To back up My claims turns out I didn't even know that 4 ACORN employees have filed EEOC complaints against ACORN for unfair promotion of minority staff who are routinely passed over for white staff.
From the Wall Street Journal article "The Grapes of Rathke":
Still, Acorn is vulnerable to charges it doesn’t practice what it preaches. Its manual for minimum-wage campaigns says it intends “to push for as high a wage as possible.” But it doesn’t pay those wages. In 2004 Acorn won a $9.50 an hour minimum wage in Santa Fe, N.M., for example, but pays its organizers $25,000 a year for a required 54-hour week–$8.90 an hour. This year Acorn had workers in Missouri sign contracts saying they would be “working up to 80 hours over seven days of work.” Mr. Rathke says “We pay as much as we can. If people can get more elsewhere, we wish them well.”
Now you say nothing about the issue of how we staff of color have been discriminated against by ACORN in promotions yet:
Current and former Acorn employees say the problems in Kansas City and St. Louis are no accident. “There’s no quality control on purpose, no checks and balances,” says Nate Toler, currently head organizer of an Acorn campaign against Wal-Mart in Merced, Calif. In 2004 he worked on an Acorn voter drive in Missouri, and says Acorn statements aren’t to be taken at face value: “The internal motto is ‘We don’t care if it’s a lie, just so long as it stirs up the conversation.’”
Mr. Toler expects to be attacked as a disgruntled employee, and that “I may have my head chopped off for telling the truth.” Indeed, he has this year filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint alleging that Acorn has consistently promoted whites to management positions over equally qualified blacks. But his allegations are backed by three former Acorn employees who have filed similar EEOC complaints.
One of them, Sashanti Bryant of Detroit, Mich., was a community organizer for Acorn. She told me it has a problem paying employees on time and has almost no minorities in its upper echelons. Loretta Barton, until June of this year a lead Acorn organizer from Dayton, Ohio, and another EEOC complainant, told me that “all Acorn wanted from registration drives was results.”
Ms. Barton alleges that when she and her co-workers asked about forming a union they were slapped down: “We were told if you get a union, you won’t have a job.” There is some history here: In 2003, the National Labor Relations Board ordered Acorn to rehire and pay restitution to three employees it had illegally fired for trying to organize a union.
In response, Mr. Rathke says he is neutral on internal union-organizing efforts and that “when you’re dealing with thousands of employees a year you’ll have some who complain.” He also said the four complaints lodged with the EEOC had all been dismissed. When told that wasn’t the case, he said “there may be some loose ends to be tied up . . . I’m not going to impugn any of the people involved.”
Also backing up my claims of 80 hour weeks:
Still, Acorn is vulnerable to charges it doesn’t practice what it preaches. Its manual for minimum-wage campaigns says it intends “to push for as high a wage as possible.” But it doesn’t pay those wages. In 2004 Acorn won a $9.50 an hour minimum wage in Santa Fe, N.M., for example, but pays its organizers $25,000 a year for a required 54-hour week–$8.90 an hour. This year Acorn had workers in Missouri sign contracts saying they would be “working up to 80 hours over seven days of work.” Mr. Rathke says “We pay as much as we can. If people can get more elsewhere, we wish them well.”
You know Wade? Your doo doo is doo doo!
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008
Colorado Springs Community Abandoned by ACORN
From Colorado Springs Gazette,
Last year, ACORN, a national organization dedicated to social justice for low-income neighborhoods, sprouted a new branch in Colorado Springs.
Its first project was a voter registration drive, followed by efforts to organize residents in unincorporated Stratmoor Valley and in the city's Wildflower neighborhood near the airport.
The voter registration effort was tainted when a temporary worker hired by ACORN was indicted by a grand jury and accused of forging 19 registration cards.
Now, there is more trouble for ACORN's Springs chapter.
Representatives in Stratmoor Valley and Wildflower have quit ACORN despite some success raising money to build parks and get streetlights for the neighborhoods.
"It all started off good," said Albert Aldaz, a leader of the Stratmoor Valley group. "But it turned out so bad."
