From a Center for Union Facts ad against the Employee Free Choice Act"Three days after receiving $25 billion in federal bailout funds, Bank of America Corp. hosted a conference call with conservative activists," including corporate front man and Lifetime Falsie winner Rick Berman, aimed at blocking the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). "At least one representative from another bailout recipient, AIG" was also on the October 17, 2008 call, reports Sam Stein. EFCA, which is supported by labor unions and human rights groups, would give workers the option of either signing cards to join a workplace union, or holding an election. Berman, whose Center for Union Facts corporate front group campaigns against EFCA, said on the call that the only way to defeat the bill post-election, "if we don't have a filibuster proof Senate ... is to make the issue so hot in some states so that even a Democrat who is up for election in 2010 has to think twice" about supporting it. Another call participant suggested EFCA opponents make major contributions to Berman's group, adding, "Some organizations have written checks for $250,000, $500,000, some $2 million for this." Berman said the call was "one of a series with people around the country who are connected to businesses." A Bank of America research document, released after the call, said while EFCA "could drive higher labor cost at retail," it would also increase the "spending power of lower income consumers."

A full-page ad in the New York Times "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 hides while paying its own employees less than minimum wage." While the ad "does not indicate who or what organization paid for it," it comes from one of lobbyist Rick Berman's many front groups, the Employment Policies Institute (EPI). For years, Berman "has been fighting ACORN's efforts to increase the minimum wage at the state and federal levels." Tim Miller, the spokesman for EPI and Berman's Center for Consumer Freedom, said they placed the ad because after the election, "a lot of the coverage of ACORN is going to go away, but they are going to continue the same corrupt and fraudulent practices." ACORN says the charges in EPI's ad are untrue. For example, ACORN "pledged complete neutrality" when one of its offices "wanted to form a union," said ACORN's Steve Kest. The employees eventually "decided not to pursue [the union], so nothing came of it."

Texas flagJustice Dale Wainwright, a sitting Republican member of the Texas Supreme Court, is up for election later this year. Journalist Clay Robison notes that Wainwright is busy fundraising and this "means collecting campaign money, perfectly legally, from litigants and potential litigants." One of the hosts of a recent fundraising event for Wainwright was the Texas Civil Justice League, which contributed $6,000 to his campaign. The league, Robison writes, is "one of several business-oriented groups that have filed briefs urging the high court to reaffirm a controversial decision giving refineries and other industrial plants a new shield against liability claims from contract workers injured on the job." The next hearing on the case is in two weeks' time. Other sponsors of the fundraising event included ConocoPhillips, Koch Industries, American Electric Power, AT&T, Pfizer and the Texas Medical Association, "all of whom also are keenly interested in the outcome of the contract workers' case or any number of other issues before the high court."

The U.S. Labor Department has only "ruled in favor of [corporate] whistleblowers 17 times out of 1,273 complaints filed since 2002," and has dismissed 841 cases. Many of the dismissals were based "on the technicality that workers at corporate subsidiaries aren't covered" by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The Act, passed after the Enron and Worldcom scandals, contained the first federal protections for corporate whistleblowers. Senator Patrick Leahy, who helped draft the Act, says it covers workers in corporate subsidiaries. "Otherwise," he explained, "a company that wants to do something shady, could just do it in their subsidiary." The Labor Department disagrees. One of the whistleblower cases it dismissed involves communications giant WPP. A former staffer at WPP's ad firm Ogilvy & Mather claims he was fired "in retaliation for his cooperation with a federal criminal investigation into his employer's billing practices." Two former Ogilvy executives received prison sentences for overbilling the U.S. government, but the staffer's whistleblower complaint was dismissed. Even though WPP describes its firms as "centrally integrated," the Labor Department ruled that Ogilvy is a subsidiary not covered by Sarbanes-Oxley.

The Colombian government will pay U.S. lobbyist Andrew J. Samet another $45,000, "to present Colombia's track record on labor issues to Congress, non-governmental organizations and labor unions." The new contract is similar to Samet's earlier work to push the U.S. - Colombia Free Trade Agreement, on which the Center for Media and Democracy previously reported. Samet served as deputy under secretary for labor under President Bill Clinton and later co-founded the Sorini, Samet & Associates lobbying firm. Samet "was responsible for the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation," an addition to the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada meant to address concerns about workers rights.

