-By Warner Todd Huston
Amazingly, the International Union of Security, Police and Fire Professionals doesn’t see a problem with allowing a man accused of stalking his girlfriend and has compared employers to terrorists to act as an official organizer in Nevada at the MGM Mirage. It does not speak well of the union to work with such a nut as Steve Maritas, but they are doing so nonetheless.
The Las Vegas Sun gives us the details of this nut’s over-the-top tactics that even have prospective union members chagrined.
A campaign to organize MGM Mirage security guards has turned ugly, with the union’s lead organizer comparing casino executives to terrorists and threatening to bring homeless people and prostitutes to the picket line to make things unpleasant for the company’s customers.
The hardball tactics come as no surprise to anyone who knows the organizer, Steve Maritas. He was convicted in San Diego of stalking his former girlfriend, who he says tricked him into violating a court order to keep his distance. And he says he learned a lot about the union business from his father, a former president of a 30,000-member carpenters district council in New York City who was indicted on racketeering charges.
This fool even put a picture of Osama bin Laden next to a picture of Mandalay Bay President Bill Hornbuckle on his union website. The Sun has him saying “They’re both terrorists.” An absurdity to say the least. Even his fellow security guards were unhappy with that stupid move.
Security guards, some of whom served in the military, were outraged and told Maritas to take the pictures down and apologize, which he did.
“Maybe it was a low move,” Maritas said. “But that’s the way (labor) war is … I’m from the street. If I have to get down and dirty, I’ll do it.”
So far all his efforts have led to naught, but the very fact that the union is letting him act in their name at all is astonishing.
I guess unions don’t care what sort of people thy have working for them if it ends in a union win?
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston