This hilarious Detroit News article reveals that unions have been hiring the homeless - at minimum wage and without health care benefits - to picket at non-union job sites. Oh, the humanity! Oh, the hypocrisy!

In Washington, Baltimore, Atlanta and elsewhere in the country, union organizers are scouring shelters and recruiting homeless people to staff 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 nonunion construction sites.

"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.

God, I love these quotes. So, um, how exactly is this different from the employees at the non-union construction site that you're protesting? I wonder if these union schmucks realize the extent to which their defense of this practice undermines the whole purpose of unions.

Neil Bernstein, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis who specializes in labor and employment law, said unions that use such a tactic are guilty of practicing a double standard.

"They're basically doing what they're criticizing the employers for doing — getting the cheapest people to do the job," he said.

What, unions not actually protecting the rights of their workers? Acting hypocritically? Igoring pro-labor ideology when it's inconvenient? I'm shocked, shocked.

"The fact that the people demonstrating were not members of the union doesn't make much difference," Sweeney said. "What matters is that the carpenters working on the building had no health care and no pension."

When it was noted that the homeless pickets also had no benefits, Sweeney responded: "Our hope is that those workers — that all workers — would have health benefits, but that is a bigger issue."

Gee, that's interesting. So all you have to do to make the union happy is HOPE that your workers would have health benefits? You don't have to actually do anything about it as an employer? I'm sure big business will be interested to hear this...

Sweeney expressed the hope that the homeless protesters "may work themselves into a full-time job where they would get benefits."

Yes, exactly! But then that kinda ruins the whole point of having unions, now doesn't it Johnny boy? (Ok, so it actually doesn't undermine the real purpose of having unions - consolidating power for and lining the pockets of union bigwigs & other...ahem...associates, and "progressive" political organization.)

A demonstrator in Washington, Nicey Howards, said the temporary protesters earn $8 an hour — just a dollar above the legal minimum wage in Washington — with no benefits. While she felt the job wasn't ideal, Howards was glad she could earn a little money while looking for something better.

Each week, Howards said, she works 20 hours, the maximum time allowed by the carpenters' union, bringing home $160.

The union organizers allow the hired protesters to take two-minute breaks, Howards said, but dock their pay for the time off.

God, someone needs to start a union for these people to save them from the horribly despotic...um...er...unions that are working them to the bone in sweatshop-like conditions!

Radley Balko had a good, if too short, op-ed on police militarization in the Washington Post on Sunday.

While this has been a disturbing trend for awhile now, it's becoming even more problematic as SWAT teams are being used for arrests of nonviolent offendors and even for general purpose activities:

On Jan. 24, a SWAT team in Fairfax shot and killed Salvatore J. Culosi Jr., an optometrist who was under investigation for gambling. According to a Jan. 26 front-page story in The Post, Culosi had emerged from his home to meet an undercover officer when a police tactical unit swarmed around him. An officer's gun discharged, killing the suspect. Culosi, police said, was unarmed and had displayed no threatening behavior.

It's unlikely that the officer who shot Culosi did so intentionally. But it's also unlikely that the investigation into this shooting will address why police sent a military-style unit to arrest an optometrist under investigation for a nonviolent crime and why the officers had their guns drawn when approaching a man with no history of violence.

[...]

During the past 15 years, The Post and other media outlets have reported on the unsettling "militarization" of police departments across the country. Armed with free surplus military gear from the Pentagon, SWAT teams have multiplied at a furious pace. Tactics once reserved for rare, volatile situations such as hostage takings, bank robberies and terrorist incidents increasingly are being used for routine police work.