Union Gets Non-Union Labor to Picket Wal-Mart

(Henderson, Nevada) In five-hour shifts, six picketers toting anti-Wal-Mart signs try to keep cool as they walk back and forth outside a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market. They are allowed two 15-minute breaks to run across the street and use the washroom at a gas station.

From Las Vegas Weekly:

Periodically one of them will sit down in a slightly larger slice of shade under a giant electricity pole in the intersection. Four lanes of traffic rush by, some drivers honk in support, more than once someone has yelled, "assholes!" but mostly, they're ignored.

They're not union members; they're temp workers employed through Allied Forces/Labor Express by the union--United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). They're making $6 an hour, with no benefits; it's 104 F, and they're protesting the working conditions inside the new Wal-Mart grocery store.

Interestingly, the average Nevada Wal-Mart worker makes over $10 per hour.

It's probably not unreasonable to assume that the union could hire protesters more economically if they tapped the illegal alien labor pool. Nevertheless, picketing Wal-Mart for being non-union loses all meaning when the union hires non-union labor to do its picketing.

Companion post at Diggers Realm.