Doing their best to make things worse.

The unionized workers at Hawaiian Electric Company (represented by IBEW) have been negotiating a new contract for some weeks now, but without coming to an agreement. Yesterday was set as a strike deadline.

But– just as the weather people had predicted – yesterday also saw the arrival of a storm with rain and high winds. Sure enough, power went out to about 8,000 homes on the leeward side of Oahu.

And the union guys walked off the job anyway, leaving a vastly reduced workforce -- a few management people and some workers recruited from private electrical contractors -- scrambling to get power back to all those families.

So back in Wisconsin we have public employees doing their best to fight off the blatant union-busting efforts of Scott Walker, the dumb-ass Republican governor there.

And here in Hawaii we have dumb-ass union guys giving all unions a bad name with the worst-possible timing of their walk-out.

What the hell are they thinking?
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