‘Bloomberg just needs to make good on his promise … instead of offering half-measures to try and make himself look better…’
(Michael Barnes, Liberty Headlines) Michael Bloomberg is literally one of the richest people on earth, but he’s shortchanging thousands of loyal campaign staffers after spending more than $1 billion on his embarrassingly failed presidential campaign.
Now, facing a series of lawsuits, the former New York City mayor has finally agreed to pay for promised health-care benefits—albeit diminished COBRA plans—two months after he dropped out.
An email from Bloomberg’s corporate human-resources department informed former campaign workers on Monday about the health-care news. But it was conspicuously silent about unpaid salaries.
Bloomberg, whose net worth is $58 billion, lured an army of Democratic staffers and grassroots activists to his late-entry vanity campaign last fall with the promise of high-paying work and benefits.
He received fawning media coverage and agreed to pay workers through the general election regardless of whether he was the Democratic nominee.
Then, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., humiliated him during a nationally televised Democratic debate wherein she accused the financial-services guru of calling female employees “fat broads” and “horse-faced lesbians.”
His subsequent Super Tuesday election performance was so pathetic it effectively ended his campaign.
Monday’s health care announcement was “an important step in the right direction,” said Peter Romer–Friedman, an attorney for one of the staffers’ lawsuits against Bloomberg.
“But the Bloomberg campaign must keep all of the promises it made to induce staffers to join the campaign, especially the promise to employ the staffers through the general election,” he told Politico.
As Liberty Headlines previously reported, copies of job applications filled out by the former staffers confirm that the campaign offered “employment through November 2020.”
Another lawsuit against the billionaire progressive alleges fraudulent inducement and breach of contract, as well as unpaid overtime compensation.
“Thousands of people relied on that promise,” the lawsuit states. “They moved to other cities. They gave up school, jobs, and job opportunities. They uprooted their lives.”
Jason Smith, an attorney representing former aides in separate filings in Texas, told Politico that “Bloomberg just needs to make good on his promise to pay these folks through November instead of offering half-measures to try and make himself look better.”