Who you gonna call? Strikebusters!

There is more than a little irony that Wackenhut, the second largest private security firm in the country, is the target of a union organizing drive.

A protest is planned today in Milwaukee at the local Wackenhut office during the NAACP national convention to protest the company's refusal to allow its workers to organize. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is trying to organize Wackenhut workers across the country, as evidenced by 91 unfair labor practice complaints filed against the company in the last five years.

Wackenhut, founded by an ex-FBI agent, made its reputation as a brass-knuckle security company that would do whatever dirty work needed to be done -- including strike-breaking.

The firm has a long anti-labor history that often has involved providing security for strikebreakers -- let's just call them scabs and get it over with -- who are crossing picket lines during a strike.

I had never heard of Wackenhut until 1977, when they were hired by Madison Newspapers, Inc. to guard the plant where the Capital Times and Wisconsin State Journal are produced. Who were they guarding it from? The 200 striking members of five unions -- journalists, printers, press operators, mailers, and circulation managers.

Like bringing Chicago lawyers to the bargaining table, hiring Wackenhut for security was a sign the newspapers meant business. And they did. When the strike ended 18 months later, there were no unions in the building, and strikers had been permanently replaced by scabs. (I speak from experience.)

We used to talk, through the cyclone fence, to and try to raise the consciousness of the Wackenhuts (which is what we called them), none of whom were local. They were young, underpaid, but in need of jobs. "You're on the wrong side," we'd tell them, explaining why we were on the picket line and urging them to join us. But we never had a taker.

It's with great interest, then, that I read the releases and fact sheets about the current organizing struggle. Some Wackenhuts today make only $7.45 an hour, and most of them have less than an hour's training in handling emergencies, crime, accidents, first or evacuation.

They clearly belong on the union side of the picket line, not providing muscle for management.

There is much, much more to the Wackenhut record. I haven't even scratched the surface. Wackenhut compiled dossiers on millions of Americans in the 1950s and 1960s. It has worked covertly with the CIA and DEA. It runs detention facilities for Homeland Security, including one where detainees staged a hunger strike to protest their treatment. Source Watch, a project of the Center for Media and Democracy, has much more. Or Google for yourself. You'll be amazed.

Undoubtedly one of the nagging questions for the management of Wackenhut, now a subsidiary of a Danish conglomerate is: If our guards are unionized, how on earth will we be able to dispatch them to break strikes? It's not something the SEIU is likely to waive in its contract, if it ever gets one.

And is Wackenhut workers go on strike, who they gonna call -- Strikebusters?