Need picketers to goose up your protest? You can hire picketers - yes, demonstrators-for-hire that march wherever you want them to march and chant whatever you want them to chant.
That in itself may be a smart solution, but when you're a labor union protesting the hiring of non-union workers, then that's just a whole 'nother level of irony:
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.
"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."
Jennifer Levitz of the Wall Street Journal reports: Link
I agree with Kalel. Unions are a blessing and a curse. Sometimes companies will screw you over without the union, though. Government unions are the worst, keeping incompetent people doing nothing in well-paying jobs, and making them feel entitled, all at the expense of people who can't afford their taxes.
But that isn't what's happening.
The real story is that unions, including the carpenter's union in this case, are hiring people to protest entities that don't hire unions. Nowhere is it written that picketers must be members of a union to picket on behalf of union causes.
Again, if this were a case of unions giving preference to non-union picketers over unionized picketers, THAT would be ironic. But this isn't ironic: it's a union hiring the unemployed for PR work. That's all.
The problem I have with you and the WSJ reporter is the way you've twisted this non-story to make the carpenter's union appear hypocritical and unprincipled. You call it "irony", but an honest reading of the facts does not yield such an interpretation.