Tag: unions

Report: Obama Allies at His Foundation Get Six-Figure Pay While ‘Overworked’ Rank-and-File Seek to Unionize

The Obama Foundation appears to have an income inequality problem, with the former president’s political allies enjoying six-figure salaries while low-paid workers are fighting for union representation.

That’s the conclusion of an exclusive report by Fox News Digital, which tracked the top salary of CEO Valerie Jarrett at $771,000, a number of others in the half-a-million-dollars-a-year range and nearly 200 more pulling in six-figure salaries.

According to Fox:

The workplace disparity comes to light just as Fox News Digital reported that the long-delayed Obama Presidential Center’s price tag hit $1 billion — nearly triple the original estimate for the Chicago facility. The Obama Foundation, former President Barack Obama’s private nonprofit, reported 172 employees receiving more than $100,000 in salary in its 2025 tax filing — roughly half its 342 reported employees.

Jarrett, one of former President Barack Obama’s closest advisors and a former senior White House official, “has led the Obama Foundation since 2021, overseeing the final years of construction of the Presidential Center on Chicago’s South Side.”

Jarrett is one of the non-profit’s highest-paid executives with “previous ties to the Obama White House or campaign,” according to the outlet.

Approximate reported top salaries in the 2025 tax filing include:

• Christina Tchen, former chief of staff to first lady Michelle Obama — $431,000.
• Michael Strautmanis, a former Obama campaign and White House aide — $404,000.
• Laura Lucas Magnuson, a former White House communications official — $396,000.
• Robbin Cohen, former real estate executive of Gov. JB Pritzker family — $666,000
• Ammar Rizki, former Cook County chief financial officer — $400,000.

“The Foundation pays our employees rates that are competitive with the market,” Emily Bittner, the Obama Foundation’s vice president of communications, told Fox News Digital. “We have more than 500 employees worldwide, roughly 300 of whom are based at the Center.”

However, Ohio State University accounting professor Brian Mittendorf, who specializes in nonprofit finances, told the news outlet that the percentage of employees earning more than $100,000 was striking compared to typical not-for-profit organizations.

“That’s clearly higher percentage than your average nonprofit,” Mittendorf told Fox News Digital. “But here we’re dealing with a nonprofit that’s probably very expertise heavy. It’s very heavy on like the think tank side. And as you look at a think tank, it would look very differently than say a local food bank.”

While the professor apparently offered a possible explanation for the higher salaries, the news outlet also reported the Obama foundation was an outlier compared to five other presidential nonprofits, starting with former presidents Jimmy Carter through George W. Bush, according to their tax filings.

The percentages of employees with $100,000 packages or more in those presidential centers were around 25 percent or below, with the exception of George W. Bush’s at 37 percent.

Fox also compared CEO salaries and found Jarrett’s comparable to the Reagan Foundation’s at $735,000, which includes overseeing the former president’s iconic library in Southern California, but well above other presidential foundation CEOs, which are more in the half-million range.

Meanwhile, “rank-and-file” employees are pushing to unionize, Fox reported. They allege rolled-back benefits and mounting workloads as well as “deteriorating conditions” that have driven experienced colleagues to leave, resulting in more work for those who remain, according to the outlet.

“Amidst increasing workloads we have seen our benefits rolled back and support from leadership to be minimal,” the workers wrote in a public letter, cited by Fox.

Not unexpectedly, some Republicans also took issue with the salaries.

Illinois Republican Party Chairman Bob Grogan in the past criticized the foundation’s use of public parkland for a private enterprise. He is no less critical of the salary revelations.

“The Obama Center is another far-left political operation that acts as a non-profit while using taxpayer dollars to make Barack Obama’s inner circle rich,” Grogan told Fox News Digital.

The Obama Foundation, however, maintains its construction and operational costs are paid for by revenues and private donations, though infrastructure improvements surrounding the center’s large campus were paid for by taxpayers.

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National Border Patrol Union SLAMS Talarico for Lying About Supporting Border Security – “He Labeled Border Security Funding as Wasted Money”

The National Border Patrol Union slammed Democrat-socialist James Talarico for lying about his support for border security.

The BP Union pointed out that James Talarico is lying about calling out the Biden regime for failing on the border.

This is the same far-left extremist James Talarico who said border security funding was “wasting money on dumb things.” Talarico instead supported diverting $800 million in funds away from protecting our US borders.

