Union Picket Line Outsourcing; Are Pilots Next?
By Robert Mark on November 16th, 2007There’s an interesting union story floating around that seemed worth sharing although it honestly made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Maybe some of you can add something to it.
A story made the wires last night about a carpenter’s union picket line strung around a job site near Washington DC.
What made the story important was not the picket line itself, but the makeup of the picketers.
Most were not union carpenters.
Almost all were people down on their luck – OK, homeless – who needed the work. For eight bucks an hour, the union hired theses folks to yell and scream while they marched the job site with picket signs. The picketers looked about the way you might expect someone to look who had been living on the street too. Not exactly the folks any union might want in front of the TV cameras on the 6 PM news.
I thought this was some kind of joke until I spoke with a business agent from another union who confirmed that this is one of those dirty little union secrets that happens much more than any of us realize.
It’s hard to imagine pilots, flight attendants or mechanics – certainly not air traffic controllers (yes I know … if you could) outsourcing their passion for an issue so they could potato out on a couch with a beer in time for the game.
Doesn’t anyone else thing that outsourcing a picket like might extinguish the credibility of the union, or the entire labor movement itself, as if it needs any help right now?
The entire process seems so disingenuous that you’d think the rank and file would be up in arms … when they’re not out doing other things of course.
What do you think?
Related Posts:
Aviation Minute Via iTunes
November 16th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
[…] Union Picket Line Outsourcing; Are Pilots Next? By Robert Mark There’s an interesting union story floating around that seemed worth sharing although it honestly made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Maybe some of you can add something to it. A story made the wires last night about a … Jetwhine – http://www.jetwhine.com […]
December 9th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Ha. This isnt new. My company had some construction done on its offices in Phoenix a year or two ago. The construction company used some “non-union” day labor and the local union decided to strike my company to embarrass the construction firm.
Phoenix is the summer is a “a little hot”…like 115 in the shade. We went up to the picketers and it turned out that they werent union…they werent even AMERICAN. Mexican illegals.
Talk about subbing out work!!
Eric