ACORN's Unseen Victims, Its Own Workers

You’d think for $53 million in federal funds — not to mention hundreds of millions of dollars from left-wing foundations — over the years, ACORN would be able to pay its own employees well. It turns out that while their employees have been caught treating taxpayer funds like trash, their own bosses have the same opinion of them.

The Washington Post, in a post mid-mortem of ACORN, took a moment to look at the group’s record as an employer and highlighted the group’s 2003 incident of busting a union drive by its own employees:

According to an NLRB case accusing ACORN of unfair labor practices, “field organizers were expected to work long hours each week — 54 hours — and were paid at a salary of $16,000 annually until January 2001, when the salary was raised to $18,000.”

The NLRB documented a high turnover rate for ACORN employees: In 2000, far less than 10 percent of Dallas office employees stayed in the job for six months, and “most did not even complete their training period, but quit within a few days or weeks of being hired,” according to the NLRB.

During the Clinton administration, the Labor Department accused ACORN arm Citizens Consulting Inc. of failing to pay workers overtime.

But wait, there’s more! There was ACORN suing to exempt itself from the minimum wage in California and repeated stories of it failing to pay its employees on time (see example):

It’s most ironic that ACORN has spent decades creating unions and telling everyone else how much to pay in “living wages” only to act as some sort of caricature of a bad boss from a 1920’s sweatshop.

Somebody, unionize ACORN! They deserve the union they get.