The Border Patrol Union added, “At least 25 million illegal aliens invaded the US during the 4 years of the disastrous Biden Administration and openly advocating for pathways to citizenship is NOT putting America First and will lead to the destruction of America as we know it. We CANNOT afford another disaster on our borders!”

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The Obama Death Star Is Out Of Hope

I’ve always thought Barack Obama was a race-hustling, egomaniacal, anti-American Communist and Islamist, and his actions and history have vindicated that belief. The media lauded him as the greatest orator in history, yet by the standards I taught my speech and debate students, he was mediocre at best. No Obama speech is remotely in the same league as those of Martin Luther King or Abraham Lincoln. He just didn’t have it in him, largely because he was entirely self-centered.

Obama was expert at self-promotion and self-aggrandizement, so much so that he was given a Nobel Peace Prize almost immediately after being elected for being Barack Obama. At least one member of the Nobel Committee that awarded that prize later admitted it was a stupid thing to do. As President of the Harvard Law Review, he did almost nothing, and only a single, 1990, unsigned article on abortion has been attributed to him. He obviously liked the title and prestige, but not the work. He could never explain to even his friends what he did as a “community organizer” in Chicago.

With that non-management background, it’s hardly surprising things have already taken a nosedive at his presidential library that isn’t. The Daily Mail reports:

Barack Obama is facing a fresh humiliation at his ‘eyesore’ presidential center with workers slamming the project’s bosses and moving to unionize just months after it opened.

In a letter to colleagues this week, staff at the Chicago library said they were organizing a union due to the institute’s ‘increasing workloads’ and benefit rollbacks.

Workers have grown frustrated with leadership at Obama’s foundation after their concerns were met with ‘vague responses,’ according to the letter, first shared by the Chicago Sun-Times.

Issues with workloads and benefits have led to a ‘high turnover rate’ among employees, with many more ‘continuing to leave (and) taking with them their institutional knowledge and expertise,’ the letter claimed.

Workers say they were recently told that their healthcare costs would increase, promotions were suspended, and paid time off was reduced, despite also learning they would get no pay increases this winter.

Luke Gilday, an Obama Foundation employee and member of the union organizing committee, told the Sun-Times that workers decided to unionize because they ‘don’t even have a seat at the table.’

‘What we’re hoping for, and really the reason why we’re forming our union, is just because we believe we should have a say in the decisions that are being made that impact all of our lives,’ Gilday said.

Should anyone be surprised that the man who lied about Obamacare and so much else is stiffing the employees he’s depending upon to man his bizarre legacy? In building it, he operated like a standard Democrat:

The Obama center cost upwards of $850 million, far beyond its initial budget of $300 million. But just days before its grand opening in June, contractors alleged that they had not been paid for work on the building.

Several subcontractors claimed they were owed millions in past-due invoices, and African American Contractors Association president Omar Shareef said several workers told him they ‘wished they had never done (the project).’

Here’s irony:

In the organizing committee’s open letter, the group quoted directly from a letter Obama circulated during the 2016 presidential election, which called on workers to join unions across the nation.

‘If I were looking for a good job that lets me build some security for my family, I’d join a union. If I saw a problem in my workplace, I’d organize my coworkers to do something about it,’ the quote read.

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Employees at Obama’s Presidential Center ALREADY Complaining About Poor Working Conditions – Trying to Form Their Own Union

Obama’ presidential center and library opened in June, a little more than three months ago, and the employees who work there are already complaining about poor working conditions, cuts in pay, hours, and benefits, and saying that their concerns are being ignored by the people in charge.

After just three months? Really?

They claim that the situation is so bad that they’re trying to form their own union. Well, at least Obama supports unions. Right?

From the Daily Mail:

Barack Obama is facing a fresh humiliation at his ‘eyesore’ presidential center with workers slamming the project’s bosses and moving to unionize just months after it opened.

In a letter to colleagues this week, staff at the Chicago library said they were organizing a union due to the institute’s ‘increasing workloads’ and benefit rollbacks.

Workers have grown frustrated with leadership at Obama’s foundation after their concerns were met with ‘vague responses,’ according to the letter, first shared by the Chicago Sun-Times.

Issues with workloads and benefits have led to a ‘high turnover rate’ among employees, with many more ‘continuing to leave (and) taking with them their institutional knowledge and expertise,’ the letter claimed.

Workers say they were recently told that their healthcare costs would increase, promotions were suspended, and paid time off was reduced, despite also learning they would get no pay increases this winter.

