Wade Rathke says Steve Lerner on Paid Leave

http://www.laborunionreport.com/portal/2010/11/seiu-cleans-house/ On Sunday morning, The Blaze posted a story about the “return” of ACORN on the world-wide scene. While reading through some of the background material on that story, I noticed something significant. ACORN founder Wade Rathke has been busy mocking the story that broke on The Blaze earlier this week about a multi-front plot to target JP Morgan Chase in an attempt to crash the stock market. We’ll look at his criticisms in a second. No need to bury the lede here. Rathke seems to answer the question we’ve been asking all week — does bank plotter Stephen Lerner still work for SEIU? Rathke says Lerner is still very much on the SEIU payroll: Lerner has not been “fired” by SEIU as they report. He was placed on paid leave last fall to think through his contribution to the union, but was certainly present at the recent international executive board meeting. This is important for several reasons — not the least of which is that this ties the plot to destroy the American economy much more closely within the ranks of the organization that time and time again President Obama has declared to be most important to him strategically and politically. If you are not familiar with our original report — click here. From the beginning, we have speculated about Lerner’s work status. We knew early on that a blog critical of SEIU had reported on the “apparent firing” of Lerner last fall. But we also knew that Lerner was introduced at the Left Forum conference as “SEIU.” And we soon learned that Lerner had an active voicemail account on his phone line at SEIU. Glenn Beck speculated numerous times on radio and TV about Lerner’s work status and noted that repeated calls to SEIU had not been returned. I’d wondered all along what it would really take to get fired from SEIU. Is there a union of workers at the union? Maybe Lerner filed a grievance! Rathke’s post not only claims that Lerner is on “paid leave,” he affirms Lerner’s status as a revered strategist in the labor movement: Lerner has written a number of well circulated papers over the last year expanding on his analysis of the impact of the recession and the need to frame larger campaigns around accountability of banks and the financial system for working Americans. He is an avowed advocate of developing campaigns to finally bring them to account. Rathke seems to find a logical contradiction in our connections between some of Lerner’s key assertions: While labeling Lerner an ex-SEIU official who was signaling that unions and community organizations were “dead,” also reported hook-line-and-sinker that in May, according to Lerner, there would be days of rage in ten cities around JP Morgan Chase signally the beginning of the anti-banking jihad. Hmmm. An ex-official issuing the call to “dead” troops to storm the barricades? Does something not add up here? Does it add up? He doesn‘t really deal with a counter argument to Lerner’s contention about unions and community organizations being “dead,” but it seems to me that a desperate official, dealing with desperate forces, backed by astounding fiscal resources, might be able to reasonably storm a barricade or two. While Lerner’s articulation of a well-orchestrated plot to bring down the stock market may sound a little hyperbolic, Rathke is intent on convincing us that Lerner is actually known for his reasoned understatement: I’ve known and worked with Lerner for decades and his long experience with union lawyers and what used to be called “corporate campaigns,” has made him one of the more careful commentators on his work that I know. The rest of us are verifiable flap jawed loose lips compared to Steve!

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