Art Credit: Labor Union Report

Little did Washington state voters know when they passed Initiative 1163, the home-healthcare training measure, that they would be funding Occupy Wall Street “bank takeovers and capitol occupations.”

Service Employees International Union Local 775 NW, the moving force behind I-1163, is looking to hire a senior/lead internal organizer to do just that. According to a posted job description, the person will work outside traditional labor-management activities as a spearhead for radical political change to “Train and lead members in non-violent civil disobedience, such as occupying state buildings and banks, and peaceful resistance.”

In other words, the union wants someone to take the lead in breaking the law, 

encouraging others to break the law and getting arrested like we’ve seen for the past three months with Occupy Wall Street and its sundry franchisees. And this on the taxpayers’ dime.

Some will try to distinguish I-1163, which requires a broke Washington state to spend anywhere from $32 million to $80 million, depending upon whom you listen to, on upgrading training for state-paid home-healthcare workers, from the union’s political activism. But since I-ll63 funnels tax dollars into the union’s hands to run the training programs, no matter what they get puts them in a strong financial position to engage in hanky panky. 

Local 775 NW spent over $1.6 million to get I-1163 passed, which is well better than 10 times what opponents spent. No question, the union is rich, powerful, active and fiercely determined. It’s also got a well-documented record of brushes with the law.

In April of this year, a gang of purple-shirted Local 775 NW members stormed the Legislative Building in Olympia demanding more money. Several were cited for trespass, and two were arrested. 

In November and in conjunction with local affiliates of Occupy Wall Street, Local 775 NW, via its front group Working Washington, astroturfed protests in Olympia against necessary budget cuts.

In 2010, a Local 775 member and bargaining team official was caught submitting fraudulent signatures on behalf of Initiative 1098, a subsequently failed ballot measure to impose in income tax on high-earners in Washington state. Similar shenanigans were discovered in connection with I-1163, although in both cases the number of bogus signatures wasn’t sufficient to knock either measure off the ballot. 

Nationally, the SEIU ginned up a supposed Occupy Wall Street-type protest in Washington, D.C., flying in Occupy types from across the country at the union’s expense, only to parade them like circus animals while union bosses manipulated them from behind the scenes as attested to by an Occupy Portland guy who also happens to be an SEIU shop steward: 

The Occupy Portland-produced video takes a few minutes to watch, but it’s eye-opening and more typical of how the SEIU operates than they care to admit.

So Local 775 NW will hire an organizer with tax dollars whose job it will be to plan and run illegal protests that will be financed with tax dollars where union members, presumably the organizer too, will get arrested and bailed out with tax dollars and represented by attorneys who will also be paid with tax dollars.

Last time anyone checked, the Washington state budget is out of balance to the tune of $2 billion (the illusory $480 million in adjustments made to it in the recently concluded special session of the Legislature don’t count since they were mostly funds transfers, payment deferrals and other accounting gimmicks). 

Tell ’em where you saw it. Http://www.victoriataft.com