Disgruntled by the Dew Tour

Back in the spring I told you that, like the crocuses, the picketers from Carpenters Local 2012 were out protesting a property owner who made the decision to eschew union labor for a less pricey alternative.

Well, on Friday as I was driving into Ocean City, I saw the same crew out again for a different reason. (Sorry, no picture. I was too far back in traffic to get a clean shot.) With the Dew Tour in town, the laborers were unhappy that the event used non-union labor to construct the arena used by the athletes. Instead of casting “shame” on the property owner, though, the group casts aspersions on the Dew Tour, NBC (the network televising the events), and Comcast, which owns NBC.

This is an interesting case because the idea here was to build something for temporary use, and obviously cost was an object since NBC is trying to recoup its expenses paid to the Dew Tour for the rights to broadcast it. So they weren’t looking for the Taj Mahal here, just something which would look good on television. Not being a student in set design, I have no idea if those who build the sets for the broadcast networks are unionized; I would presume they are simply based on the locales in which most soundstages are located. Obviously Ocean City isn’t typically a hotbed of television production.

So it’s obvious that at least a trio of workers for Seaford-based United Brotherhood of Carpenters Local 2012 had nothing better to do than stand at the main corner coming into Ocean City – the point where you exit the U.S. 50 bridge and either proceed straight toward the Boardwalk or right into the Inlet – and watch both the cars coming in and the bikini-clad women walking by.

And they probably made prevailing wage for it.