Is everything getting outsourced these days?
JEFF HAYNES/AFP/Getty Images I’d heard of online services through which it’s possible to rent protesters for a couple of hours. But never had I heard of a union outsourcing its picket line until I read today’s Washington Post: Although their placards identify the picketers as being with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters, they are ...
JEFF HAYNES/AFP/Getty Images
I’d heard of online services through which it’s possible to rent protesters for a couple of hours. But never had I heard of a union outsourcing its picket line until I read today’s Washington Post:
Although their placards identify the picketers as being with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters, they are not union members.
They’re hired feet, or, as the union calls them, temporary workers, paid $8 an hour to picket. Many were recruited from homeless shelters or transitional houses. Several have recently been released from prison. Others are between jobs. […]
Carpenters locals across the country are outsourcing their picket lines, hiring the homeless, students, retirees and day laborers to get their message across.
With bone-headed tactics like these, it’s no wonder American unions are in decline. So what’s next? Are the “temporary workers” going to somehow offshore their jobs to India so they can pocket the lion’s share of the eight bucks?
Blake Hounshell is a former managing editor of Foreign Policy.
More from Foreign Policy

Chinese Hospitals Are Housing Another Deadly Outbreak
Authorities are covering up the spread of antibiotic-resistant pneumonia.

Henry Kissinger, Colossus on the World Stage
The late statesman was a master of realpolitik—whom some regarded as a war criminal.

The West’s False Choice in Ukraine
The crossroads is not between war and compromise, but between victory and defeat.

The Masterminds
Washington wants to get tough on China, and the leaders of the House China Committee are in the driver’s seat.