Latest SEIU target: The American Red Cross

In a stunning encore to its attacks on the Boy Scouts of America and the Grace Baptist Church, the Service Employees International Union has launched a strike against The American Red Cross Blood Services operation.  From Investor's Business Daily (via Big Government):

Big Labor: Is there any low to which the SEIU won't stoop? Now it's interrupting blood donations in a strike against the American Red Cross. The Boy Scouts and Baptist churches are also on unions' enemies list.

Demanding higher wages and better benefits, the Service Employees International Union on Wednesday launched a three-day strike against the Red Cross' blood donation operations. The job action comes as the nonprofit, in a realistic response to the weak economy, is cutting salaries, ending bonuses and reducing pensions.

SEIU thinks its members should not only be exempt from the Red Cross' efforts to live within its means, but actually get a raise.

But it's not about the money, you see. It's really about safety. "Cutting jobs, slashing wages and benefits of employees and cutting corners are affecting the safety of the blood supply," the union's Frank Hornick told the Parkersburg (W.Va.) News & Sentinel.

So SEIU's way to get a safe supply is to pay higher union wages? It's hardly compassion for consumers to hold 40% of the nation's blood supply hostage.

The union's strike probably won't affect blood supplies much, but it sends a message: Consumers who need transfusions come second to union wish lists. Feel safer now?

Parents of children with leukemia, cancer patients, victims of motor vehicle accidents and many others need blood products on a daily basis.  Blood donations typically decline in the summer as donors become busy with seasonal and family activities.  The SEIU's claim that its members are striking to protect the safety of the nation's blood supply is laughable on its face.