Monday, my eyes glistened with pride as I was watched 150 picketers storm the sidewalk in front of Morgan Stanley's Washington D.C. office. My union, United Electrical Workers (UE), had arrived. I grew up in a union household—my father has been a union organizer with UE for 33 years. And it made me excited that day to see its members running a lively, politically smart picket against Morgan Stanley for its role in advocating for the privatization of Social Security.
Tuesday, when I saw picketers on the Daily Show (see video), I wanted to cry—but for entirely different reasons. A United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) local in Nevada had hired non-union temp workers at the rate of $8.25 an hour to picket a Wal-Mart. The Daily Show commentator joked, "the union was paying workers low wages to protest Wal-Mart paying its workers low wages."