Union bosses target 86-year-old volunteer crossing guard

Liberty Chick at Big Government (via Peter List at LaborUnionreport.com) shines a light on the shameful efforts of union leaders in Wassau, Wisconsin to fire an 86-year-old volunteer crossing guard:

First, they came for the Babysitter. Then, they came for the Eagle Scout. Now, they’ve come for the Crossing Guard.

Warren Eschenbach, an 86-year-old a retired Wausau Water Works employee volunteers his time as a crossing guard at the Riverview Elementary School in Wausau, Wisconsin. After the Wausau School District built an area just outside an intersection at the school’s location for parents to pickup their kids from the school, the intersection became busier than usual for a short time every day. So, Eschenbach did a noble thing. He went over to the school and spoke with parents, kids and administrators, and he volunteered to patrol the area at pickup time to make sure kids got to their parents’ cars and that others crossed the streets safely. After all, he worked for five years as a crossing guard at the Franklin Elementary School up until three years ago. He lives two doors down and it’s for a half hour every day. Who could take issue with that?

Well, apparently union bosses can.

John Spiegelhoff, a local union rep for American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 1287 (AFSCME) wants to know if the 86-year-old retiree has undergone a background check. And if he has liability insurance. AFSCME insists that Eschenbach is “undermining the union” and has demanded that the city get rid of him and replace him with a paid union worker at $12.65 an hour. The city has been cutting back crossing guard hours from 15 hours a week to 10 a week. Of course, the elderly volunteer isn’t a volunteer with the city, he volunteers with the school. Since the pickup location is newly restructured, there hadn’t ever been the need to have a crossing guard there. There was no prior job this gentleman has taken away from the union. Really, the guy just lives right there and thought he’d help out.

Local news video can be viewed here.

Michelle Malkin covered a story in September where the same union, AFSCME, and SEIU tried to force the unionization of in-home caregivers of people with developmental disabilities.  Often those caregivers were family members of the disabled.

So much for candidate Obama's call to public service.