From the desk of Stephen Cabot: According to a front page article in The Wall Street Journal, “the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters is seeking paid demonstrators to march and chant on its current picket line.” The union is picketing an office building for not using unionized workers. It’s apparently all right for the union to use non-union picketers, but it’s not all right for the building management to use non-union workers. Consistency has never been a trademark of union practices.

The union, according to the article, hires unemployed people and pays them a minimum wage, $8.25 an hour.

Yet, unions across the country loudly complain that no one should have to accept the minimum wage because it’s not “a living wage.”

With low labor costs, the Carpenters’ union is able to fund 150 picket lines in Washington, DC, where neither the pro-union NLRB nor the union-friendly White House has murmured a word of disapproval. As the picketers chant, “Low Pay! Go Away!” one can only wonder if the picketers and their low-paying unions are even aware of the inherent irony.

Will a renegade union come along and attempt to organize the non-union picketers? How would the NLRB rule on such a case? One can only hope and smile.

expert labor relations advice