March 13, 2011

Using Craigslist to hire protesters at $7.50 an hour?

This is from Indiana and, as the first commenter at the link says, "Anyone can run an ad on Craigslist and remain anonymous. What a great way to try and discredit the protesters. Now I wonder who would want to do that?"

You can say the same thing about the "Stike Now" graffiti. Everything is possibly fake these days. Are the protesters fake or is the evidence of the fakeness of the protesters fake?

22 comments:

rhhardin said...

It's a fake discrediting so as to discredit how discreditable the protesters seem.

mesquito said...

It wouldn't be the first time unions hired minumum wage temps to walk picket lines for them. I mean, who wouldn't want to spend their free time at their second home in the Ozarks?

The real outrage? No health insurance.

Meade said...

I say "fake," you say "fakeness:"
----, FAKENESS! ----, FAKENESS!

See how I faked you out there?

cubanbob said...

God truly loves America. Where else can strikers afford to hire workers to walk the picket lines for them?

The truthiness of the fakness is surreal.

Meade: great work! Thanks.

rhhardin said...

It's the solidarity cows.

bearing said...

Outrageous, anonymous speech deserves to be ignored. Since it's anonymous, there is absolutely no way to tell which "side" is producing it. This goes for apparent hate speech, apparently ignorant speech, apparently violent speech, and, like it or not, apparently-proving-your-point speech.

If you don't know who said it, you don't know which side is showing their poor colors. "Look at me, I got an anonymous death threat, it proves my opponents are awful." Oh really.

wv: polib. Ha.

Automatic_Wing said...

It's fake but accurate.

Gabriel Hanna said...

Every time I visit Berkeley I see signs from Grassroots Campaigns, Inc. offering competitive wages to people who want to protest for a living. They have a national presence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grassroots_Campaigns,_Inc.

In 2006, GCI was sued for overtime wage violations for allegedly working its staff 14-hours a day. The suit, filed in federal court in San Francisco in 2006, accused Grassroots Campaigns, Inc. of overworking mostly college students long hours, seven days a week gathering petition signatures and donations for Democratic candidates and groups like Moveon.org. "It's ironic that a company that bills itself as a champion of the progressive movement would treat its own employees so badly," said Robert S. Nelson, of the Nelson Law Group, a San Bruno, California firm that filed the class action on behalf of at least six (of thousands) of former employees.

Fourteen students sued Grassroots Campaigns Inc. for wages they claim the nationwide contractor for the Democratic National Committee owed them for their local work as canvassers in 2004 for the failed John Kerry campaign. According to the complaint filed in August 2006 in Multnomah County Circuit Court, Grassroots paid the students the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour, instead of Oregon's then-minimum wage of $7.05 an hour. The suit seeks the wages each student is owed, plus a $1,692 penalty per student. Grassroots claimed the students were paid properly and legally. (Willamette Week, 9/20/06) After a settlement was reached by both parties, the case was dismissed on August 2, 2007.

Near the end of 2008 Grassroots campaigns was involved in a lawsuit for firing 3 employees from their Chicago office after attempting to form a union. Originally the employees sought the aid of the ACLU as one of the clients of Grassroots, but were told by the national office it would be a "conflict of interest" since Grassroots ran the ACLU's canvassing operation. The employees took their case to the NLRB who agreed to take the case as they felt they had sufficient evidence that a violation of the National Labor Relations Act had occurred. Grassroots ultimately agreed to settle the case and agreed to pay backpay for all 3 employees nearing $18,000.

Terrye said...

bearing:

Well, there has been plenty of outrageous speech that has not been anonymous..it has been right out there for people to see. So considering how hysterical and over the top and desperate these people seem to be...it is not too far a stretch to think they might hire non union people to demonstrate for them. After all, it is obvious they have resources otherwise they could not spend weeks and weeks out there showing their behinds. Most people would not have that kind of time and money.

Anonymous said...

This is called outsourcing.

They could save even more money if they could figure out a way to get Indians to do it virtually.

Rick Caird said...

I have been wondering how the protesters in Madison could continue their protest for three weeks. One would expect they would have union jobs to actually go to so they could feed themselves and their families.

The length of the protests give credence to the idea these are "paid protesters". If we actually had investigative reporters rather than "purveyors of propaganda", their would be some followup. But, there will not be any.

Chef Mojo said...

I think Althouse and Meade should go down and interview the protesters again, and ask, "Are you being paid to protest here today? And, if so, how much? Also, are you from around here?"

That would be interesting.

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure quite a few college kids would sign up for this.

Iain Murray makes the historical parallels between the WI protest and the British National Union of Miners' Arthur Scargill's attempt to basically organize a soft putsch against new PM Margaret Thatcher.

http://bit.ly/go3c01

The end result of it all was Thatcher breaking the stranglehold British unions had on the economy.

In this case, it's not even plausibly "for the common man". It's a credentialed gentry (not an elite) fighting to keep its own privileges, and darn the cost to the average Joe Schmoe who does not have a union job.

Anonymous said...

My husband, who supports the union POV and has been to Madison a few times recently (yes we are a mixed marriage and yes, I am really ready for this to be over), spoke to a canvasser who came to our house on Friday collecting signatures for a Walker recall. The canvasser was paid, although my husband didn't get the name of the hiring organization.

My husband was annoyed because he wants effort and money focused on recalls that can happen now. I was annoyed because I didn't realize people got paid to do such things - I thought it was something you did only if you are a true believer. It just doesn't seem as authentic if someone is being paid.

I have heard arguments that "everyone" is pro-union because where are the pro-Walker protesters? I suppose it hasn't occurred to my side to pay people to protest.

Terrye said...

Class, the pro Walker people are the ones who voted. I mean after all, if everyone was pro union the man would not be Governor.

Bob B said...

$7.50 is well less that the "living wage" all Liberals are committed to. Looks like it is non-union. And it requires a photograph of the prospective employee. Lookism - ugh.

lemondog said...

I'm in. What kind of benefits.

Unknown said...

In the same class as paid mourners.

I'm a Shaaaaark said...

This isn't new - Unions like SEIU have been doing this for years. Paying non-union labor minimum wage to walk a picket line.

That anyone would think this is a setup is hilarious. They have done this before many many times.

Chip Ahoy said...

Anonymous or not, if one cared enough they could always email expressing interest and then follow up on the result of the contact. It's easily enough proved or disproved. After all, it's how I ended up with a kick-ass camera lens and a super-duper supreme-o carpet steamer.

Chip Ahoy said...

Oh! Mustn't omit mentioning the Big Green Egg.

Mark Nielsen said...

Didn't Penn and Teller do an episode of their show ("Bullsh*t") where they exposed the scheme to hire protesters for the anti-Walmart demonstrations?