Armed with federal cash from Obama, labor unions touted work in Mideast—where are they now?

The AFL-CIO Solidarity Center chair, Richard Trumka, has good reasons to support President Barack Obama—more than $28 million of them actually. In an annual report covering fiscal year 2011, the center listed $28,602,918 in “federal awards” from the U.S. Dept. of Labor, the U.S. Dept. of State and US AID.

That's a big chunk of the center's funding; the total funding is listed as $30,549,977.

It’s useful to recall something I wrote in March, 2011 that virtually no other media paid attention to:

The United Auto Workers said labor unions were “central to the protests” in Tunisia, and “Egyptian Labor gave the decisive push” in driving Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak from office. UAW made the claims in the union magazine Solidarity.

Indeed, throughout the annual report posted online, Solidarity Center praises itself for organizing workers in “Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas.”

Big Labor hasn’t had a lot to say in the wake of protests and attacks against U.S. interests around the world.

However, there was a curious report today about the Iranian leader and Occupy Wall Street:

A report today in an official outlet of the Iranian regime claims that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, will meet with members of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Ahmadinejad is currently in New York City for the United Nations General Assembly, where these reported meetings will take place.

Remember that in October, 2011, labor unions officially got involved with OWS in the United States.

What does all this mean?

I guess we should ask ourselves who benefits, because it sure isn’ t the U.S. taxpayer whose money President Barack Obama and Democrats used to beef up their crony labor interests.

Where exactly did that $23 million+ of U.S. taxpayer money go?

Only Big Labor knows for sure, but it strikes me we have a mix of interests in play in the protesting countries, and no one is talking about the solidarity they so eagerly talked about before the unrest.

One of the only other groups to point out the increase in federal funding to Solidarity is Judicial Watch.

Don't count on pop media to keep you informed about what Democrats are doing.

(Commentary by Kay B. Day/Sept. 24, 2012)