Take the "Hard Hat Pledge"

Imagine that your employment had been spotty, or non-existent, for months.  Chances are if you work in the construction industry you have been sitting on the sidelines for a very long time now.  So along comes a major building project that will take many, many months to complete and suddenly the possibility of working 10s and 12s (overtime) after scraping by could be a reality.  Would you turn that job, and fat paycheck, down?  If the "project" is the Ground Zero Mosque, you just might.

A growing number of New York construction workers are vowing not to work on the mosque planned near Ground Zero.

“It’s a very touchy thing because they want to do this on sacred ground,” said Dave Kaiser, 38, a blaster who is working to rebuild the World Trade Center site.

“I wouldn’t work there, especially after I found out about what the imam said about U.S. policy being responsible for 9/11,” Kaiser said.

The grass-roots movement is gaining momentum on the Internet. One construction worker created the “Hard Hat Pledge” on his blog and asked others to vow not to work on the project if it stays on Park Place.

“Thousands of people are signing up from all over the country,” said creator Andy Sullivan, a construction worker from Brooklyn. “People who sell glass, steel, lumber, insurance. They are all refusing to do work if they build there.”

“Hopefully, this will be a tool to get them to move it,” he said. “I got a problem with this ostentatious building looming over Ground Zero.”

It is easy to take stand when it doesn't cost anything but the men and women who take this pledge do so at great personal expense.  I am proud of each and every one of them.

More at Potluck.