When I was a union member and then a union officer I had to walk the picket line. When I was an officer I was in charge of two picket lines and walked them both.

This is hot, tiring and discouraging work. People couldn’t receive union benefits for pay unless they walked the picket line.

Things have changed. Now the unions outsource their picket lines and for more money than I ever got for union benefits to walk the line.

The picketers marching in a circle in front of a downtown Washington office building chanting about low wages do not seem fully focused on their message.

Many have arrived with large suitcases or bags holding their belongings, which they keep in sight. Several are smoking cigarettes. One works a crossword puzzle. Another bangs a tambourine, while several drum on large white buckets. Some of the men walking the line call out to passing women, “Hey, baby.” A few picketers gyrate and dance while chanting: “What do we want? Fair wages. When do we want them? Now.”

Although their placards identify the picketers as being with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters, they are not union members.

They’re hired feet, or, as the union calls them, temporary workers, paid $8 an hour to picket. Many were recruited from homeless shelters or transitional houses. Several have recently been released from prison. Others are between jobs.

“It’s about the cash,” said Tina Shaw, 44, who lives in a House of Ruth women’s shelter and has walked the line at various sites. “We’re against low wages, but I’m here for the cash.”

Carpenters locals across the country are outsourcing their picket lines, hiring the homeless, students, retirees and day laborers to get their message across. Larry Hujo, a spokesman for the Indiana-Kentucky Regional Council of Carpenters, calls it a “shift in the paradigm” of picketing.

I guess the unions are collecting so much in dues these days they can afford to hire temps to do their picketing. The problem is, as you can see, they don’t have the fire in their bellies a real union member would have about these issues.