For the nearly two years that GraniteGrok has been open for business, we have written a fair amount about the ongoing union assault on successful American companies like Wal-Mart. We have covered both the philisophical questions raised by such tactics in a free-market society as well as exactly who comprises the instigators behind such ongoing attacks. The common thread is, of course, labor unions. In their quest to maintain power and relevance, they will do almost anything, including destroy the very companies that employ them– biting the hand that feeds.
Leading the charge these days are the henchmen of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). As reported by Matt Lewis writing at Townhall.com, the practices being used in the advancement of their cause are likely to invoke the images among many folks of the classic "union thug" from some bygone era:
Just this past weekend, the SEIU sent hundreds of "members" to disrupt a labor conference in Michigan. They were apparently shoving people to the ground and apparently even went so far as to inflict a head wound on a retired woman (story here, video). In California, they are stalking nurses in a rival union by going to their homes with cameras — and even made a YouTube video of themselves doing it.
A California judge even issued a restraining order against them.
What some people might not know is that in addition to routine thuggery, the SEIU has found new ways to disrupt, cajole, and otherwise shakedown their intended targets. Obviously, when physically beating up corporate execs as opposed to hapless commoners and lowly workers, there comes an added risk to the unionists: deeper pockets to pay for legal actions. As reported in Friday’s Washington Post,
Big labor is relying more on guile and theatrics than blunt force to attack the ascendancy of a new form of corporate ownership: private equity.
And tactics often get personal. Union allies staged a satire outside buyout king Henry Kravis’s lavish Long Island home, asking passersby to sign a petition giving him a break on his property taxes. Weeks later, protesters in business suits sneaked into a private-equity conference at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York, where Carlyle Group co-founder David M. Rubenstein was giving a speech. They sought to shame him with a banner that read: "Why does he pay taxes at a lower rate than the hotel’s doorman?"
Then on Halloween, union members wearing Rubenstein masks paraded in front of Carlyle’s offices, handing out Sugar Daddy suckers.
The unorthodox protests are part of a campaign by the Service Employees International Union and its allies to position themselves as a check on what they regard as a new economic order, one dominated by the big private buyout firms.
And what is their problem with this "new economic order?"
