ALG Editor’s Note: In the following featured editorial from the Washington Examiner, Americans for Limited Government’s Adam Bitely uncovers the phony “strike” by SEIU at George Mason University. For more information on the SEIU, please visit SEIUMonitor.com.
Local Editorial: Three-ring circus at George Mason not funny
Out-of-state union thugs, a Gaithersburg food service company, and local prisoners all had parts in a three-ring circus staged at George Mason University’s Fairfax campus earlier this month. University officials now say they are “reviewing the whole situation.” Good, because the incident inadvertently revealed a lot about the union, the company, and the university — and none of it was positive. Service Employees International Union organizers staged a two-day “strike” to protest allegedly unsafe working conditions for food service workers employed by Sodexho, a company whose employees SEIU does not officially represent. On YouTube, GMU junior Adam Bitely posted an interview with a union worker who candidly admitted that ringers from as far away as Georgia, Ohio and Massachusetts were brought in to pose as disgruntled employees to further SEIU’s nationwide goal of unionizing Sodexho’s hourly work force.
This alone should raise more than one trustee’s eyebrow. In May, the same SEIU local dispatched 500 screaming, placard-waving union thugs to the Rockville home of a Bank of America executive, terrorizing his 14-year-old son who was trapped inside alone. Sodexho responded by bringing in even more convicts from the Fairfax County jail to help man its cafeteria lines during the staged walkout. Apparently cafeteria duty is work no GMU student will do. GMU officials knew — and permitted — the company to use prisoners wearing ankle bracelets to keep the chow line going.
What’s the beef? GMU spokesman Dan Walsch told The Examiner that the university is aware of only “five or six incidents” involving injuries to Sodexho food service personnel, such as “cutting themselves or falling off a stool.” After personally meeting with SEIU organizers on campus, the only other thing state Sen. David Marsden, D-Burke, could add was that the cafeteria workers were demanding heavier oven mitts. SEIU organizer Fabricio Herrera must not have gotten the “workplace safety” memo, because all he mentioned in another YouTube video was workers’ demands for a guaranteed eight hours a day and free health insurance.
Walsch said outside groups are not required to obtain a permit to march on campus, but must not interfere in campus activities. So why did GMU officials allow purple-shirted protesters shouting “As long as it takes, we’ll be in your face!” to disrupt classes and form a “human wall” that prevented some students from entering the Johnson Center cafeteria, which Bitely said he observed? Credible answers to these and other questions should be forthcoming as soon as possible from university officials.
