Author Topic: Union-backed group paid Seattle fast-food wage protesters  (Read 623 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline flowers

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 18,798
Union-backed group paid Seattle fast-food wage protesters
« on: November 27, 2013, 06:53:44 pm »
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/11/27/union-backed-group-paid-seattle-fast-food-wage-protesters/?intcmp=latestnews

Quote
As the $15-an-hour minimum wage movement continues across the country, critics question whether the push is truly a grassroots effort.

The Freedom Foundation, a free-market think tank based in Washington state, claims a union-backed organization called Working Washington paid at least one Subway worker $75 to protest the fast-food wage earlier this year. Working Washington is pushing for $15-an-hour minimum wage and held three protests at fast food restaurants in Seattle this summer.

A copy of a check to a worker from Working Washington comes from the lawyer representing Subway in a case in which an employee was fired after the protests, according to the Freedom Foundation report. It's unclear how many workers might have been paid to protest, but Freedom Foundation officials argue it shows these movements are more the work of union organizing.

"Protests over the minimum wage have been popping up all over the country this year. Not only are labor unions supporting these protests, in many cases they are fabricating them," Freedom Foundation labor policy analyst Max Nelson told Northwest Watchdog. "Our finding that the SEIU was paying fast food protesters in Washington earlier this year just goes to show that these protests are part of a sophisticated PR campaign, not a grassroots uprising."

Northwest Watchdog left a message with the media contact for Working Washington and will update when we hear back.

The report also finds that the national Service Employees International Union  funneled a total of $3,652,340 in monthly payments through SEIU Leadership Council 14 to Working Washington from 2011-2012. Working Washington has also been a big part of the SeaTac $15-an-hour minimum wage initiative that went to voters earlier this month and is expected to win what has been a close race when official results are released later Tuesday.


Offline happyg

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 11,820
  • Gender: Female
Re: Union-backed group paid Seattle fast-food wage protesters
« Reply #1 on: November 27, 2013, 06:59:06 pm »
They probably paid the protesters minimum wage. That is what many of the OWS were paid. The union protests don't aren't helpful because they make the companies more determined, and p*ss people off. They are more an pain in the arse than anything else.

Offline Cincinnatus

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5,513
Re: Union-backed group paid Seattle fast-food wage protesters
« Reply #2 on: November 27, 2013, 09:26:55 pm »
Quote
National Labor Relations Board lawyers okayed a major union's practice of paying people to protest against Walmart in a legal memorandum earlier this month. The federal labor law enforcement agency said the practice of paying workers $50 apiece to join protests “did not constitute unlawful … coercion of employees.”

In a Nov. 15 memorandum from the NLRB's general counsel office regarding the so-called “Black Friday” protests staged by United Food and Commercial Workers against the nonunion retailer last year, the NLRB lawyers determined that the UFCW's offer of $50 gift cards to anyone who showed up to protest “was a non-excessive strike benefit.”

The lawyers said there was “no evidence to indicate that the gift card was meant to buy support for OUR Walmart” since the card was available not just to the retailer’s employees but to anyone who showed up at the unions’ protests.

OUR Walmart, which presents itself as a group of disaffected Walmart workers, is identified as a subsidiary of UFCW in the memorandum. Along with another UFCW-backed group, Making Change at Walmart, UFCW has been orchestrating a series of public relations attacks against the retailer.

It is not clear how widespread the practice of offering the $50 gift cards was, although the memorandum says the card was advertised on the main OUR Walmart website

http://washingtonexaminer.com/labor-relations-board-oks-unions-paying-people-to-protest-walmart/article/2539825

You will be shocked, shocked I say, to find out the NRLB is dominated by union approved Democrats.
We shall never be abandoned by Heaven while we act worthy of its aid ~~ Samuel Adams