Who’s the Communist?
David Westberg, business manager for the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 609, that’s who
Barbu says he’s just trying to get by. Critics say he and a handful
of vendors who sell pizza and other snacks near schools from vans and
trucks are not only undermining school officials’ efforts to get kids
to eat better, but also threatening the jobs of cafeteria workers.This, it turns out, is both a competition for job security and a skirmish in the war against teenage obesity.
Citing the growing girth of Seattle’s schoolchildren, City Council
members voted yesterday to bar all kinds of mobile vendors from within
1,000 feet of schools.The vendors have been allowed to sell within 200 feet. Their most
vocal critic has been David Westberg, business manager for the
International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 609, which represents
Seattle Public Schools’ cafeteria workers.Westberg said only three or four people have been selling pizzas
near Cleveland, Franklin and Garfield high schools. Still, he’s
concerned the vendors could jeopardize union workers’ positions and
benefits."If 16 kids go off campus, somebody’s mother loses health insurance," he said.
(link: Balko)
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"This, it turns out, is both a competition for job security and a skirmish in the war against teenage obesity."
It's not both, it's never both. It's a war for preserving a protected position at the expense of everyone involved. "Teen age obesity" is an excuse. The teenagers in question are pawns to these people, nothing more. If the vendors were selling soyburgers with sprouts, and the cafeteria was selling nothing but pizza and Snicker's bars, the union would be making the same argument.
The idea that kids might be dropping down dead in the hallways from heart attacks is completely irrelevant to commies like this, except as publicity. A few timely fatal coronaries would bolster their cause.
If there are 16 kids to every cafeteria worker, I'd say the cafeteria is pretty overstaffed.