Say what? According to the Wall Street Journal, many unions are now hiring unemployed nonunion demonstrators to protest work that’s being done with nonunion labor.
While many big unions, including the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, frown on using nonmembers in picket lines, “we’re not at all ashamed,” says Jimmy Gibbs, director of special projects for the Southeastern Council. “We’re helping people who are in a difficult situation.”
Not surprisingly, the high national unemployment rate has been fueling this trend, providing protest organizers and advocacy groups with an endless steam of recently layed-off workers or retirees seeking a little extra income. While unions aren’t the only groups seeking paid demonstrators, they are certainly the most baffling—if only because such a practice contradicts their message. But organizers don’t see it that way.
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.
If only the lack of parking at protests was the biggest problem facing labor activism. Unfortunately, it runs a lot deeper, as I mentioned in a recent post about the decline of labor in America. The article I quoted in that post cited union leader incompetency as a major factor for the decline. As an example of that incompetency, I would now have to include hiring protesters, as it shows a complete lack of understanding as to the dynamics of nonviolent action. Beyond the irony of unions hiring nonunion demonstrators to protest nonunion labor, how is any business, or the public for that matter, going to be convinced that workers are being exploited if they can’t be bothered to take part in their own protest?
Also is it worth hiring people to protest for you if they aren’t good representatives? The Journal article described a group of about 50 picketers-for-hire, as “smoking cigarettes, reading the paper, or on their phones; a few leaning on canes.” Meanwhile…
Inside, Juan Flores, Can-Am’s foreman, said his nonunionized workers are paid fairly. Of the protesters, he said, “I don’t blame them—they need the money, but they look like they are drunk or something.”
While it’s good that out-of-work people are getting a chance to make some money (above minimum-wage no less, as the going rate for paid demonstrators seems to be around $8.50/hour), perhaps unemployment wouldn’t be so bad if labor was once again an effective force in the struggle for economic justice.
“…perhaps unemployment wouldn’t be so bad if labor was once again an effective force in the struggle for economic justice.”
Economic justice? There is nothing “judicial” about redistribution of property or wealth.
Labor unions lost their effectiveness and relevance years ago.
Maybe the protesters should organize for better pay and lavish benefits…the American Labor Protesters Organization (ALPO)..$20/hr, 2 hour lunches, union pays for comfortable shoes, 5 weeks of vacation. Wouldn’t that be sweet irony and I wonder how long it would take for the union to fire those protesters to tried that.
What union has 2 hour lunches, 5 week vacations and pays for comfortable shoes? No union in America, that’s for sure.Unions in America don’t even get breaks anymore.
The fact that union membership is down is one of the main causes for wages be stagnant. Hope that makes you happy.
D. Killion & Brian Farrell seems to be the ones out of touch. Organized Labor is not about the redistribution of wealth. We are about seeing the fruit of our labor, having a fair shake not a free ride, and yes benefits like health care, defined pension plans, and job security. Such a shame when people go on about something they obviously have no clue about, especially journalist!
Danny,
If you check out more of Bryan Farrell’s writing, I think you’ll see that he’s got a pretty good sense of what organized labor is about and shares your ideals. Yet, as a journalist, he must press on and ask questions that we might sometimes find frustrating. I don’t think criticizing the job labor activists have done is the same as saying the ideals of these labor activists are wrong. I think Bryan’s motivation is to help labor activists (and any other activists who use nonviolence) understand how their actions could be made more effective and substantive by a deeper grasp of nonviolence.
D. Killion, on the other hand, has a very different perspective.
Peace.
“…perhaps unemployment wouldn’t be so bad if labor was once again an effective force in the struggle for economic justice.”
There are a lot of different factors that play into unemployment, but so far as unions are concerned, the effect is exactly opposite to what you’re implying. Raising the price of some factor of production is going to make people use less of it, and calling the price in question a “wage” doesn’t change that.
In practice, the people who get stiffed with the unemployment or lower wages that results from union action are non-union workers. Only improvements in worker productivity can cause an across-the-board increase in real wages.
Even ignoring the effects on the labor market, it should be obvious that raising the price of a factor of production is going to raise the price of the final product, which also lowers real wages for non-union workers.
The real problem is that your big companies that generate all the jobs have shipped them overseas and there aren’t any jobs left in this country. We’re left to fight amoungst ourselves trying to place blame. It was not enough for the big business to make a good profit, they had to get greedy and try to make more by outsourcing our jobs overseas. Now what’s left? No one employed or able to buy their product and the manufacturing capabilities of the US down the tubes.
Late to the game here, but as a longtime supporter of organized labor and unashamed member of The Left, I have to say the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters have gone around the bend on this one. I don’t understand how they think that hiring a) nonunion labor who b) largely appear apathetic, illiterate, unskilled, and possibly drunk, as well as c) are completely disconnected to the labor dispute at hand can possibly advance the cause of organized labor. If anything, the decision to hire street people has cast an even greater pall on organized labor in the eyes of an already suspicious public.
How can I describe the hired protesters in such callous terms? Well, for the last three years, they’ve protested regularly in my work neighborhood in Washington, DC and I’ve driven by their protests in various worksites when I leave my house in Baltimore. I can hear them from my office window as I type. As much as I detest the WSJ and Fox News, their descriptions of the protesters is sadly spot on. Most of them look disheveled and wear the signs while shuffling around looking aimlessly at the sky or down at their feet without any idea why they’re being paid. Meanwhile, they are the public face of the union. I can’t believe that no one at Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters understands this.
The decline of organized labor is part and parcel of the destruction of the American middle class. If rebuilding organized labor means taking picket signs in hand rather than resorting to the false consciousness of paying street people to beat on plastic tubs and yell, then workers need to take up the signs. That’s how it goes.