GRANT PROPOSAL RECQRD

Samar far Unian Facts

ADDRESS:
1090 Vermont Avenue NW, Suite 800
Washington. DC 20005

CONTACT:

Mr. Rick Berman

AMOUNT REQUESTED: $500000

STAFF RECOMMENDATION: $125,000

PROJECT TITLE: To support public education

BOARD MEMBERS AFFILIATED
WITH REQUEST:

STAFF: Mike Hartmann
MEETING DATE: 

PROPOSAL 20130863

 

BACKGROUNQ: The Center for Union Facts (CUF) in Washington, DC, requests a grant award of
$500,000 in renewed support of its public education.

Among its many program activities, CUF aggressively exposes Big Labor's strategies and tactics,
including in the policymaking arena. In the wake of Bradley?s 2003 Working Group on Employee Rights,
as referenced in the previous report in this section of these materials, CUF led a $30 million effort to
educate the public and policymakers about the probable effects of the legislation that so
many justifiably feared at the beginning of the Obama administration and has created and run several
public-education campaigns, including in the context.

executive director is Rick Berman of Berman and Company, a research, communications, and
advertising firm in DC. Based on his opponents? views, 60 Minutes? 2007 pro?le of Berman was entitled
?Dr. Evil.? The firm's research is credible; its communications, again, is aggressive; its awardnwinning
advertising is aggressive and creative, often using humor.

Now, CUF has returned to engaging in public education on employee rights more generally. It has done
much research which it is now sharing and on which it is acting -- about a set of tools that could be
given to employees to hold their labor leaders accountable. Many of the tools are getting the attention of
federal policymakers in Washington. (For an example, see the full?page newSpaper advertisement on the
next page, which has run in The New York Times.)

They generally include, among other things, things like secret ballots, paycheck protection, more-efficient
and fairer union-desertification processes, standardized election timing, and criminalizing union threats.
One specific tool would require every unionized workplace to have a supervised secret?ballot election
every three years to determine whether employees want to continue to be represented by any incumbent
union.

According to an Opinion Research Corporation international survey of 3,000 people, 84% of all
households are strongly or somewhat supportive of the toolset, and 83% of union households are strongly
or somewhat supportive. -

Budget information: The 2013?14 budget for employee?rights public-education project is
$9,420,956. -

STAFF Were employees to be given the policy tools abut which CUF wants to
educate the public and policymakers, the labor?relations landscape in America would be substantially
redefined and the many financial and other ramifications of the current landscape?s imbalances
between companies, their laborers, and their labor leaders would be changed, too.

Staff thus recommends a $125,000 grant to CUF for public education. If awarded, this would be $15,000
less than last year's level of Bradley support for its activities.

 

 

 

 

Fewer than 13% of employees in unions? voted
to join their union, In most eases, the employees

who voted for the union are dead or gone.

The Employee Rights Act provides union

members a guaranteed vote every three years on

Whether to conti?ue paying union dues.

 

 
 

EMPLOYEE as

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tor
Gra nt History

 

 

 

 

Woject 'Title' . Grant Amount . . 0005420090 Fund
To support program activities ofthc Center $140,000 1 12' 132012 Regular
To support general operations $300,000 2/22f2011 Regular
To support public education $200,000 8/17/2010 Regular
To support public cducation $500,000 2/24/2009 Regular
To support public education $500,000 f19/2008 Regular
To support public education about ?000? unions $150,000 if Regular
(program to protect the secret bailot 2'0 unioniztion

campaigns)

?i?o support a public education project about unions? $100,000 107122006 Regular
?card-check? organizing

To initiative on unions in education $100,000 8302006 Regu?ar
Grand Totais (a item5) $1,990,000 

 

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