The New York Post has more:

Some of the complaints suggested the $900 million presidential center — often maligned for resembling the Star Wars Death Star or a huge trash bin — could already be facing financial trouble.

They included the center’s recent halting of raises and promotions, an increase in their healthcare costs and a reduction of paid time off — all of which the letter said have led to a “high turnover rate” and exiting employees “taking with them their institutional knowledge and expertise.”

Just how vital those four months of “institutional knowledge” was remains unclear, but the workers included an ace-in-the-hole in their pitch: President Obama’s own glowing words endorsing unions in 2016.

“If I were looking for a good job that lets me build some security for my family, I’d join a union. If I saw a problem in my workplace, I’d organize my coworkers to do something about it,” the letter quoted Obama.

Do you think these workers will get any attention from CNN or MSNOW?

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Ilhan Omar Tries to ‘Honor’ American Workers By Sharing a Goofy Photo of Herself Inside a Semi-Truck and It Blows Up in Her Face

Far-left Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) got nuked in the social media comments after a pathetic attempt to pander to American workers on Labor Day.

In an effort to pretend to honor America’s workers, Omar shared a photo of herself inside a Teamsters Union semi-truck.

Considering how many foreign nationals have killed Americans while driving these vehicles, this was an interesting decision on her part.

“America is only as strong as the labor that builds it every day,” Omar wrote in the post accompanying the photo. “Happy Labor Day.”

Omar attempted to prevent a roasting by turning the comments off her post. But social media users still found a way to ensure she regretted posing for the image.

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Mamdani signs order on Labor Day creating ‘first-in-the-nation’ municipal office aimed at organizing NYC workers

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed an executive order creating the “first-in-the-nation” Mayor’s Office of Worker Power (MOWP).

Rolled out on Labor Day, the MOWP is aimed at organizing workers and connecting them with relevant resources, according to the mayor’s office.

“MOWP will work across City Hall and City agencies on outreach, education, policy, research and strategic partnerships focused on workers who lack meaningful benefits, adequate wages and a voice on the job,” read a Monday statement.

Per the mayor’s office, the MOWP will:

  • “Convene rank-and-file workers, union leaders, worker centers, immigrant workers, gig workers and platform workers.
  • Hold public hearings on significant worker issues.
  • Provide referrals to organizations that support workers.
  • Coordinate with City agencies to produce research on pressing issues facing workers.
  • Develop policy proposals informed by workers’ experiences.
  • Engage workers on emerging challenges, including new technologies, worker misclassification, immigration-based exploitation and climate risks to worker safety.
  • Connect workers with information about their rights at everyday touchpoints, including workforce centers, libraries, IDNYC offices, schools and community events.”

“We created the first-in-the-nation Office of Worker Power to put the full weight of City Hall behind the people who keep New York running,” Mamdani (D-N.Y.) posted to X on Monday.

The NYC mayor framed the history of Labor Day as stemming from a movement championed and furthered by democratic socialists to “win us weekends, safety standards, overtime pay, a minimum wage, and social security.”

In 1882, 10,000 workers marched up Broadway in the first-ever Labor Day parade. Led by democratic socialists and organized by New York’s unions, they rallied the movement that went o

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Woke Socialists’ Labor Rhetoric Falls Flat as Attendees of Socialism 2026 Conference Happily Enter Hotel Staffed by Union Workers Without a Contract

Socialists are all about “the worker,” right? That is what they spout again and again.  So the irony of what is happening at the Socialism 2026 conference being held this weekend in Chicago is rich and lays bare the labor rhetoric vs. how champagne socialists actually behave.

The communist, Mao Zedong-loving influencer Hasan Piker is a featured speaker at the event.

The gathering is endorsed by groups including the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Organized Communities Against Deportations, and the Black Rose Anarchist Federation.

While good little Bolsheviks entered the venue to plan the demise of the American way of life, they walked right into a hotel where union workers have been working without a contract since midnight on September 1.

The annual conference, sponsored by Haymarket Books and other co-sponsors, is a weekend full of Marxism, Palestine cheerleading, ICE bashing, climate handwringing, and, of course, performative conversations about the labor force. This year’s event is being held at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place with about 2,600 registered.

The same weekend, UNITE HERE Local 1 hotel workers at 46 Chicago hotels, representing more than 7,000 people workers, have been working without a contract since midnight on September 1. The union marched on Michigan Avenue on September 2 and said they could strike at any time.

