City of Brotherly Thugs, Part One

If a violent street gang was stopping traffic, threatening women, yelling racist and anti-gay taunts at strangers, and destroying property on a daily basis, one would expect that law enforcement would move quickly to stop the flagrant thuggery.

However, if that street gang happens to call itself a “labor union,” then that same behavior is allowed to flourish in the open.

Welcome to City of Brotherly Love.

Philadelphia has been called “the last Union town”; that distinction has caused it no end of grief, as the pro-labor, anti-construction business policies have created a nightmare of open lawlessness as well as dealing punishing body blows to the local economy. 

Unions nationwide may be in deep trouble with declining membership and an increasing public awareness of their drag on the economy, but they aren’t going down without a fight, especially since the Obama administration has their back. Thanks to Breitbart News, Americans were able to see the naked savagery that Big Labor wields at an anti-Right-To-Work rally at the Michigan capitol in December when union members were caught on video razing an Americans for Prosperity tent with people inside.

That same shocking brand of union thuggery can be seen on the streets of Philadelphia on a regular basis, as the labor movement brazenly conducts a campaign of terror against the construction industry. A company called Post Brothers has been a steady target of the unions because they haven’t kowtowed to Big Labor’s demands that they use an entirely union crew.

The men behind Post Brother are two real-life brothers, Matthew and Michael Pestronk. Their company builds “affordable luxury” apartments in Philadelphia in a unique business model; they act as both the developer and contractor on projects, such as a complete renovation of the abandoned Goldtex factory in downtown Philly.

The construction unions are tightly tied to government construction projects, but the privately funded Goldtex project allowed the Pestronks to use non-union crews. Big labor decided to make an example of the Pestronks.

…the brothers allege that the unions have planted asbestos at the site; strewn it with urine-filled bottles; parked a truck with an inflatable rat across the street from Matthew Pestronk’s home; circulated a flyer with Matthew’s dead dog, Chief; and covered a Post Brothers building with photographs of Matthew Pestronk’s wife that had penises on her image …

One observer of the union response to the Post Brother’s Goldtex project on the Philadelphia Speaks message board described what they’d witnessed:

I’ve slowly watched more and more union guys protesting each morning to the point where there’s 50- 75 now, and they’re surrounding vehicles of the site workers calling them “fat f*cks,” “f*cking faggots.” I personally saw them threatening a worker in a nice pickup trying to get into the site today. One guy, a fat fellow in a red Phillies cap and sunglasses, personally said “I’ll see you later today you fat f*ck. You’re dead you fat f*ck.”

I talked to a neighbor who said it’s the norm and they spend a better part of the morning threatening the black security guards with what he called “racially tinged words.” This morning they blocked a delivery truck and all the traffic behind it, including an ambulance, for a half hour. 

The situation becomes even more nightmarish when you consider that this thuggery has the tacit approval of the city of Philadelphia, as officials have done little or nothing to stop it. 

Mike Pestronk spoke to Breitbart News and said he had initially had high hopes that Democrat Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter would be independent enough to stand up to the unions and at least enforce existing laws against violence and intimidation. However, the Mayor’s office has done little to stop the violence.

However, the Post Brothers are fighting back using the First Amendment. Rather than suffer in silence, they created a website, PhillyBully.com, that chronicles the abuse that they and their employees have suffered for months. The shocking photos, videos and stories reveal the union intimidation tactics at work.

In part two: Breitbart News exposes how the unions have used the Occupy Wall Street 99% vs. 1% messaging to portray their struggle as a battle against “the rich” when it’s really the union/government alliance that has hurt the local economy. 

Image credit: PhillyBully.com