Posted on 07/16/2010 9:42:48 AM PDT by george76
Billy Raye, a 51-year-old unemployed bike courier, is looking for work.
Fortunately for him, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters is seeking paid demonstrators to march and chant in its current picket line outside the McPherson Building, an office complex here where the council says work is being done with nonunion labor.
the union hires unemployed people at the minimum wage—$8.25 an hour—to walk picket lines. Mr. Raye says he's grateful for the work, even though he's not sure why he's doing it. "I could care less," he says. "I am being paid to march around and sound off."
Protest organizers and advocacy groups are reaping an unexpected benefit from continued high joblessness. With the national unemployment rate currently at 9.5%, an "endless supply" of the out-of-work, as well as retirees seeking extra income, are lining up to be paid demonstrators, says George Eisner, the union's director of organization. Extra feet help the union staff about 150 picket lines in the District of Columbia and Baltimore each day.
Online postings recruit paid activists for everything from stopping offshore drilling to ...
"It is bizarre," says Lynne Baker, a school spokeswoman, about the union's hiring of nonunion picketers.
The union's Mr. Garcia sees no conflict in a union that insists on union labor hiring nonunion people to protest the hiring of nonunion labor.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I just keep reading this sentence and I can't help smiling.
Hiring labors for work that Union members won’t do.
LOL
I’m guessing the big sign is “International Longshore and Warehouse Union” rather than “International Whore and Warehouse Union”?
The actual Union workers get paid more than Doctors. Why would they spend their time picketing when they could hire some schmoes to do it for them?
Union picketers would be more expensive I think
I remember reading about 20 or 30 years ago that the clerical workers in the office of one of the big unions went on strike because the union would not let them unionize.
They’ve been doing this for ages. When I lived in Michigan there were some grocery stores in the area that Kroger had sold to a private operator to get out from under their union contract. When I’d go by there they’d have paid picketers out there every day on behalf of the UFCW, and this was a good 12 or 13 years after Kroger had left the building!
I must conclude that Wile E. Coyote is more intelligent than union leadership. (And many union members.)
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