Acorn criticized for running ad from labor union

Upon opening the Oct. 25 edition of the Thousand Oaks Acorn, I was perturbed to discover the half-page advertisement titled "Is Atria Senior Living Breaking Promises to Local Seniors?" Its presence is an embarrassment to your publication.

This advertisement is a deceitful attempt on the part of a labor union to impugn the reputation of a healthcare organization with which it apparently has some sort of beef, presumably that Atria is resisting unionization.

However, rather than clearly disclosing that it is a labor union, SEIU has disguised itself as the "Campaign to Improve Assisted Living" and "SEIU Healthcare--United for Quality Care."

At first blush, these might appear to be independent advocate groups, operating in the public interest. In fact, they operate only in the interest of the union.

I suppose that the names "Society to Ensure That Mothers are Loved" and "Goodness and Light for Everyone" were already taken or SEIU would have used those names.

The acronym SEIU stands for Service Employees International Union, and it describes itself on one of its websites as "the largest and most powerful healthcare union in the Western U.S."

It kind of sounds like a big bully to me.

In the good old days of unions, a bully union could often get its way by providing employers with "fire insurance" in exchange for unionization or by reminding the company executives that the union was aware of which school their children attended. Clearly, modern union methods include disguising their true identity while attempting to portray the uncooperative employer as the devil incarnate.

What is equally disturbing is that the Acorn was a party to all this. Rather then declining to publish this advertisement because of the clearly misleading representation of the true advertiser and its thinly veiled nature as a smear campaign, the Acorn took the pieces of silver.

Furthermore, and perhaps more seriously, the Acorn violated one of the longestablished practices of journalism, namely that any advertisement that could possibly be interpreted as a public service announcement or editorial matter be clearly labeled as an advertisement. This is taught in Journalism 101.

The Acorn has positioned itself as a community newspaper. I believe that it owes the community the printing of a prominent apology, along with the publication of this letter, which I believe is reasonably well-written and on point. Such mea culpae might be interpreted as evidence that the Acorn hasn't completely lost its integrity. Mark Wallis Thousand Oaks

A story on this subject is included in today's edition on page 8. The Ventura County Star, incidentally, also ran the same or a similar ad.