As you may have noticed, Jackson and Ireland were recently given sizable chunks of TV news shows and newspaper space when they held a news conference to reveal their plan of attack on Mitsubishi.
They said members of their groups would picket selected Mitsubishi dealer showrooms to protest the sexual hanky-panky that is said to have occurred at the car maker's big plant in Downstate Normal.
They also want to show their unhappiness with Mitsubishi for having 3,000 workers come to Chicago to protest the federal government's legal action against the employer.
Well, any sensible, politically correct, proper-thinking person can see the logic of the Jackson/Ireland protests.
First, we have the well-publicized lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of female Mitsubishi workers who said they were sexually harassed by male employees.
What a shocker that was. Who would have thought that in a big blue-collar industrial plant, with thousands of blue-collar workers, some males might be crude enough to behave in a lewd manner.
Then came the arrogance of the managers of the Mitsubishi plant for paying those 3,000 workers who came here and protested the lawsuit right outside of the EEOC office.
Apparently Mitsubishi didn't know that when the EEOC has a big news conference to announce that it is suing you, what you are supposed to do is beat your chest and tear your hair and express guilt and remorse and promise never to do anything bad again
and pay whatever penalties and fines the EEOC decrees, even if they might put you out of business.
Mitsubishi mistakenly thought that it, too, had the right to play the public-opinion game by encouraging some of its workers to thumb their noses at the EEOC.
But now Mitsubishi has learned a lesson: The EEOC can grab headlines by heaping mud on Mitsubishi (especially while the EEOC was looking foolish by trying to make Hooters hire men), but Mitsubishi can't try to embarrass the EEOC.
Mitsubishi also has learned that while it is OK for Jackson and PUSH to lead protests against just about anyone for just about anything, it is not OK for Mitsubishi workers to protest outside of the EEOC office.
So the followers of Jackson and Ireland, most of whom don't work on auto assembly lines, will gather outside of Mitsubishi showrooms in Chicago and other cities to discourage potential customers.
Some nit-pickers might wonder about the fairness of these protests and ask why they want to punish car salesmen and dealers who are many miles away from the Mitsubishi plant in Downstate Normal and are in no way involved in the sexual-harassment legal
action.
There are three obvious answers for that:
1. While it is true that the dealers, the salesmen and the mechanics didn't have anything to do with any sexual harassment in the Normal plant, it is possible that the horn, the hubcaps or the cigarette lighter were installed by leering boors who pinched
the buns of female co-workers.
Would any sensitive, politically correct car shopper knowingly buy a car from a salesman if there were even a slight chance that the car had been partially built by someone who would grope?
2. They will protest outside of Mitsubishi showrooms because the showrooms are there. And the customers will be there too. You can't expect dignitaries such as Jesse Jackson or Patricia Ireland to go all the way to Normal and waste time protesting
outside of an auto plant that is closed and virtually empty and motionless on a Sunday. What kind of sound and video bites would that provide the TV people?
3. When the weekend is over, Jackson and Ireland can claim a victory because more than than 99 percent of all Americans will not have bought a Mitsubishi while they were boldly protesting.
Of course, 99 percent of all Americans wouldn't have bought a Mitsubishi anyway, although they are fine cars. And my wife and I are among them since our two cars run OK. So we aren't going to buy a Ford, a Chevy, a Dodge or a Toyota either.
But we now feel better because we have made a gesture of support for Jackson and Ireland and their gesture.
And our gesture is just as meaningful and effective as their gesture, although it won't make as good a 20-second bite on the evening news.
See related Chicago Tribune package on the Mitsubishi case.
