(Reuters) — An Ohio man who rose to fame
as "Joe the Plumber" by challenging then-presidential candidate Barack
Obama on tax policy in 2008 has taken a unionized job with one of the
U.S. Big Three automakers, he said on his website.
Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, a conservative, announced on Sunday
that he recently had the "fortune of being hired by a great
company", Chrysler Corporation, where all workers must be United
Automobile Workers union members.
"Can a conservative work safely and soundly in a union environment — in a shop filled with union workers, activists, voters and life-long
supporters of the Democrat Party? You betcha," he wrote in a blog
post on JoeforAmerica.com.
On his fourth day at Chrysler, however, as Wurzelbacher was on a
smoke break, he said a co-worker called him a "teabagger," a term he
said is usually meant as an insult to Tea Party members.
"Most union workers have not been mean, and quite a few asked me
questions and talked with me and are cool with me," he wrote. He
also wrote that he opposes public unions because "taxpayers are
never properly represented at the bargaining table."
As for private unions, he wrote that "it's an American worker's
right to unionize for sure, but that being said, don't expect me not
to point out when or if union leadership takes advantage of union
members."
In 2008, Wurzelbacher put himself in the national spotlight by
questioning then-candidate Obama on tax policy as the future
president campaigned door-to-door in an Ohio neighborhood.
Republican 2008 presidential candidate John McCain and others
embraced Wurzelbacher as a working-class everyman who would be hurt
by Obama's tax plans. But his reputation suffered when it was
revealed the tradesman was not, in fact, a licensed plumber.
Wurzelbacher ran for a U.S. House seat in 2012 but lost in the
general election.
(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien; editing by Cynthia Johnston and Ken
Wills)
