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!

The Denver Post has an article on similar union practices in Colorado, entitled Irony marches with union sign carriers.

Unfortunately, much of that article misses the point - even a labor expert quoted in that piece thinks that the irony is that the protestors have no stake in the protest. That may be ironic, but the deeper irony is hidden further in the article. In Denver, day-laborers from El Centro Humanitario Para los Trabajadores are paid $10/hr, which a person affiliated with that day labor center claims is a "living wage."

But scroll down to near the bottom of the article and you'll discover the reason for the protest:

It [the union] wants those [non-union] contractors to pay an "area standard wage" of approximately $16.25 per hour and to provide their employees with retirement benefits, training programs and family health-care coverage. And it's willing to picket those who refuse.

Yeah, the union is willing to picket others but it's not itself willing to pay those who picket the "area standard wage" or give them "retirement benefits, training programs and family health-care coverage."

Union member Gary Ulmer, 48, who was working in a building nearby, shrugged when asked what he thought about day-laborers picketing for the union. "It gives them a wage," he said.

Yeah, and so does working a non-union construction job...

And then there's this gem:
By paying low wages, contractors help depress pay for workers other than their own, said Joe Avila, 50, a union carpenter who pickets because he has been out of work for six months. "This affects everybody, and it brings down the standard of pay and health care."

So, what about unions that are paying low wages, Joe? Why do they get a free pass?