Monday, September 24, 2012

Where Is She Now? SEIU's Michelle Ringuette



Michelle Ringuette, SEIU Alumna

Check out this story about an SEIU staffer who’s been working overtime to reinvent herself.

Remember Michelle Ringuette? During the run-up to SEIU’s disastrous trusteeship over California’s healthcare workers, Ringuette served as Andy Stern’s “personal spokesperson” and spearheaded SEIU’s campaign of a thousand lies.

In 2009, Ringuette carried out a particularly infamous face-plant. At the time, dozens of well-known professors across the U.S. had written a joint letter opposing SEIU’s attempt to seize control of UNITE HERE through an aggressive raid. 

SEIU officials, of course, were incensed that the professors had the chutzpah to actually criticize SEIU. So Ringuette teamed up with Jo-Ann Mort and Javier Morillo-Alicea to carry out a secret SEIU campaign to harass the academics.

One day, the three SEIU stooges mistakenly hit the “send” button on an internal SEIU email, thereby forwarding the secret info to the professors. The email laid out SEIU’s plan to attack the academics. 

Here’s how Ringuette described SEIU's plan to target the professors because of their “drive-by” attack against SEIU. What was the professors' so-called "drive-by?" Uhh, their letter criticizing SEIU. Here's what Michelle wrote:

Last night we discussed setting a few workers loose on people... I know these aren't high value targets, but I firmly believe people should not be permitted to do drive bys. They are all getting a letter this am and they all bought spot on our spam list.

Way to go, Michelle!

Later on, Ringuette quit the Purple Palace and, ironically, took a job at the American Federation of Teachers… where she was supposed to work on behalf of academics!

Ultimately, that gig didn’t pan out, so Michelle decided to make her next surprising career move. Ringuette -- fresh from her efforts to crush democracy inside SEIU -- decided to dedicate her life to human rights! That's right, she took a job at Amnesty International! (Tasty is not kidding)

One reader captured the stunning absurdity this way:

What a joke! Are you kidding me? Michelle Ringuette has the integrity of a con man, snake-oil salesman, and politician all wrapped in one. Wonder if she told Amnesty about her first-hand experience with violating workers’ rights, crushing internal dissent, and holding workers hostage inside SEIU by blocking their requests for democratic elections. What can I say? If that qualifies her to work at Amnesty, then there’s a long list of sleazebags who should be working there.  

So how’s Michelle doing at Amnesty? Well, she’s adapting with chameleon-like speed. Michelle has suddenly become a huge advocate for individuals' rights and, in fact, recently criticized the Russian government for “suppressing dissent.” 

Don't expect Michelle to last too long. Tasty predicts she'll soon end up as the PR hack for SIGA Technologies or Andy's billionaire sugar daddy.