Blowback: What happens when the left treats workers like they are on the right

Quick follow-up to my recent post directing you to Greg Bloom's In These Times expose on the outsourcing of grassroots progressive fundraising and how it is negatively impacting a whole generation of potential professional fundraisers who are leaving the field. Greg's been been continuing to cover this issue online in a series of follow-up posts.

Last week, many of these same canvassers started protesting outside of the Democratic Congressional Central Committee (DCCC), because they weren't getting paid minimum wage. Then it the hit the blogosphere. First, right wing blogs picked it up, followed by a 2004 veteran canvasser who commented:

"It was only a matter of time before the right-wing blogs caught wind of of Grassroots Campaigns Incorporated's workplace improprieties, its labor abuses in the name of the Democratic Party, and used them as ammo against the Left."

Yesterday the DCCC cancelled its contract with the canvasser's employers, Grassroots Campaigns Incorporated (GCI), the for-profit arm of the national nonprofit, Public Interest Research Group.

Unfortunately, the fact that the DCCC quickly tried to wipe itself clean of its arrangment with GCI, rather than advocating its contractors get paid a living wage, speaks loudly about the current moral state of our Donkey friends.