The intellectual vapidity of organized labor and their led-by-the-nose political and community lackeys never has been on more disturbing display.
Wednesday last, former employees of the small and now-closed Adda Coffee & Tea House chain were joined by community “leaders” and pols to publicly draw and quarter Adda’s owner Sukanta Nag.
They claim Nag closed the four-store Pittsburgh-area chain, and put about 30 employees out of their jobs, to thwart a union organizing effort. Nag has said, repeatedly, that’s simply not true – Adda’s never turned a profit in all its years of operation; he had to stop the financial bleeding.
But that didn’t stop the ignorant grandstanding of the state’s lieutenant governor, Allegheny County’s chief executive, a state senator and, of course, those aligned with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).
The putrid details first were reported by the Post-Gazette.
“We’re here to send a message that Pittsburgh is a union town and that we’re always going to stand on the side of workers,” said Lt. Gov. Austin Davis.
“What the owners of Adda Coffee are doing is unconscionable and shameful,” he continued. “It’s not a coincidence that a day after the employees said they wanted to organize a union that they chose to close their doors.”
What part of Nag’s predicament is Davis incapable of comprehending? A business never turned a profit. Unaddressed, it stood to bankrupt its owner. The only thing “unconscionable and shameful” are the lieutenant governor’s remarks.
Chimed in county Chief Executive Sara Innamorato:
“As elected officials, as leaders in this community, we will not stand for it,” she said. “When we talk about building a county for all that means every single one of us, including our workers.”
What absolutely embarrassing gibberish. What does Innamorato propose? Somehow forcing Adda’s Sukanta Nag to not only keep his coffeehouse chain operating at a loss but at even a greater loss by forcing him to incur even higher costs with a unionized work force?
Talk about mental midgetry of the tallest order. This is mush for brains stuff.
Then there’s state Sen. Lindsey Williams, who claims she once was fired for attempting a workplace organization.
“I’ve been there,” she said. “I know what it feels like to have it taken away in an instant, being unable to pay your bills, pay your rent, your mortgage, your car payment — that’s just a lot. There’s a lot of anxiety.
“I hope that you recognize what your employer did was wrong,” she told the former Adda workers.
Talk about living in a parallel universe ruled by the voluntarily addlepated.
And then there’s a person identified as former lead barista at Adda.
“Our union is still strong and more united than ever,” he said. “We will not stop until justice is served here. We are all one mind.”
That would be a discombobulated mind. And what “justice”? Again, class:
The barista somehow believes that a coffeehouse chain that since its inception years ago can no longer afford to operate at a loss has a responsibility to incur even deeper losses – by being forced to pay even higher wages because of unionization?
With no apologies for our bluntness, what kind of stupid is this?
If, and it’s a big if, Nag somehow could stay open, to what might the employees’ unionization lead? Higher costs to customers to pay higher wages to, wait for it, class, likely fewer employees because of the employer’s higher costs.
That those so enthralled with, and those so uneducated about the deleterious effects of unionization on small businesses, can pimp for such nonsense is bad enough.
But that the commonwealth’s second in command and the county chief executive would do the same warrants a serious review of their competence to hold public office.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinsitute.org).
