Ho hum. Another day, another story of union hypocrisy, this time focusing on our old friends at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), also known as one of the Democrats’ biggest Super PACs. As we’ve all learned by now, the SEIU is very invested in the idea of making sure that workers around the country all receive a “living wage” no matter their occupation. Part and parcel of this effort is the Fight for 15, setting a goal of a $15 per hour minimum wage for all workers. Or perhaps we should say… almost all of them. The Wall Street Journal seems to take particular pleasure in pointing out that the SEIU hires numerous stage actors around the country to show up at employers like McDonald’s and carry protest signs, pointing out how unfair their labor practices are. But do these astroturf “protesters” get paid $15 per hour? Er… no. And some of them aren’t happy about it.
The SEIU has hired workers across the country to protest outside businesses and restaurants, especially McDonald’s. Suffice to say they have no union and some don’t make $15 an hour, the union’s nationwide minimum-wage target. At a “Fight for 15” conference in Richmond, Virginia this month, the protest organizers showed up to demand to unionize themselves. According to the website In These Times, a woman from Las Vegas who works as a union organizer tried to deliver a letter asking the SEIU to confirm it employs them and will allow them to unionize. She was blocked by security.
The SEIU responded that it “supports the ability of all workers” to unionize, “including organizers in the Fight for $15.” But the union also claims it doesn’t employ the workers because the organizers are directly employed by individual organizing committees in each city that has a Fight for $15 campaign.
That’s pretty rich considering that most of the money paying the organizers comes directly from the SEIU. It’s also hilarious since the SEIU claims that it should be able to organize all McDonald’s workers everywhere across the country as a single bargaining unit. But McDonald’s operates on a franchise model with individual store owners. Now the SEIU claims its organizers are essentially franchisees.
We’re used to seeing hypocrisy from the unions and their supporters but this truly is one of the richest veins of humor ever to be mined. Some of the union’s own “protesters” showed up to protest them for a change, demanding to know why they weren’t getting the same wage they were ostensibly fighting for. The SEIU had no comment. America Rising captured this video of the priceless moment in workers’ rights.
The various labor unions around the country have been repeatedly exposed for the phony nature of their concerns for the rights and welfare of workers. In California it was discovered that the unions in the hotel industry were cutting deals with employers allowing them to dodge a new minimum wage law and pay their workers less, providing they unionized their shops. In the end, all the unions really care about is collecting their cut from the paychecks of every worker in the country and putting that money to use by donating it to the Democrats who help keep their grip on power intact. This latest episode is not only revealing, but hilarious. It’s no wonder that union membership is down drastically across the country these days. The sheep are tired of being fleeced and are catching on to the game.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member