ACORN has a long history of abandoning communities. I personally witnessed offices that had accomplished great work where ACORN just mysteriously closed the office with no warning. After residents had rasied money and paid their dues. After leaving ACORN kept taking money out of people's accounts even though they no longer had any investment in the community
"Julie Wilson of the Wildflower neighborhood is grateful for the help Wildflower re- ceived from ACORN -- the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which claims 850 chapters with 175,000 members in 75 cities.
"We give them credit for bringing us together and helping us," Wilson said. "But we severed ties in August. We felt it would be in our best interests to go our separate ways. We wanted more control and say-so."
Both Aldaz and Wilson said they questioned why ACORN wanted individual members to pay monthly $10 dues to the national organization.
"The dues were supposed to come back to the neighborhood," Wilson said. "So we figured, why not just keep them here to begin with? Why go through a third party?"
Aldaz said the issue of dues and how they are spent hit him in July when he was invited to spend a weekend in Washington, D.C., attending ACORN-sponsored events.
"The light bulb went on," he said. "I was at this legislative meeting. They flew me out. Put me up in a hotel. Fed me great meals. And I thought something wasn't right. We're paying for that with our dues."
It is often true that communities cannot get money invested back into their community after they have raised it. They are told the money they raise is going to help the community, but then members finding themselves on some trip to Washington on some national agenda they know nothing about.
He didn't feel good, knowing money from poor neighborhoods like Stratmoor Valley was being spent on lavish events elsewhere.
"Our money goes to the national chapter to support their agenda," Aldaz said. "They convinced us we could do something for our neighborhood when they really wanted to lure us into something larger and political in Washington."
So when he got home and thought about it, Aldaz decided to quit the group.
"We no longer are affiliated with ACORN," he said. "We started a new group. We're not forcing anyone to pay dues. If they want to make donations, we'll take them."
But it's not so easy to quit.
The Stratmoor Valley group says it can't get access to $3,000 or so it generated in fundraisers and donations for its campaign to get streetlights and a park in the neighborhood.
"We don't know where our money is," Aldaz said. "We've tried to get answers, but we can't get any. We feel abandoned."
Even worse, the group said it's being dunned for $200 in bills left by ACORN when its paid organizer, Rachel Stovall, quit in August.
Rent has gone unpaid on ACORN's office leased from the Urban League of the Pikes Peak Area. And teenagers hired to help with Stratmoor Valley cleanup were never reimbursed by ACORN, Aldaz said, adding that he and others paid them from their own pockets.
But the worst problem, Aldaz said, is the issue of dues. Many Stratmoor Valley residents agreed to let ACORN automatically withdraw monthly dues from their bank accounts.
"A bunch of people in our neighborhood are still paying dues," Aldaz said.
Stovall said it's unfair to blame her for any problems because she quit in a dispute over sick time and ACORN has not replaced her.
"I don't work for ACORN anymore," she said, "but I'm willing to help these people. They shouldn't have to pay dues if they don't want to pay dues. And they need to be seeing treasury reports and things."
ACORN's Western regional organizer, Clare Crawford of Albuquerque, blames much of the confusion and problems on Stovall's abrupt departure and on Hurricane Katrina, which forced the group from its New Orleans headquarters and snarled communications, paperwork and financial transactions.
"We've had a lot of difficulty recovering," Crawford said. "A check that is normally issued in a week now takes a month or more. We're trying to get rent checks issued. And I have at least one reimbursement check that I've processed for them."
She asked ACORN members to be patient until she can visit Colorado Springs later this month to meet with them and resolve outstanding issues. "I don't understand why they want to cancel their memberships," she said. "I have been in e-mail contact with several officers there. I have invited them to call me.
"We want to solve this situation as quickly as possible. I would really hope, based on the good work we did early on, that people will have a little bit of patience. We do have a commitment there."
Just another day with ACORN
From Colorado Springs Gazette,
Last year, ACORN, a national organization dedicated to social justice for low-income neighborhoods, sprouted a new branch in Colorado Springs.
Its first project was a voter registration drive, followed by efforts to organize residents in unincorporated Stratmoor Valley and in the city's Wildflower neighborhood near the airport.
The voter registration effort was tainted when a temporary worker hired by ACORN was indicted by a grand jury and accused of forging 19 registration cards.
