Union Hypocrisy
This story from last week stayed under the radar:
Are unions crossing line with homeless pickets?
WASHINGTON -- You've heard the panhandler's common refrain, "Will work for food."
How about: "Will picket for food?"
In Washington, Baltimore, Atlanta and elsewhere in the country, union organizers are scouring shelters and recruiting homeless people to staff their picket lines, paying just above minimum wage and failing to provide health benefits.
The national carpenters' union, which broke from the AFL-CIO four years ago in a bitter dispute over organizing strategies and other issues, is hiring homeless people to stage noisy protests at nonunion construction sites.
If this sounds familiar, it is - check this from last September. The union defends their sweatshop mentality by saying it's for the greater good:
"We're giving jobs to people who didn't have jobs, people who in some cases couldn't secure work," said George Eisner, head of the union's mid-Atlantic regional council in Baltimore.
How civic minded of them. Isn't that the same argument they reject from the entry level employers like fast food and discount department stores? And by the way, why can't they man their own picket lines?
The carpenters who belong to his union, Eisner explained, are gainfully employed. With homes and offices being built or renovated and real estate booming in many urban areas, he said, the union carpenters are too busy to join the picket lines.
"Work is good, and our members are working," Eisner said. "This is just the best thing for us to do at this point."
"Gainfully" employed. Please don't bother us - we're too busy. Get some o' dem bums, ok? Here's the AFL-CIO weighing in:
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said he saw nothing wrong with unions hiring homeless people as pickets.
Of course you don't.
"The fact that the people demonstrating were not members of the union doesn't make much difference," Sweeney said. "What matters is that the carpenters working on the building had no health care and no pension."
Never mind anyone else. We're tunnelvisioned and that's all that matters.
When it was noted that the homeless pickets also had no benefits, Sweeney responded: "Our hope is that those workers -- that all workers -- would have health benefits, but that is a bigger issue."
There you have it - it's different when it's someone else. You'd think that carpenters, of an ancient and noble profession with at least one notable figure in it's history, would be more - well, Christian.
Sweeney expressed the hope that the homeless protesters "may work themselves into a full-time job where they would get benefits."
I'm sure they're endearing themselves to future employers as we speak - "Can I have a job? I know how to strike!" And if the low wages and lack of benefits weren't enough, the union won't even give them enough hours to get off the streets into an apartment:
A demonstrator in Washington, Nicey Howards, said the temporary protesters earn $8 an hour -- just a dollar above the legal minimum wage in Washington -- with no benefits. While she felt the job wasn't ideal, Howards was glad she could earn a little money while looking for something better.
Each week, Howards said, she works 20 hours, the maximum time allowed by the carpenters' union, bringing home $160.
This last line sums up the generosity of these sweatshop employers quite nicely:
The union organizers allow the hired protesters to take two-minute breaks, Howards said, but dock their pay for the time off.
Yup - unions sure are looking out for the little guy - as long as they're not too little.
Fact is, there really isn't anything wrong with what they're doing. It's legal, and I'd rather have the homeless employed rather than standing in soup lines. But when you make your living trying to force others into doing what you won't do yourself, what does that say about you?
