Politics from the Palouse to Puget Sound

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Smoking Gun?

This letter to the Mayor of Fircrest, WA, dated November 10, 2005 is interesting:

Dear Mayor and Members of the City Council:

I am writing on behalf of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 367. They have advised me that they and other members of the public seek to communicate with the City Council regarding the Wal-Mart proposal but that the City Council members have been directed not to communicate with the public about this issue....

Very truly yours,
BRICKLIN NEWMAN DOLD LLP ,
David A. Bricklin
Huh? Supposedly this letter was written on behalf of a "grassroots citizens" group called Fircrest Against Wal-Mart.

Bricklin Newman Dold, and David Bricklin, as you know, are representing PARD in their current appeal against the site plan and SEPA approval given by the city of Pullman to the proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter project on Bishop Blvd.

TV Reed and PARD have consistently denied receiving any union funding for their legal fight. But they have never denied benefitting from free legal assistance from a law firm that is clearly on retainer to the United Food and Commerical Workers union.

Can we just the crap? Other anti-Wal-Mart groups openly admit and solicit union support. Or is PARD too ashamed ot the union thugs with their protection racket tactics we are seeing used in Chelan?

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2 comments:

April E. Coggins said...

Remember that many WSU staff voted to decertify themselves from the unions. Heck, when Safeway and UPS struck, the unions had to bring in picketers from Spokane, and some of the unions biggest protesters were the workers themselves. Pullman is not a union town and I am sure that the union managers of PARD have taken that into consideration.

Unknown said...

From the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, June 27, 2006:

"Reed didn’t have the figure for PARD’s appeal costs immediately available, but denied rumors circulating among Wal-Mart proponents that PARD is being supported by labor unions with an anti-Wal-Mart agenda.

'The people doing the real work here are long-term residents,' Reed said.

Even if the group was taking outside money, Reed doesn’t see anything wrong with that.

'We have a right to use national resources,' Reed said. 'I think the people of Pullman would love to have support from wherever they can get it.'

A letter from Chris Lupke of PARD, published in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, November 15, 2005:

"I have no special expertise nor have I received any help, training, support or funding from any such national union movement. I am not a member of a union nor is anyone in my family.

At a recent Pullman Alliance for Responsible Development meeting, I asked if anyone was – no one raised their hand."

Then there is this November 16, 2005 Daily Evergreen article that reported on PARD's sreening of Wal-Mart: The High of Low Price":

"'It’s slavery,' said Anthony Walters, a representative of UFCW Local 1439, who answered questions after the video presentation. 'When workers are kept in the workplace, forced to pay rent and utility fees that exceed their wages, it is slavery.'"