Citywide Union Protests: I'm Editorializing, But It's My Forum

Over the last week a once loud protest is growing more sedate. The hotels in the area are being protested by locked-out workers who are striking for better healthcare. Since the protest began, the hotels have hired temporary workers to replace the strikers.

I have a lot of respect for the striking workers, not only because they're striking, but because they're striking. And without efforts like theirs I wouldn't be working only 8 hours a day (I'd like a referendum on that one, maybe some riots: I need a shorter work day) and not working on Sunday. Heck! I'd probably not even have any darn health insurance if it wasn't for these plucky unions organizing and doing their thing back when.

Walking around this city (what I would imagine is a union-friendly place) people don't really seem to be all that supportive of the drum beating and the pot-clanging. Annoying, yes, but attention is what they're trying to get so that you the presumably non-Union employee stops patronizing places with lockouts. I'm totally appalled that people will break a picket line.

A few observations I had walking around the the other day were that the protesters were outfitted with earplugs: their union at work, folks, as well as the odd protester taking a break from the chanting to take an important sidewalk cell phone call -- was he on his union-negotiated break? For some reason these things made me giggle. As did the completely unintelligible, non-rhythmic chanting heard at various locations, including the Omni. You know who you are. At times it becomes a very polyrhythmic interlingual affair. And, yep, I am shaming these hotels. Shame.