[3AngelaD]

The pictures with this story are a scream.

[IronJack]

Carpenters Union Hires Homeless to Stage Protests

I wonder what the benefits were like. Did they have a collective bargaining agreement? What is the grievance procedure? Pensions? Sick leave? Okay, they protest, but does their contract permit them to demonstrate, march, or riot? Or does that have to handled by journeymen? Or another "brotherhood?"

[aimhigh]

At least they didn’t hire illegal aliens.

[VRWCmember]

paid $8 an hour to picket.

Is $8 per hour union scale for picketing? It seems kind of low. And since these guys aren't really union members isn't that kind of like hiring "scab workers". Union hypocrisy at its finest.

[Hazcat]

...or transitional houses

What is a "transnational" house?

[4yearlurker]

Strange,I havn’t heard one single word from any of the Unions about illegals taking their jobs. Also when I worked on job sites with union carpenters I never saw a group of guys take so many smoke breaks!

[L98Fiero]

"There goes my rickshaw business."

[blau993]

Oh yes, these people -- I call them "Rent A Mob" -- are hysterical. I see them all the time in DC. It's kind of hard to miss them, since they usually have with them a pickup truck with a 20 foot tall rat mounted on the back of it.

I loved the social worker type who talked about them being people who were "down on their luck." If you spend most of your day stoned on a variety of legal and illegal substances, you are not likely to have much in the way of "luck." Most of them have brains that are so fried by substance abuse that they wouldn't know which end of a hammer to hit the nail with. But they are out there protecting the "rights" of union carpenters (most of whom, from what I can tell walking and driving past construction sites, seem to be newly arrived Hispanics). This is quite the social compact!

[jimfree]

Makes a lot of sense. I’ve walked past several of these protests. Let’s just say the folks don’t look like carpenters.

[JamesP81]

Doing the picketing that lib unions don't want to.

On a more serious note, this tells me that the wages aren't that important to the union workers. If it was that important to them, they'd do their own picketing. As it is, they can afford 8 dollars per hour per man to get someone else to stand out in the sun for them.