Striking Steelworkers Union Prompts the Worst Job Listing of All Time

We’ve heard of working long hours, but this is ridiculous.

Over 2,000 union workers have been locked out of their jobs at steel factories managed by Pittsburgh-based Allegheny Technologies since mid-August. But that hasn’t stopped the company from continuing work. Allegheny Technologies tapped another company called Strom Engineering to provide replacement workers to cross picket lines and take up for the unionized employees on strike.

To get contract employees to enter into this particularly compromising situation you’d think Strom — which specializes in providing labor to companies whose workforce is on strike — would dangle some incentives in front of would-be scabs. But you’d be wrong. The company advertised openings at a Pittsburgh-area factory with a Craigslist ad touting “$1,700 to $3,000 per week based on position, skills and experience,” for an 84-hour work week. Yikes.

Behold! The worst job listing ever:

The listing makes no bones about just how low-down and despicable it is. The line about how “THIS IS A LABOR DISPUTE SITUATION - EMPLOYEES WILL BE TRANSPORTED ACROSS A PICKET LINE,” makes that perfectly clear. But by our limited math skills, the posting lists the work as equal to busting your hump 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Throw in the fact that you’d be a scab crossing some fairly heated picket lines and this goes down as quite a doozy. What’s sadder is that it’s a legal doozy.

Work-starved people have crossed picket lines throughout history, but according to Quartz, the egregious working hour request is a common occurrence when strikes cut into project deadlines. But, they also point out that a National Labor Relations Board ruling about contractors and the companies that hire them in these types of situations could make them equally liable for any legal infractions stemming from unfair labor practice lawsuits.

Either way, hopefully no one will have to work 84 hours a week and die trying.