Homeless find work as union pickets:
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 maintain 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 non-union construction sites.
Sheesh, it's the revenge of the squeegee guys! They could scare off everyone with their breath.
"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.
The carpenters who belong to his union, Eisner explained, are already gainfully employed. With homes and offices being built or renovated and real estate still booming in many urban areas, he said, the union carpenters are too busy to join the picket lines.
I'm surprised they aren't using illegal aliens. After all, they're only here to do jobs no one else will do. Of course, they may all be busy working too.
