— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Despite the widespread criticism of the “violence” of a protester barfing on a Yahoo shuttle, it seems one techie has decided to respond with an organic projectile of their own.
@twitter employee just threw a tomato from their office windows at @seiu1021 workers protesting @mayoredlee 's corporate tax breaks. #fb
— Nato Green (@natogreen) April 16, 2014
That’s right, as the so-called “class war” ratchets up across the Bay Area, quarreling factions have foraged for the finest weaponry known to bored Victorian theater-goers. A little barf here, some leftovers there; now we’re cooking up a nauseating stew of activist bullshit.
The short-lived food fight went down at SEIU’s tax day protest, which marched from City Hall to Twitter. As Nato Green told us:
The Union was protesting Mayor Lee’s tax breaks to tech companies and the degree to which they have aggravated economic inequality and displacement.
There were around 1000 union members and supporters marching from City Hall to Twitter and back. They stopped at Twitter’s doors to deliver a symbolic tax bill. As we were leaving, I heard a splat a few feet to my left and saw a tomato had landed in our midst.
The tomato allegedly came from open windows in the buildings “middle floors.” Twitter itself occupied floors 5-11, with other tenants occupying other floors. So while it’s possible it came from someone outside the company, the building’s other tenants are not too pleased with Twitter, either. As one social worker from Golden Gate Regional Center, also inside the building, recently described Twitter employee’s stifling arrogance and ignorance to KQED:
Mid-market has changed but not that much. Every morning the mentally ill and substance abusers gather in front of our building. I heard a Twitter employee joke that he thanks Twitter every time he doesn’t smell urine on his walk to work. In his mind, Twitter was making things better. […]
One day there were protests outside our building. “People protest just to protest,” a Twitter employee said.
When contacted by Uptown Almanac, Twitter could neither confirm nor deny the incident. Which is fair, because how can anyone really know. Also? It’s a tomato.
“It’s this kind of imperious caprese attitude that’s aggravating the conflict,” Nato later joked. “The splatter was pretty though.”
[Photo: SEIU Local 1021]
Comments (14)
FOOD FIGHT!!
ugh…
SEIU: It’s not like Twitter is going to be around for ever. A few of the older faces in the photograph must remember the 90s.
Sales and marketing will be the first round of layoffs. Then the company goes belly up when the next new thing comes along.
They need policies similar to breweries where you are in trouble at the slightest whiff of any legal trouble involving alcohol because they have enough image problems already without their employees racking up DUIs. Twitter/Google/Facebook/whoever need to fire anyone caught in public acting like a douchebag to protect their image.
Maybe instead of barfing on each other and throwing food like fucking 3rd graders we could have a reasonable discussion about solutions to the housing crisis.
Were any proposed at the SEIU protest?
Ok, that came out snarkier than I wanted. Not giving tax breaks to twitter, while not a solution to the housing crisis by any means, is at least a reasonable start.
covering the barfing and the tomato, as opposed to the substance of what SEIU discussed, does not help raise the level of the discussion though.
Ironically the protesters didn’t have a permit, and took over the streets blocking Muni buses and didn’t pay a fine.
JUST LIKE THE TECH BUSES LOL OMG WTF HAHAHAHAHAHA
I love that the incident was first reported on…Twitter.
Yeah, I’ve commented about this numerous times. I’ll never understand the thought process behind anti-Twitter protestors actively (or even just occasionally) using Twitter. And please spare me the, “it gets the message out there, man” justification.
You’re not doing your cause any good by logging into Twitter 75 times a day…
Yeah but the, “you can’t take issue with tech because you use tech” line of reasonsing is flawed as well. I have a bank account. Does that prevent me from questioning the practices of the “too big to fails”? I don’t think so. But I get what you’re saying.
I don’t think these unions are protesting Twitter’s ability to reach people or their design. They’re protesting business practices, not the product. In fact, utilizing your adversary’s product to promote your message in this instance is more savvy than ironic. They’re not boycotting.
Voters already passed Prop E in 2012 to phase out the payroll tax and move towards a gross receipts tax.
Thank you. I sometimes think that I am the only person in SF who understands this.
The “violence” of vomiting on a bus isn’t what people are upset about. They’re upset about the “violence” of a brick thrown through the window of a bus full of people in December.