From a Center for Union Facts adThe Center for Union Facts, one of lobbyist Rick Berman's front groups, is railing against the Employee Free Choice Act, legislation that would "allow employees at a work place to unionize as soon as a majority signs cards expressing support to join a union." Labor rights advocates say the bill is needed, because of employer intimidation and union-busting tactics. Berman's Center, as the "Employee Freedom Action Committee," says the bill would allow "union bosses" to "stand over workers' shoulders and use coercion." It's launched a $30 million campaign, including radio, television, print and online ads and "a substantial grassroots organizing effort." The "Coalition for a Democratic Workplace," which is comprised of "virtually hundreds of businesses, chambers of commerce and trade associations," is also spending millions to defeat the bill. Both groups are targeting Senators "in what they see as key states," including Maine and New Hampshire. The bill has passed the House and is before the Senate. "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."

Following a raid on a meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa that's been condemned as "inhumane" and "a Kafkaesque travesty of justice," U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is trying a new approach -- asking undocumented immigrants to deport themselves. Until August 22, immigrants in five cities who "got caught and ignored a judge's order to leave but avoided other trouble with the law" can take part in ICE's new "Operation Scheduled Departure." An ICE official said the program "allows them to leave on their own terms." ICE may also help cover immigrants' transportation costs. Many immigrant rights and reform advocates are skeptical. ICE calls "Scheduled Departure" a "compassionately conceived enforcement initiative." But the director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights says the program was designed "to put a happy face on what have been really brutal actions." He adds that those targeted by the program "are desperately trying to stay in the United States, because they have U.S.-born children ... they have spouses, they have jobs, many of them have homes."

Ed Morales takes the 110th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Puerto Rico as an opportunity to talk about its status. "The United States invaded the island on July 25, 1898, and claimed it as booty after the Spanish-American War. Long since obsolete as a strategic outpost in the Cold War, the Caribbean island is America's best-kept secret: an unfree state within the land of the free." The island has never seriously been considered for statehood, often for racist reasons. A portion of Puerto Rico's Vieques Island was routinely used as a bombing range by the U.S. Navy. The island of nearly four million inhabitants "is an 'unincorporated territory,' which means that the island is subject to the authority of the U.S. Congress, which can overturn any action by the island's legislature." Puerto Ricans are not able to vote in U.S. presidential elections, nor do they having voting representatives in Congress. While there is often a misperception that Puerto Ricans receive certain rights without paying taxes (which is mainly false), Morales has this take: "Puerto Rico's commonwealth status was a dry run for the free trade practices of the last 15 years, where profit -- and the potential for local investment -- is extracted from a weaker economy by rampaging multinational corporations. Today, Puerto Rico is suffering from a failing economy with high unemployment rates, a fall-off in tourism due to the gas crisis, overdependence on government entitlements like food stamps and a failing public education system."

While the closing of 600 Starbucks stores is bad news for the 12,000 baristas who will lose their jobs, it's an economic plus for others. The coffee giant is ramping up PR efforts to shape its message about its contraction. Edelman has been the company's firm of record for several years, and their offices in Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, Austin, Atlanta, New York and Seattle (Starbucks' home town) are all engaged to work with local media for Starbucks. Besides Edelman, "Starbucks is relying on a PR roster that currently includes The Frause Group (Seattle), The Limtiaco Company (Honolulu), Eiseman PR (Chicago) Airfoil PR (Detroit), Cone (Boston), Brotman Winter Fried Communications (Falls Church, Va.), and rbb PR (Coral Gables, Fla.)." Grey Worldwide handles Starbucks' PR in Canada, which is fielding questions about any plans for closing stores there. All in all, it's an intensive PR effort. Bridget Baker, communications program manager at Starbucks said, "We couldn't be doing this without them all by our side."

Human rights and labor activists protested outside the Washington DC offices of Public Strategies, Inc., claiming that the public relations firm helps the Bridgestone / Firestone Tire Company "deflect attention away from the company's long history of exploiting workers and the environment on its rubber plantation in Liberia." The protest comes shortly after the publication of a report from a Liberian-based organization that alleges that Firestone works with "former President [Charles] Taylor's Anti-Terrorist Unit and other militia forces ... to curb illicit tapping. Some members of this group are allegedly harassing and torturing community members in the name of curbing illicit tapping" of rubber trees. The report also faults Firestone for paying low wages and placing unreasonable quotas on its Liberian workers, among other problems. The head of the Firestone Agricultural Workers' Union of Liberia said there are "ongoing union-management contract negotiations" to address "issues relating to work quota, and also issues relating to occupational health and safety, issues relating to education as well as issues relating to salaries and wages."