Wade Rathke is back. The founder of the now-disbanded ACORN filed a charge with NLRB over Jones’ threat to sideline players who don’t stand for the national anthem.
The national fracas over the NFL players standing or kneeling during the National Anthem at games just took an interesting turn with Wade Rathke–one of the Left’s most effective strategists–entering into the controversy.
Following Dallas Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones declaration earlier this week that any player who does not stand during the National Anthem will not play during the game, a union unrelated to the NFL filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board.
While not affiliated with the NFL or even the players union, the NFLPA, the United Labor Unions filed a charge with the NLRB stating that Jones’ “threat” is a violation of the players’ Section Seven rights to engage in “concerted activity” under the National Labor Relations Act.
via Courthouse News:
Local 100 of the United Labor Unions filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board in Fort Worth, two days after Jones told reporters after a 31-35 loss to the Green Bay Packers that “we will not disrespect the flag.”
Jones is the first NFL owner to explicitly threaten discipline for the practice. The union says employers are banned from threatening workers for “concerted” activity.
“The employer evidenced by repeated public statements is attempting to threaten, coerce and intimidate all Dallas Cowboys players on the roster in order to prevent them from exercising concerted activity protected under the act by saying he will fire any players involved in such concerted activity,” the complaint to the NLRB states.
The union’s chief organizer Wade Rathke said Jones is bullying his employees to “unilaterally establish a previously nonexistent” work condition.
“The point is he threatened anybody and everybody,” Rathke told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “We are trying to send Mr. Jones a message that there is a law here. The law here is that you have the ability to act with your co-worker. You can’t just roll over someone’s rights when they are a worker. You can’t bully workers on the job. President Trump might not get that. Jones might be confused. But these are workers with rights with the National Labor Relations Board.”
Although largely unknown to most Americans, Wade Rathke is well known to many on the Left.
As a former vice president on the executive board of the Service Employees International, Rathke was a one-time close associate of former-SEIU President Andy Stern and Executive Vice President Anna Burger.
However, his name became more known in 2009 as the founder of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (or ACORN, as it’s more commonly called)—the community organizing group that former President Barack Obama once worked for.
Since ACORN was forced to disband after employees were caught on tape “offering to help a man and woman posing as a pimp and prostitute acquire illegal home loans that would help them set up a brothel,” Rathke has mainly kept out of the limelight.
Although he regularly writes a blog opining on labor and other issues, his presence is–as it was prior to the Obama presidency–mostly behind the scenes, staying mostly amongst his comrades in leftist circles.
With the charges filed against the Cowboys’ Jones, Rathke appears to be back in the limelight…at least for now.
Related: ACORN Co-Founder Exposes Possible AFL-CIO Scam
