Jillian’s observations below are no surprise. Of course the Teamsters told Padma Lakshmi “We’re gonna bash that pretty face in, you f****** whore!” That’s what they do. (If you haven’t been reading Jillian’s reporting on Johnny Doc et al. you really should.)
Philadelphia Teamsters insisted, vigorously, that my newspaper sign a contract with them — in spite of the fact that we neither employed drivers nor owned vehicles, raising the question of what, exactly, we’d be paying them to do. I suppose it’s like Dashiell Hammett’s take on prostitutes: You don’t pay them for their services, you pay them to go away afterwards.
We declined, and they picketed us, and our advertisers, with the same energy they brought to Top Chef.
But there is an upside to being picketed by these particular thugs: I generally work late, but they knock off at 4:15 p.m. Even the bums they hire to do their picketing for them — you think Teamsters are going to pay Teamster rates? — go home early.