Union Workers Overwhelm Security & Storm Bankers Meeting
Posted by Jim Hoft on Wednesday, January 19, 2011, 12:19 PM
About 200 union workers broke through security and stormed a bankers meeting in Washington today demanding jobs… from the bankers(?)
** The video is here.
(Housing Wire)
The Huffington Post reported, via The Blaze:
About 200 union workers interrupted a meeting of mortgage bankers at a posh hotel Wednesday.
The protest — aimed at the Pulte Group, one of the nation’s largest homebuilders — quickly turned into a scrum as workers wearing hardhats and shouting through bullhorns overwhelmed the security staff at the JW Marriott, bursting into a crowded conference room before a stunned crowd of bankers.
Shouting “Where are the jobs?” and “Where is the money?” the protesters from the Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association and the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, many in overalls and helmets, said taxpayers have provided $900 million in tax breaks to Pulte with the aim of creating jobs. They said they haven’t seen the results they were promised.
“Those tax breaks were supposed to create jobs,” Wayne Peworchik, one of the protesters, said. “That was President Obama’s and Congress’s intent.”
“Instead, Pulte laid off workers,” Peworchik said.
But, the reason the union members are not working is because they would not accept a pay freeze – they demanded a raise back in June.
Via The Daily Reporter:
A Milwaukee contractors association representing 80 employers began a lockout Monday after contract negotiations with a local sheet metal workers’ union failed.
Jeffrey Remsik, spokesman for the Sheet Metal & Air Conditioning Contractors’ Association of Milwaukee, said the Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association Local Union 18 wants increased wages and benefits, and the association will not grant the request.
Seventy-five union workers went on strike Friday, said Patrick Landgraf, Local 18 president and business manager. In response, the association locked out 1,800 union members Monday, he said.
The two sides have been negotiating since April, Remsik said.
“With the construction industry in the worst times we’ve seen since the 1930s, we feel we need to cut and lower costs,” he said. “We want to make ourselves more competitive so we can get more work.”
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valerie commented:
Oh, what a delighful bit of feckless theatre.
I do hope the police were called, and that they took names. Because this performance was four our benefit, we have a right to know the actors’ names.
Rob De Witt commented:
An excellent juxtaposition of points, Jim. It’s increasingly apparent that, through your and other normal peoples’ efforts, the narrative is collapsing due to the weight of reality – which, as Lady Thatcher so eloquently put it, has a well-known conservative bias.
You may have noticed that the same thing has happened in the last few days in New Jersey, where union municipal cops and firemen have been laid off and are crying foul – only months after they rejected a new contract with some constraints in place. It won’t be long now; the entire edifice is crumbling before our eyes.
O Brave New World.
valerie commented:
Memo to Obama:
It would be SO much easier for me to hire construction workers to put in new floors at my house and add solar panels on the roof, if all that money weren’t earmarked for tax increases.
Rock commented:
Thugs, union, synonymous with violence.
retired military commented:
Wait
Obama promised them jobs and yet they went to the banks asking about them? Why dont they ask Obama where the jobs are that HE PROMISED. Oh wait. I forgot. Dems place blame on others when their plans dont work out.
mike191 commented:
Stupid people doing stupid things.The real mantra of the dems.
Redwine commented:
Hey, union thugs, didn’t you get the lecture on civility by Dear Leader??
Buffalobob commented:
Union thugs wearing hardhats. Kind of redundant with their thick skulls.
olm commented:
Funny.
At least it is keeping me from reading about the abortion doctor.
LimoLibsStink commented:
0bama:
Let me be clear, this is the type of free speech I endorse!
People like Rush Limbaugh should not be on the air. Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin have crossed the line into violent speech… Unlike my Union Buddies!
My limousine is running and we have our first draft of the “Giffords anti-gun” bill as soon as we can wheel her around in front of the cameras. No, it will not include illegal aliens… because this country is mean and bigoted.
And, remember to always bring a gun to a knife fight! Get in their face. Good day.
patman commented:
Why do those a-holes want to work when they currently sit at home and live off all that Obama money being tossed around…
…don’t gots to worry about puttin’ gas in my car…don’t gots to worry about payin my mortgage…Obama money…
A chicken in every pot!
StandUp4Chuck commented:
Time to cut the head off the snake and rid ourselves of any unions. Overpaid, overbenefited and lazya$$es who cant cut it in the real working world. They have to hide behind a union to fatten their paychecks. Time for them to go.
Paul in N.AL commented:
I’ll say it once, I’ll say it again. Unions are irrelevant in today’s society.
I’m glad we don’t have unions here.
befuddled commented:
God help these union folks if Chinese labor was allowed to work on these projects, they would all be unemployed, fighting the Mexicans for day jobs outside the home depot.
an over-reaching by the unions have sent all the manufacturing jobs overseas.even the great green hope of the future, solar panels, is built by china. another wonderful social justice experiment, “living wages”, enacted by congress has done nothing for labor but increase teen unemployment and sidelined yet another natural resource. even welfare recipients find that it is more beneficial to stay at home than work two jobs.
if we are operating at 1930′s, great depression levels, unions might want to think about how wages and benefits fared during that era. with high demand for cheap labor and global competition, i am surprised we aren’t importing labor by the boat full to do jobs at a pay scale that unions would turn their noses up at.
fixing our energy crisis,high cost of labor, and congressional spending is our only hope for a recovery. all else are lies, and we’ve seen what two years of lying can do to our country.
Ed commented:
“Those tax breaks were supposed to create jobs,” Wayne Peworchik, one of the protesters, said. “That was President Obama’s and Congress’s intent.”
shows how clueless union thugs are. there were no “taxbreaks.” it was a tax rate extension. if Obama had more balls and brains he would’ve added an actual tax break on the tax rate extension deal. but, claiming that a tax extension were “tax breaks” is as close to a tax cut a democrat would stand.
Khan Krum commented:
I bet they were wearing brown shirts, no? Oh, I forgot, purple is the new brown.
valerie commented:
OT
oops, nevermind. Another climate change study bites the dust. Off by an order of magnitude.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110119/ts_afp/climatewarmingfood_20110119163335
But climate scientist Rey Weymann told AFP that the “study contains a significant error in that it confuses ‘equilibrium’ temperature rise with ‘transient temperature rise.’”
“Even if we assume the higher end of the current warming rate, we should only be 0.2C warmer by 2020 than today,” Mandia wrote.
“To get to +2.4C the current trend would have to immediately increase almost ten-fold.”
AuntieMadder commented:
Were they led by Ben Affleck?
DigitalTroglodyte commented:
What was the plan after disrupting the meeting? What did they actually accomplish?
Sound like Underwear Gnome Economics™.
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