A Picket Line Should Be a Symbol of Hope—Not the Butt of a Late Night Joke

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6472/a_picket_line_should_be_a_symbol_of_hope_not_the_butt_of_a_late_nite_j/

Thursday September 23 12:36 pm

By Mike Elk

Video: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-september-20-2010/working-stiffed

Monday, my eyes glistened with pride as I was watched 150 picketers storm the sidewalk in front of Morgan Stanley's Washington D.C. office. My union, United Electrical Workers (UE), had arrived. I grew up in a union household—my father has been a union organizer with UE for 33 years. And it made me excited that day to see its members running a lively, politically smart picket against Morgan Stanley for its role in advocating for the privatization of Social Security.

Tuesday, when I saw picketers on the Daily Show (see above video), I wanted to cry—but for entirely different reasons. A United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) local in Nevada had hired non-union temp workers at the rate of $8.25 an hour to picket a Wal-Mart. The Daily Show commentator joked, “the union was paying workers low wages to protest Wal-Mart paying its workers low wages.”

Beyond the poor treatment of the picketers, what upset me most was how poor the picketers looked. As one union official commented, “the picketers looked like scarecows, not union members ready to beat corporate America.”

The head of the 7,000-member local claimed he had to hire the half dozen people to picket because he couldn’t find any members to picket on a regular basis. To those watching at home, it looked as if the labor movement wasn’t just powerless to take on corporate America, but powerless to get its own members to fight for themselves. (In fact, the UFCW officials blamed Wal-Mart for the fact that the picketers were low-paid contractors.)

FULL story at link.