Holding a socialist conference inside a Hyatt, tied to Illinois Governor JB Pritzker’s (D) family during an active citywide hotel contract fight doesn’t say much about how seriously the socialists take their fight for worker’s rights.

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Entertainment unions intensify campaign for corporate tax handouts as film subsidy race to the bottom accelerates

The Entertainment Union Coalition (EUC), including the California IATSE Council, Directors Guild of America, LiUNA! Local 724, Teamsters Local 399, Writers Guild of America West, American Federation of Musicians Local 47, IBEW Local 40 and SAG-AFTRA, has mounted an aggressive campaign to pressure California lawmakers to expand and protect the state’s Film and Television Jobs Program 4.0.

After successfully lobbying for the program to more than double, from $330 million to $750 million annually, the coalition is now demanding that the subsidy be made uncapped and further “modernized.” Gov. Gavin Newsom has been a leading champion of the expansion, presenting the tax credits as a means of keeping production and jobs in California.

The immediate target of the unions’ campaign is SB 122, a sweeping budget measure backed by the Democratic establishment, including Newsom. The legislation extends California’s existing $5 million annual limitation on business tax credits through 2029. Beginning in 2030, it establishes a permanent limit of $5 million or 70 percent of a corporation’s tax liability, whichever is greater. Credits blocked by the limitation can be carried forward or, under specified conditions, made refundable.

The measure was driven by the state’s fiscal crisis and is aimed broadly at corporate tax credits, particularly credits that have allowed large corporations to accumulate enormous write-offs. Newsom and legislative Democrats have presented the limits as a way to protect state revenues and fund essential programs. Film and television production was not the principal target. Its tax credits were caught in the net of a broad fiscal measure.

This is precisely what makes the dispute politically revealing. The same Democratic establishment that expanded the film subsidy to $750 million is now imposing limits on corporate tax credits because the state cannot indefinitely finance the concessions demanded by competing industries. The contradiction is not an accident. It exposes the logic of a system in which governments compete to hand public resources to corporations while simultaneously confronting the fiscal consequences of that competition.

The EUC responds by demanding that film and television credits be exempted. Because the film program itself has a separate annual allocation, the coalition denounces the business-credit limitation as a “double cap” that will supposedly make California uncompetitive.

But this argument accepts the premise that has produced the crisis: that workers must compete against one another to persuade corporations where to invest.

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Trump DOJ Launches Grand Jury Investigation Into UAW President Shawn Fain – Allegedly Pressured Official to Secure Benefits for Fiancée and Sister

The Trump Justice Department has launched a federal grand jury investigation into United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain over serious allegations of abuse of power and self-dealing.

A grand jury has subpoenaed the UAW’s court-appointed monitor as part of the probe into claims that Fain pressured a high-ranking union official to secure benefits for his fiancée and her sister, CNBC reported.

The investigation follows a series of damning reports from the federal monitor documenting retaliation against top UAW leaders who pushed back on questionable spending decisions.

The culture of corruption has long plagued the United Auto Workers. Multiple former UAW presidents and top officials were convicted and sent to prison in one of the largest labor racketeering scandals in modern history, using members’ dues for luxury cars, golf trips, bribes, and personal enrichment.

The UAW was placed under a federal consent decree after the previous wave of corruption convictions. The monitor was supposed to clean house.

Shawn Fain ran for president as a so-called “reformer.” But the more things change at the UAW, the more they appear to stay the same.

The court-appointed monitor, Neil Barofsky, has repeatedly accused Fain of abusing his authority.

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Labor Union Leader: Execute Democrats Who Break with Graham Platner via Firing Squad

Andy O’Brien, the communications director for the Maine AFL-CIO, a statewide federation of 160 local unions, posted on social media, suggesting Democrats who refuse to support Democrat U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner should face execution after a “revolution.”

O’Brien shared a link to a the Hill opinion piece titled, “I’m a Democratic Strategist. I Won’t Stay Silent About Graham Platner,” by Democrat strategist Laurie A. Watkins. Watkins wrote that a career spent fighting for Democratic causes does not mean blindly supporting every candidate with a “D” by their name.

O’Brien’s response was brutal, saying political consultants like Watkins would be “first up against the wall when the revolution comes.”

Before supporting Platner, O’Brien was known for publicly calling out people he accused of holding extremist or neo-Nazi views.

After facing backlash, O’Brien said the post was meant as a joke referencing a science fiction novel, not a call for violence. He apologized to anyone offended and said he never intended to suggest harming people over their political views.

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