ACORN: Anti-Union, Pro-Cultism (Pt. 2)

The cult of Wade Rathke

This is part two in a series of articles designed to hit upon the high points of an extensive report prepared by the Employment Policies Institute (EPI) entitled “Rotten ACORN: America’s Bad Seed.” If you missed part one, CLICK HERE.

The Rathke family wields absolute control over ACORN and its subsidiary organizations. Wade Rathke exercises so much control over what masquerades as a democratic network of companies that a cult-like atmosphere pervades. According to former Arkansas ACORN chair Dorothy Perkins, who was interviewed by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 1987, the group was “run like a Jim Jones cult” where every cent ended up under Wade Rathke’s control and was “never seen by the low-income individuals” ACORN supposedly represent. The newspaper reported that

Perkins contended all funds received by ACORN are controlled at New Orleans by Wade Rathke, ACORN founder. Perkins also said Rathke told disgruntled Arkansas ACORN members they could pull out of ACORN “but the money is staying with me.” She said Rathke told her he had the votes by a margin of “44 to 1″ to “do whatever he wants.”

Also in the Democrat, founding ACORN organizer Gary Delgado recounted allegations that leadership at any level “pursued their own priorities over staff priorities, they are ‘democratically’ exorcised from leadership.”

Unions? Not if you’re against us!

Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 100 is yet another tentacle of the ACORN leviathan. Wade Rathke owns it and has taken steps in the past to quickly squash attempts by employees of the union to unionize. Rathke, along with his wife Beth Butler and brother Dale, teamed together to devise aggressive union-busting strategies. EPI shares accounts as follows:

Rathke quickly called a meeting of ACORN’s inner circle, which included his wife, Beth Butler, head organizer of Louisiana ACORN, and Rathke’s brother Dale, who is the financial guru of the outfit. The troika devised a variety of tactics, such as can be expected from any union-busting corporation, to divide and destroy solidarity.

In 2003, the National Labor Relations Board found ACORN management guilty of using union-busting tactics against its employees. So clearly, the organization that preaches a living wage (and no payday loans) for the little man and union benefits is hypocritical in its dealings with its own employees. Not a good sign from an organization that claims it wants to make a better place to live. A better place for the Rathke family, perhaps. CLICK HERE for part three of this series, in which the ACORN money trail will make you dizzy. But as always, the buck stops with Wade…

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