Now, there is more trouble for ACORN's Springs chapter.
Representatives in Stratmoor Valley and Wildflower have quit ACORN despite some success raising money to build parks and get streetlights for the neighborhoods.
"It all started off good," said Albert Aldaz, a leader of the Stratmoor Valley group. "But it turned out so bad."
ACORN has a long history of abandoning communities. I personally witnessed offices that had accomplished great work where ACORN just mysteriously closed the office with no warning. After residents had rasied money and paid their dues. After leaving ACORN kept taking money out of people's accounts even though they no longer had any investment in the community
"Julie Wilson of the Wildflower neighborhood is grateful for the help Wildflower re- ceived from ACORN -- the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which claims 850 chapters with 175,000 members in 75 cities.
"We give them credit for bringing us together and helping us," Wilson said. "But we severed ties in August. We felt it would be in our best interests to go our separate ways. We wanted more control and say-so."
Both Aldaz and Wilson said they questioned why ACORN wanted individual members to pay monthly $10 dues to the national organization.
"The dues were supposed to come back to the neighborhood," Wilson said. "So we figured, why not just keep them here to begin with? Why go through a third party?"
Aldaz said the issue of dues and how they are spent hit him in July when he was invited to spend a weekend in Washington, D.C., attending ACORN-sponsored events.
"The light bulb went on," he said. "I was at this legislative meeting. They flew me out. Put me up in a hotel. Fed me great meals. And I thought something wasn't right. We're paying for that with our dues."
It is often true that communities cannot get money invested back into their community after they have raised it. They are told the money they raise is going to help the community, but then members finding themselves on some trip to Washington on some national agenda they know nothing about.
He didn't feel good, knowing money from poor neighborhoods like Stratmoor Valley was being spent on lavish events elsewhere.
"Our money goes to the national chapter to support their agenda," Aldaz said. "They convinced us we could do something for our neighborhood when they really wanted to lure us into something larger and political in Washington."
So when he got home and thought about it, Aldaz decided to quit the group.
"We no longer are affiliated with ACORN," he said. "We started a new group. We're not forcing anyone to pay dues. If they want to make donations, we'll take them."
But it's not so easy to quit.
The Stratmoor Valley group says it can't get access to $3,000 or so it generated in fundraisers and donations for its campaign to get streetlights and a park in the neighborhood.
"We don't know where our money is," Aldaz said. "We've tried to get answers, but we can't get any. We feel abandoned."
Even worse, the group said it's being dunned for $200 in bills left by ACORN when its paid organizer, Rachel Stovall, quit in August.
Rent has gone unpaid on ACORN's office leased from the Urban League of the Pikes Peak Area. And teenagers hired to help with Stratmoor Valley cleanup were never reimbursed by ACORN, Aldaz said, adding that he and others paid them from their own pockets.
But the worst problem, Aldaz said, is the issue of dues. Many Stratmoor Valley residents agreed to let ACORN automatically withdraw monthly dues from their bank accounts.
"A bunch of people in our neighborhood are still paying dues," Aldaz said.
Stovall said it's unfair to blame her for any problems because she quit in a dispute over sick time and ACORN has not replaced her.
"I don't work for ACORN anymore," she said, "but I'm willing to help these people. They shouldn't have to pay dues if they don't want to pay dues. And they need to be seeing treasury reports and things."
ACORN's Western regional organizer, Clare Crawford of Albuquerque, blames much of the confusion and problems on Stovall's abrupt departure and on Hurricane Katrina, which forced the group from its New Orleans headquarters and snarled communications, paperwork and financial transactions.
"We've had a lot of difficulty recovering," Crawford said. "A check that is normally issued in a week now takes a month or more. We're trying to get rent checks issued. And I have at least one reimbursement check that I've processed for them."
She asked ACORN members to be patient until she can visit Colorado Springs later this month to meet with them and resolve outstanding issues. "I don't understand why they want to cancel their memberships," she said. "I have been in e-mail contact with several officers there. I have invited them to call me.
"We want to solve this situation as quickly as possible. I would really hope, based on the good work we did early on, that people will have a little bit of patience. We do have a commitment there."
