non union help hired to picket for union ...

[littlewolf]

say what you want ... THIS is funny ...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704288204575362763101099660.html

By JENNIFER LEVITZ

WASHINGTON—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.
A protester pickets a building contractor outside the McPherson Building in Washington last month.
"For a lot of our members, it's really difficult to have them come out, either because of parking or something else," explains Vincente Garcia, a union representative who is supervising the picketing.

So instead, 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.

[aquart]

1. Sigh.

[Omaha Steve]

2. I was a paid picket for the Hinky Dinky (UFCW) strike in 1982

Nothing new here. Members are working elsewhere, so paid pickets cover the picket line.

I was glad to have 10 weeks of solid work and a check. I made about a dollar an hour over the minimum wage. Anybody know what the minimum was in 1982? Raygun was in office. It was a recession. I'd been fired for union organizing in 1980 and couldn't get other work. The UFCW was good to me because I believed in the strike and knew the issues when talking with the customers etc.

[Travis_0004]

3. I love the hyprocracy.

Not union is evil, because they don't give good benefits, and the wages suck.

So the solution is to hire non union people, give them minimum wages, and probably no benefits.

[littlewolf]

4. heh +1

[demosincebirth]

6. What do you think that the union should pay 'em 40 bucks an hour.?

I had to picket for nothing when we went on strike.

[howaboutme]

5. Kind of representative of America

where people are too lazy, too uninvolved, too enamored with celebrity, and / or generally just too tired from 2 jobs or poor to be concerned about how they are getting screwed by the rich banksters.

Poverty usually leads to apathy, and the fucking rich (banksters are the richest and they own us) and elite understand that. The USA always had a strong nationalistic and activist culture where the people would not hesitate to stand up to authority. Our elite have worked at destroying that cultural feistiness through increased immigration and economic destruction because they prefer us as serfs and not activists.