2-20-06, 9:02 am
Who is Richard Berman, and why does he hate labor unions so much?
Berman is a corporate lobbyist and lawyer who runs Berman and Company. His company has been hired by the US Chamber of Commerce, to the tune of $8 million this year alone, to manage a project called Unionfacts.com.
The goal of this multi-million dollar campaign is to run a website and fund an expensive ad campaign to attack the AFL-CIO and its member unions.
Insiders who were present at a recent Chamber of Commerce national strategy meeting told labor activists that the anti-union campaign is a direct response to the efforts of AFL-CIO unions and others to help workers win the right to health care benefits.
Taking on major corporations such as Wal-Mart who skimp on health care benefits for their employees, the AFL-CIO, other unions, and Internet organizations like are backing a nationwide campaign called Fair Share for Health Care.
The health care campaign supports bills that have been introduced or are about to be introduced in state legislatures modeled on a bill recently passed by the Maryland state legislature.
The new Maryland law requires large, highly profitable corporate employers like Wal-Mart to pay a fair percentage of the health care costs of their employees. It prevents them from passing their health care costs on to taxpayers by forcing their low-paid workers to apply for state-sponsored Medicaid for themselves and their families.
estimates that employees of Wal-Mart across the country are forced to turn to public assistance programs, like hard-strapped state Medicaid programs, to provide health care for their families, costing literally hundreds of millions of dollars to taxpayers each year. Read more here:
Some in the business community apparently prefer to spend millions on lawyers’ fees and advertising campaigns than on providing health insurance for their employees.
To do its dirty work, the Chamber of Commerce has hired Richard Berman’s company.
Berman has a long record of taking corporate money in order to target community and public advocacy groups, making outrageous and even dangerous claims.
For example, according to a recent story on AFL-CIO Now, Berman’s company is behind a multimillion dollar public relations campaign deceptively funneled through a Berman-controlled front group innocuously called the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), aimed at convincing pregnant women to eat more tuna, despite US government warnings that the high mercury content in tuna is dangerous for children and pregnant women.
According to , Berman front groups and his lobbying firm have also taken corporate money to attack Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) on behalf of the alcohol industry.
Berman’s outfit described MADD, which sought to publicize the dangers of driving under the influence of alcohol, as essentially a 'scare' group. Berman vigorously fought MADD’s successful efforts to lower the legal blood-alcohol limit.
Berman’s CCF organization was founded in 1995 with $600,000 in donations from major cigarette maker Phillip Morris and Co. and the tobacco lobby, according to the Washington Post. And according to , Berman used the money to attack scientifically based warnings by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention against second hand smoke. With tobacco lobby cash in his pocket, Berman strove to convince the public that second hand smoke is OK.
According to ConsumerDeception.com, Berman took close to $3 million from Phillip Morris and Co. between 1995 and 1998.
Berman has gotten rich by attacking public health organizations who call for adequate standards in our food and water, along with consumer safety and environmental groups, all at the behest of the corporations who turn to him with deep pockets.
Berman was also directly linked to specific ethics violations that forced former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich to step down from party leadership and ultimately out of office.
Berman’s CCF group was launched as a nonprofit organization, which under federal tax law requires it to remain non-partisan. What hasn’t been fully explained is whether Berman’s donations to Republican Party campaign coffers came indirectly from supposedly charitable donations through groups like CCF or others controlled by him.
The non-partisan watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has expressed concerns that Berman inappropriately pocketed huge wads of cash donated to the supposedly non-profit group, which is prohibited federal laws regulating non-profit organizations. The group’s promotion of corporate interests only also weaken its claim to charitable work.
The apparent abuse of CCF’s non-profit status has prompted (CREW) to write to the IRS formally requesting that it investigate CCF for 'multiple violations of IRS law.'
Berman’s latest project, the Center for Union Facts (CUF), misleadingly claims to be supported by a wide range of people interested in 'union transparency' and has also filed for non-profit status. Its website suggests that it is a neutral party, but its main source of funding – the US Chamber of Commerce – and Berman’s strong ties to the anti-union section of the corporate community and Republican Party strongly suggest otherwise.
When CUF-sponsored ads recently appeared in national newspapers attacking labor unions with a barrage of misleading information, CREW reiterated its call for an IRS investigation of the non-profit status of Berman’s various front groups.
Given this sordid record, how could anyone trust anything Richard Berman has to say?
--Joel Wendland is managing editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net.
