Redstate

By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in Dishonesty | Economy | unions — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Who didn't actually see this (subscription required) coming?

Despite launching an endless barrage of incendiary rhetoric at Washington buyout firm  Carlyle Group regarding its pending buyout of a top nursing home chain, a union organizer has been far less alarmist about the merger in private discussions with investors in  Manor Care Inc.

Read on . . .

The differing tones of the union's unrelenting public campaign against Carlyle and the more circumspect comments of a top official of the Service Employees International Union gives credence, say investors in Manor Care, to Carlyle's argument that the campaign is designed more to pressure the company to accept SEIU organizing at the company than it is to improve the quality of healthcare at Manor Care facilities.    

David Kieffer, who heads organizing for nursing facilities at SEIU, answered questions from Manor Care investors during a Nov. 19 conference call and suggested that much of the union's motivation for targeting the $6.3 billion merger -- as well as Carlyle more broadly -- has been Manor Care's refusal to join the union's larger efforts to fight for healthcare funding at the state and national level.    

"We built relationships with most of the major national companies," Kieffer said, according to notes of the conversation participants shared with The Deal. Manor Care has been "a bad apple."    

The investors said SEIU was exaggerating the threat of federal funding cuts nursing homes generally face -- and thus Manor Care specifically. Therefore, the union is also exaggerating its ability to hold off such cuts.

We have seen in the past that unions are harmful to economic growth (see also this). We certainly recall their historic ties to corruption. And now we have this. It is always dangerous to generalize behavior, but am I the only one who thinks that unions may not be the most honest interlocutors around?