A Mild Labor Action

I passed this sign outside the new Google office in Venice, CA, the other day and stopped to investigate.

In case you cannot read it, the sign says:  

LABOR DISPUTE (twice) and SHAME ON LARRY PAGE, CEO GOOGLE.

Standing behind the sign were two young Hispanic women who seemed to have limited English skills.

I asked the nature of the complaint, which union had a grievance and what it was, whether the young picketers were union members and what their names were.  They refused to tell me anything but smiled, giggled and gave me an information sheet.  My impression was that I was the only person who had stopped to talk to them in quite a while and that I had made them very uncomfortable.  So I took their piece of paper and walked on.

The sheet is headlined "SHAME ON GOOGLE For Desecrating the American Way of Life."
It has a picture of a rat chewing on a US flag.  The gist of the complaint is that the contractors Google has hired to work on its Venice project are using nonunion labor.  

The aggrieved union is Carpenters Local 1506, which wants people to call a person at Google  "and tell her that you want her to do all she can to change this situation and see that area labor standards are met for construction work on projects that they are involved in."  

Pretty mild stuff. 

The sheet also offers a phone number for Local 1506.  I called it and was told to expect a call back; three days later, nobody has called me.  According to very limited information on the union's internet page, it has more than 6,000 members.

The bottom line on the sheet says:  "We are not urging any worker to refuse to work nor are we urging any supplier to refuse to deliver."

Really?

I live most of my life near New York City, which leans left and is quite labor-friendly.  Los Angeles County also leans left, but I am not sure how strong unions are here, at least on non-government projects.

If a similar protest were mounted in New York, I am pretty sure that it would be manned by big, scary-looking men and, of course, a giant inflated rat.  Rocks and verbal slurs would be thrown at workers entering the building and at suppliers' trucks.

I have no dog in this fight, but I found the whole thing interesting.  

Cue the laid-back California jokes.