Just another day with ACORN
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Where do we go from here? Huh Wade?
Rathke and his Posse Must GO!! or ACORN WILL DESTROY THE FOREST!!
If Wade Rathke is allowed to continue to run game as "Chief Organizer of ACORN International"
The staff that empowered him to protect he and his brother from being revealed as having stolen a million dollars from ACORN are allowed to stay?
Alas nothing will change at ACORN.
some things folks should think of?
ACORN burned their financial disclosures every 5 years. Has it dawned on anyone that over the course of the last 38 years they could have gotten away with this little bit of family theft at least five times before they were busted?
Some of us have been executive directors before Wade? Some of us?
KNOW WHERE TO LOOK!
You think any of the foundations out there you stole from migth have extensive financial records?
Maybe?
Please Bertha, Please, you don't need Wade to take this ball down the field. The good Wade has done HAS BEEN DONE. The Bad is ongoing. ACORN could be reformed into a true engine of Grassroots organizing. You can make it happen.
With Wade and his junta around you will always be boxed in.
Has anyone realized that members and staff that protected him can be charged in criminal proceedings for their role?
Wade do you care for these people at all?
If you do you will take full responsibility and admit that the fact that you covered your brothers a$$ makes you complicit.
Save the Tree, @corn
As I said-Wade is no longer Chief Organizer
Well you saw it here first. Now Wade has stepped down: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/09/us/09embezzle.html
So here is the deal as I have pinted our for some time:
1) Wade Rathke's brother ran the money (that would be Dale)
2) His wife runs the Louisiana office.
3) He has surrounded himself with his best friends
4) He created a compliant and in many ways ignorant board thatg would do whatever he said (How long has Maude been Chair)?
5) As reported in the New York times Wade's brother Dale used the for profit entity they set up to steal a million dollars.
6)Maude and the girls have given Wade a golden Parachute and allowed him to resign as Chief Organizer and promoted him to Chief Organizer of ACORN International! He is now Chief Organizer of the world?
7) Not on my watch pal!!!!!!!
Let us be clear, I don't hate ACORN, and I am not some right winger. I am former ACORN organizer.
What I care about is the milions of dollars I have personally watched get wasted, mispent, misdirected, and that were supposed to be for the social justice movement.
What I care about is field organizers who aren't paid shit, who rish their lives, so that Wade, his wife, his brtother, John Kest, Helene O'brien, and the rest of the crew can bleed this movement dry. Jetting around the world and selling out communities instead of focusing on community organizing.
Wade Rathke is a wealthy white boy who surrounded himself with wealthy white boys who is trying ot stay wealthy while trying to look like some Mother Theresa.
The only way a person of color could rise to the top was for Wade to step down.
Berth Lewis we wish you luck!!
So here is the deal as I have pinted our for some time:
1) Wade Rathke's brother ran the money (that would be Dale)
2) His wife runs the Louisiana office.
3) He has surrounded himself with his best friends
4) He created a compliant and in many ways ignorant board thatg would do whatever he said (How long has Maude been Chair)?
5) As reported in the New York times Wade's brother Dale used the for profit entity they set up to steal a million dollars.
6)Maude and the girls have given Wade a golden Parachute and allowed him to resign as Chief Organizer and promoted him to Chief Organizer of ACORN International! He is now Chief Organizer of the world?
7) Not on my watch pal!!!!!!!
Let us be clear, I don't hate ACORN, and I am not some right winger. I am former ACORN organizer.
What I care about is the milions of dollars I have personally watched get wasted, mispent, misdirected, and that were supposed to be for the social justice movement.
What I care about is field organizers who aren't paid shit, who rish their lives, so that Wade, his wife, his brtother, John Kest, Helene O'brien, and the rest of the crew can bleed this movement dry. Jetting around the world and selling out communities instead of focusing on community organizing.
Wade Rathke is a wealthy white boy who surrounded himself with wealthy white boys who is trying ot stay wealthy while trying to look like some Mother Theresa.
The only way a person of color could rise to the top was for Wade to step down.
Berth Lewis we wish you luck!!
