It's picket lines for Art Van in Westland! 6-15-11

Art Van Elslander was extremely anti-union when I knew him. I am guessing that his attitude has not changed. He always claimed that the day they unionized his stores was the day he would sell. His figured out early on that his truck drivers were the key. The teamsters union tried to organize them repeatedly. Art held special paid meetings with his truck drivers to rally them against the organization attempts. He even had a special name for it. In the meetings, he stressed what a "family" organization the company was. They were all like family to him, he claimed. Art reminded them of the 401K matching and the other perks they had that would disappear once the union got its hand in the cookie jar. Two weeks ago, one of my most reliable readers reported seeing picket lines outside of Art Van's Westland store. They did not have time to stop and see what all of the fuss was about. In time, someone will relay the specifics to me and I will post it. Until then, I shall try to imagine how my ol' buddy Art felt when he first heard about the picketers...