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Save the Planet, But Don't Unionize. The world of left-wing advocacy is filled with idealistic young people and hard-working blue-collar folks, more concerned with advancing a cause than making big bucks. This, of course, makes them perfect targets for exploitation by deep-pocketed left-wing advocacy groups.
Yes, I can hear the cries of "Foul, foul!" all across the land, but this is hardly a new phenomenon. In 1997, while campaigning to raise the minimum wage (a project that continues today), ACORN sued to avoid paying California's minimum wage to its own workers.
Last year, Las Vegas Weekly found that the picketers protesting Wal-Mart's substandard wages and working conditions had been hired by the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 711. They were non-union, with no benefits, and spent five hours a day in 104 degree temperatures. The workers inside the air-conditioned Wal-Mart make twice as much.
Earlier this year, we learned that several industrial unions were hiring the homeless to walk picket lines. "The fact that the people demonstrating were not members of the union doesn't make much difference," said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. "What matters is that the carpenters working on the building had no health care and no pension."
The latest entry comes from the left-wing monthly In These Times. The Fund for Public Interest Research raises money for a wide variety of liberal causes, from the Sierra Club to the Human Rights Campaign, mostly through the work of canvassers. These young workers either go door-to-door or phone in an effort to get people to donate to whichever liberal group is picking up the tab that day. The Fund boasts of having raised more than $350 million and gathered more than 20 million petition signatures in 20 years.
The canvassers have a high turnover rate, which is unsurprising since they often make less than minimum wage. In Los Angeles, the poor pay and working conditions prompted some canvassers to seek union representation. The response by The Fund was swift: the office was shut down and union supporters were fired. Read the whole story here.
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So ACORN, a group of activists closely aligned to the most radical of leftist groups, doesn't want to pay California's minimum wage? Wow. Why am I not surprised. This is right up there with so-called celebrity environmental activists that live their single lifestyles in seven bedroom Malibu homes. I guess it's okay to pick on people as long as they don't have the same views, or are not important. I am sure they sold this with a huge dose of "do it for the cause."
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