HOUSTON—A federal lawsuit filed by an organizer for Battleground Texas accuses a labor group established by ACORN founder Wade Rathke of instructing an Obamacare navigator to spend time recruiting union members.

The complaint echoes decades-old criticisms of Rathke and ACORN that they use federal money meant for services in pursuit of their own labor organizing activities.

Cedric Anthony, who worked for the Democratic Party’s Texas recruitment operation, filed a wage-and-hour lawsuit in June against two groups he says jointly employed him as a “federal navigator assisting people with the Affordable Care Act”—Southern United Neighborhoods and Local 100 United Labor Unions.

Both groups were founded by former ACORN organizers, the latter by Rathke. In his suit, Anthony alleges that although he worked as a federal navigator from Dec. 12, 2013, to April 1, 2014, in the Houston area, his “responsibilities included traveling to school campuses to register cafeteria workers to the labor union and attending community events to register individuals for the Affordable Care Act.”

The watchdog group Cause of Action discovered the lawsuit recently, and sent a letter to the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services calling for an audit to determine whether the two groups misused federal funds for their own benefit.

The group notes Southern United Neighborhoods has received $1.4 million from HHS to employ Obamacare navigators, and its sub-grantee United Labor Unions spent $189,000 in 2013 as part of its contract to provide navigators to enroll people in Obamacare.

Anthony says he was hired by Southern United Neighborhoods, which holds the navigator contract, and later directed to enroll union members for United Labor Unions. Although he worked for both groups, he said his instructions came from the same person. His complaint depicts blurred lines between the two groups, which “shared the same offices in Houston, Dallas, New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Little Rock.”

The lone attorney for both defendants denies Southern United Neighborhoods and United Labor Unions acted jointly; he says the labor group was Anthony’s sole employer. He also denies the two “shared the same offices,” although he admits they “have offices located in the same building in each of the five cities.”

Fox News reports that four other Southern United Neighborhoods employees have joined the lawsuit.

Read more at Watchdog.org.