from the left that the "righties" are "being mean to them."

For example:
ACORN is still suckering the unsuspecting in Toronto to donate money for the removal of lead house paint. It's the first big beg on their website.The sale of such house paint has NOT been legal for almost 40 years in this country. So, just exactly WHAT are they collecting the money FOR?

When I confronted them on this their 'organizer' claimed that it was 'leftover' from their American campaigns. Well, it's still on the Toronto website years later and they are still attempting to raise funds for this.

They use a "quota" system of payment to their employees circumventing the labour laws. Research how long the average employee stays and whether they received full payment for their labour. See how much time those employees spend actually organizing ANYTHING.

That's only the beginning of the problems with ACORN here.

If the "left" will not clean up its own house, we can expect that the "right" will continue to scream about this lack of accountability. And, they will be correct to do so.

Making sarcastic comments to me because you've failed to research this, does not change the facts.

[ 01 November 2008: Message edited by: TVParkdale ]


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
aka Mycroft
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posted 01 November 2008 07:57 PM      Profile for aka Mycroft     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I've have mixed feelings about ACORN since long before the US election campaign. They do some excellent community organizing on the one hand and have succeeded in pushing forward issues such as the $10 minimum wage and the need to regulate or abolish same day loan outlets.

On the other hand, they are not particularly democratic internally, they have smashed attempts by their own workers to unionize and I think they have exploited their workers.

IWW vs ACORN

They're also very close to SEIU which isn't the most ethical union in the world.

There's also the fact that ACORN founder and leader Wade Rathke had to step down from some (but not all) of his positions a few months ago when the fact became public that he had tried to cover up embezzlement by his brother of ACORN funds to a tune of $1 million.

Funds Misappropriated at 2 Nonprofit Groups

quote:
Acorn chose to treat the embezzlement of nearly $1 million eight years ago as an internal matter and did not even notify its board... A whistle-blower forced Acorn to disclose the embezzlement, which involved the brother of the organization’s founder, Wade Rathke.

The brother, Dale Rathke, embezzled nearly $1 million from Acorn and affiliated charitable organizations in 1999 and 2000, Acorn officials said, but a small group of executives decided to keep the information from almost all of the group’s board members and not to alert law enforcement.

Dale Rathke remained on Acorn’s payroll until a month ago, when disclosure of his theft by foundations and other donors forced the organization to dismiss him.

“We thought it best at the time to protect the organization, as well as to get the funds back into the organization, to deal with it in-house,” said Maude Hurd, president of Acorn. “It was a judgment call at the time, and looking back, people can agree or disagree with it, but we did what we thought was right.”

The amount Dale Rathke embezzled, $948,607.50, was carried as a loan on the books of Citizens Consulting Inc., which provides bookkeeping, accounting and other financial management services to Acorn and many of its affiliated entities.

Wade Rathke said the organization had signed a restitution agreement with his brother in which his family agreed to repay the amount embezzled in exchange for confidentiality.

Wade Rathke stepped down as Acorn’s chief organizer on June 2, the same day his brother left, but he remains chief organizer for Acorn International L.L.C.


quote:
, the Rathke family has paid Acorn $30,000 a year in restitution since 2001, or a total of $210,000.

(note at this rate it will take 33 years for the Rathkes to repay the stolen million dollars without interest - meantime, ACORN pays its workers less than the minimum wage)

[ 01 November 2008: Message edited by: aka Mycroft ]


From: Toronto | Registered: Aug 2004  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
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posted 01 November 2008 08:16 PM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by aka Mycroft:
I've have mixed feelings about ACORN since long before the US election campaign. They do some excellent community organizing on the one hand and have succeeded in pushing forward issues such as the $10 minimum wage and the need to regulate or abolish same day loan outlets.

On the other hand, they are not particularly democratic internally, they have smashed attempts by their own workers to unionize and I think they have exploited their workers.

IWW vs ACORN

They're also very close to SEIU which isn't the most ethical union in the world.

There's also the fact that ACORN founder and leader Wade Rathke had to step down from some (but not all) of his positions a few months ago when the fact became public that he had tried to cover up embezzlement by his brother of ACORN funds to a tune of $1 million


That's all I'm saying. I don't know about *every* ACORN office. Some of them might be perfectly okay. I just know the Toronto office doesn't deserve a dime unless it cleans itself up and starts paying people a reasonable amount to do the job ACORN could be doing.

I don't pick on social services and activist organizations to be mean to them. I pick on them when they don't do what they're designed to DO. Or, they do not track the money they are given, in a responsible manner. Some are downright corrupt.

Then the client base suffers.

This was MY response to a journalist's criticism of a Salvation Army grant from the city that she did not agree with:

"I don't care if the government pays an agency to bumblewuffet so long as that agency completes all the bumblewuffeting that's in the funding proposal and is transparent about its bumblewuffeting activities!"

It's much harder than people realize to shut down, or force to be accountable, disreputable non-profits in Canada.


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 02 November 2008 01:30 AM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
It has been a good week. Out with QatzelOk, and in with TVparkdale.
From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
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posted 02 November 2008 08:08 AM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Cueball:
It has been a good week. Out with QatzelOk, and in with TVparkdale.

Uhm, is that good or bad?


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 02 November 2008 05:22 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
It's great. Great contributions. Great straight talk.
From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
TVParkdale
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posted 02 November 2008 05:58 PM      Profile for TVParkdale     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Cueball:
It's great. Great contributions. Great straight talk.

*blush*

Well thank you


From: DaHood | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged

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