Thursday, June 12, 2008
The Rotten ACORN Falls From the Tree or Rahtke's (Yellow Hair just like Custer) Last Stand
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
You heard it here first folks straignt from inside the rotten ACORN.
So as you may or may not have heard before.
The Rathke machine was built like this.
1) Put your brother and other family members in charge of the money.
2) Put your wife in charge of home office operations.
3) Become the president of a Union as part of your golden parachute.
4) Surround yourself with sychophantic caucasian staff members from elite families who will do anything to make you happy. Why? Because it is a good course up the Democrats of influence ladder.
5) Run your so-called bottom up grassroots organization from the top down.
6) Blackmail companies that do business in poor communities to give you money or you will raise bloody hell into giving you payola.
7) Set up several paralel for-profit entities, internet, radio, mortgagte counseling, so you can really cash in.
8) Laugh all the way to the bank while your employees work for less than 8 bucks an hour in unsafe working conditions out of their sense of YT guilt to build your massive 81 million dollar a year monster.
Do I have that right?
What could go wrong?
Well for starters some of your staff have a conscience. SO sorry! They start to figure out what is going on. People like me left a long time ago. Now? People who have worked there for decades are jumping ship.
Why?
Well Wade's brother just got caught stealing well over 1,000,000 dollars from the till.
The staff finally woke up and realized Wade is a crook.
Foundations want their money back.
Wade's sychophantic young liberals? Split!
Those complacent poor people you thought were so dumb?
Turn's out they aren't all dumb and they want Wade to step down!
Turn's out a bunch of people might be going to jail!
Turns out people like me don't seem sooooo crazy anymore do they Wade?
Turns out I was a bit of a prophet.
Here is my nessage to those who might be listening!
1,000.000 is that all you think they stole?
Let's see there was the Fema trailer out behind the office you used to house visiting dignitaries as well as an annex to your office.
There is all the money you shuffled from organizing itno political when you felt like it.
Need I say more?
When the forensic audit is done the only good organizing Wade will have ever done will be how he got his brother to go to jail while he kept jetting around the world.
Let's see, how about grants collected and spent on offices that were closed.
Think anyone might want to look into that?
How about? Well stay tuned you will see.........
You heard it here first folks straignt from inside the rotten ACORN.
So as you may or may not have heard before.
The Rathke machine was built like this.
1) Put your brother and other family members in charge of the money.
2) Put your wife in charge of home office operations.
3) Become the president of a Union as part of your golden parachute.
4) Surround yourself with sychophantic caucasian staff members from elite families who will do anything to make you happy. Why? Because it is a good course up the Democrats of influence ladder.
5) Run your so-called bottom up grassroots organization from the top down.
6) Blackmail companies that do business in poor communities to give you money or you will raise bloody hell into giving you payola.
7) Set up several paralel for-profit entities, internet, radio, mortgagte counseling, so you can really cash in.
8) Laugh all the way to the bank while your employees work for less than 8 bucks an hour in unsafe working conditions out of their sense of YT guilt to build your massive 81 million dollar a year monster.
Do I have that right?
What could go wrong?
Well for starters some of your staff have a conscience. SO sorry! They start to figure out what is going on. People like me left a long time ago. Now? People who have worked there for decades are jumping ship.
Why?
Well Wade's brother just got caught stealing well over 1,000,000 dollars from the till.
The staff finally woke up and realized Wade is a crook.
Foundations want their money back.
Wade's sychophantic young liberals? Split!
Those complacent poor people you thought were so dumb?
Turn's out they aren't all dumb and they want Wade to step down!
Turn's out a bunch of people might be going to jail!
Turns out people like me don't seem sooooo crazy anymore do they Wade?
Turns out I was a bit of a prophet.
Here is my nessage to those who might be listening!
1,000.000 is that all you think they stole?
Let's see there was the Fema trailer out behind the office you used to house visiting dignitaries as well as an annex to your office.
There is all the money you shuffled from organizing itno political when you felt like it.
Need I say more?
When the forensic audit is done the only good organizing Wade will have ever done will be how he got his brother to go to jail while he kept jetting around the world.
Let's see, how about grants collected and spent on offices that were closed.
Think anyone might want to look into that?
How about? Well stay tuned you will see.........
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