As part of our ongoing research effort into the smear-campaign conducted against Sodexo, we recently came accross a – sizeable – bit of information that might be of interest to all party in this affair. It so happens that there is an online record of all financial activities at the SEIU. While it would be a laudable step towards transparency if it could be found anywhere else than on a federal website, it does have the merit of telling us a bit more about SEIU than its official communication – for which it spends hefty sums – will let you believe. Of course we’ve taken upon us to share that information with you and it is sure to be a recurring topic in the coming days.
In light of the information present in these documents, it appears quite amusing that among the many, more or less founded, accusations leveled against Sodexo, one stands first and foremost, the alleged “poverty wages” the company pays. Note that neither SEIU nor USAS ever said Sodexo was paying its workers under the legal minimum-wage, because that would be wrong. No, the rethorical trick here is to give the illusion that Sodexo workers are being paid sub-standards wages when, in fact, they receive wages equal or superior to the legal minimum.
Well then, it’s certainly not so bad of SEIU and puppet-organization USAS to try and promote higher wages for Sodexo Employees, is it? Of course it isn’t, and we’re pretty sure Sodexo workers wouldn’t mind a few more bucks at the end of the month – unless it costs them their jobs. Yet, where it gets funny is when one looks at the “living wages” being paid at SEIU’s headquarters.
It surely doesn’t hurt to get a taste of your own medicine once in a while and SEIU surely likes the medicine it’s been trying to administer Sodexo workers. One might say the union has perhaps been over-indulging a bit too much. Indeed, if we look at salaries paid at SEIU’s head, those surely are “living” wages. Before he resigned, Andy Stern made $128,000 – not that shocking you might say -but wait, he resigned on April so that’s just four months as president, and that’s not counting with his controversial expense account and side financial activities. Yet even secretary Anna Burger now makes more than him at $180,345 a year. Even Executive Board Member Stephen Lerner – yes that guy who wanted to blow-up Wall-Street – used to make $165,498 a year.
But that’s really nothing compared to what actual president Mary Kay Henry takes home every year. She might be more forthright towards her expense account but she balances that with a nice $253,000 salary. That’s over 30,666 hours of federal minimum wage she earns per year. Of course a year only has 8,760 hours, so to make the same salary with a minimum wage working ten hours per day, Mary Kay Henry would have to work eight and a half years, and that’s not counting week-ends and holidays. No wonder the SEIU is so prone on raising workers’ wages.
But that may not even be the most surprising. If we take a look at the union’s “officers”, there are roughly ninety of them. More than half of them don’t get a salary – other than the occasional reimbursed expenses – yet the grand total of those officers still incur a $3,625,469 yearly disbursement for the union. Of course that seems meager compared to the $54,9 millions incurred by employee salaries, but we’re talking of a handful of people versus hundreds of employees.
Needless to say, those “very-good-living” wages are paid entirely by the sympathetic 2,151,379 fee payers SEIU counts within its ranks. Each of those fee payers being generally workers getting paid close to minimum wage. Yet, they all patientely ship in, each month, a sizeable part of their salary, so that SEIU officials can maintain a decent standard of living while promoting higher wages for everybody.
[Note: We are currently in the process of generating a comprehensive compilation of SEIU’s finances, meanwhile you can find all information used in this post on the website of the department of labor. Enter “000-137” (no quotation marks needed) in the “File Number” field, submit, then select “2010 Fiscal Report”. This post will be edited as soon as we’re able to provide direct links]
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