Thugs with Bats Assault Locked-out Grocery Workers

Regular readers of the Inland Anti-Empire will recall that a few weeks ago, ultraconservative Rick Reiss, who once saw a movie, decried "thuggish union behavior" in his column for the North County Times.

In truth, though, the worst violence that he could cite was a picket-line-crossing truck driver who got his fingers stuck in a door. That may not be a good thing, but it's not really organized violence.

Organized violence would be more like, oh, guys with baseball bats beating the shit out of someone.

Like, say, this story from this morning:

Several men, some brandishing bats, confronted picketers outside a strike-bound Albertsons market in Laguna Niguel, Calif., sending a 21-year-old man to the hospital, authorities said Monday.

Orange County Sheriff's Department spokesman Jim Amormino said five males showed up outside the market at 30241 Golden Lantern St. about 10:20 p.m. Sunday and taunted the strikers, challenging them to fight.

Three of them carried bats and began beating a 21-year-old striker, Amormino said, adding that the assailants fled when a security guard fired shots in the air.

The victim was taken to a hospital suffering from facial abrasions and a possible concussion, Amormino said.

So, let's get that straight:

1. No ganglike thuggery has been committed by the supermarket workers who are on strike or who are locked out by 2 out of 3 of the affected grocery stores.
2. A band of anti-union thugs with baseball bats showed up with baseball bats, provoked a fight, and beat the living daylights out of a supermarket worker.

Will Rick Reiss talk about anti-union thuggery this week in his column? Will he decry violence directed against workers exercising their legal rights to collectively organize? Note, by the way, that the Albertsons workers who were targeted by the thugs were locked out by the management -- it wasn't their choice to be out of work. Will Reiss take up their cause and take a firm stand against thugs with bats?

Yeah, right.