How NOT to go about improving your public image:
(1) Hire a PR consultancy firm to produce ads on your behalf (whatever
happened to grass-roots organizing).
(2) In fact, go out of your way to hire PR consultancy firms whose
other services include union-busting.


http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/13580/unions_contract_to_pr_firms_that_work_for_anti-worker_groups
---------------------------------snip
As labor seeks to communicate its message in the media and influence
policy, many unions are looking to outside consultant firms. These
groups sometimes provide the technical expertise, media suaveness, and
necessary connections for unions to get their message out to the right
audience. However, a recent joint investigation by In These Times and
Republic Report reveals that several millions dollars of union
members’ dues have been going to firms that are actively working
against labor’s top priorities on behalf of business interests. In
some cases, unions are paying consultants who are simultaneously
working on behalf of union-busting causes.

SKDKnickerbocker (SKD) is one of the top firms providing outside
assistance to labor coalitions while raking in hundreds of thousands
of dollars for work to undermine organized labor, particularly
teachers unions. Led by Anita Dunn, a former White House
communications director and current Democratic Party advisor, SKD has
spearheaded state-based campaigns for Students First, the
anti-teacher's union charter and school privatization group founded by
former Chancellor of DC Public Schools Michelle Rhee.

In Ohio, Rhee’s group and state groups funded by Students First pushed
Senate Bill 5, Gov. John Kasich’s attempt to end collective bargaining
for most public sector employees. (The bill was later repealed by
labor-led ballot initiative.) In Michigan, a leaked Power Point
presentation shows that Students First promoted a bill to weaken
collective bargaining for teachers. And in New York, according to a
presentation obtained by In These Times, a SKD executive named Stefan
Friedman worked on a team to produce education reform ads to demonize
teacher unions. SKD ads cast teachers’ unions as special interests
that cost the state millions of dollars in taxpayer money.

The strategy of using unions as a foil apparently worked by making it
difficult for the unions to pressure lawmakers to support. "As a
result,” notes the presentation, “rather than targeting specific
[lawmakers] in a negative way, we placed all the pressure on the
unions.” SKD was paid over $4.1 million for the ad campaign, which ran
two years ago.

For fiscal year 2011, during the same period in which SKD conducted
much of its work for clients antagonizing labor, labor unions, led by
the SEIU, provided $799,458 in consulting fees to the firm, according
to disclosures filed with the Labor Department. Although SKD employs
several former union members as consultants, most prominently Jennifer
Cunningham, who was a top staffer at New York-based affiliate SEIU
1199, it’s not clear if the conflict of interest was ever revealed
during negotiations.

Asked if her firm’s labor clients were informed of the work her
company does for groups like Students First, SKD spokesperson Rachel
Racusen responded, “Why don’t you ask the SEIU?,” before hanging up
the phone. She later e-mailed a clarification, noting SKDK’s contract
with Students First “in no way conflicts with the work we do with
other clients.”

Both SEIU and SEIU 1199 failed to respond to repeated requests for
comment. The Communications Workers of America (CWA) paid SKD $75,000
for help with producing ads in 2011. While CWA declined to comment for
this story, it has since dropped its contract with SKD after it was
revealed they were also working for anti-teacher union proponent
Michelle Rhee.
_______________________________________________
pen-l mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l

Reply via email to