The Adventures of Echo (Part 2)

When we last left our valiant hero, he and his sister had just been swirled away from their safe home into the cut-throat world of economics television. After completing The Wage Rate is Right they were swirled away to the Economics 6 o'clock news. Let's catch up with them now:

Echo fell through the dark abyss to his next destination. When he landed on pavement he was cushioned by a strange woman who he later realized was Barbara Walters. "Are you a good reporter or a bad reporter?" the cameraman asked while Barbara's assistant was humming ding-dong the witch is dead (sorry I couldn't resist). But never fear Barbara fans, it was not Barabara who was squished and then was forced to retreat into her trailer, but Barbara Walter's evil-alternate-dimensional twin.

With evil-Barbara gone, the cameraman handed Andi and Echo microphones while giving them the scoop on what was going on.

"I'm Frank, and I can't tell you how glad we all are that you destroyed the wicked witch. Now we're going to need you two to fill in for her though. We were just about to cover a story on the worker's protest from the labor union who was building the orange brick road."

"Don't you mean yellow?" Echo asked.

"What's labor union?" Andi wondered aloud.

"Well firstly, yes I do mean an orange brick road, and a labor union is an organization which tries to get a higher pay for it's members. Recently the demand for more streets to come off of the orange brick road have increased but the pay of the vertically challenged lunchkins who work on the road has not also increased so the workers decided to hold a strike and to stop work to put pressure on their employer Emobola, the some-what nasty powerful person of the northwest. So if you're ready we'll be on in 3....2....1..."

Echo was stunned. With an exception of his last adventure, he had never been on a camera before, and definitely never done a news report before. "Ummm Good Evening umm" he looked over at Frank, "Roz, I'm Echo and this is my sister...."

"Andi." Andi chirped up, happy to be in the spotlight.

"Tonight we're covering a story about the protest for higher wages from the workers on the Orange Brick Road."

"People.." Andi motioned towards a crowd of small people who were waving protest signs. When Echo, Andi and Frank reached them they felt out of place, like giants who've stepped into a town of non-giants (really descriptive I know). In order to interview the first man, Echo had to kneel down, but Andi was at ease and all of the vertically challenged lunchkins warmed up to her. Echo on the other hand, was having a hard time getting anyone to answer his questions. It wasn't until Andi asked one of the workers one of Echo's questions that he got an answer.

"All no work?" she asked

"Well," said the lunchkin who's name was Vlanderthemagnificent, "I deeply would have desired that everyone was on strike, but due to the right-to-slave-for-Emobola laws which are very similar to your right to work laws, not everyone is required to join the OBRU (Orange Brick Road Union) to work for Emobola, and if say I wanted to get a job working for her sister the somewhat-nicer-powerful person-of- the southeast, I wouldn't be required to join her union if I wanted to get a job. So basically to get to the point, not everyone is here, because not everyone is part of the union."

"How did the right-to-slave-for Emobola come to be?" asked Echo, but he was ignored.

"Why no-un-one for some lunchkins?" Andi asked, and five lunchkins tried to answer her at once. She pointed to one of the lunchkins in the front who's name was VlandothenotsomagnificentasVlander.

"Well originally our union worked with a closed door policy, where only union members were hired. Over the past few years, though, not everyone who wanted to work on the Orange Brick Road wanted to join the union. They felt uncomfortable because the steelman who runs the union doesn't have a ..."

"Heart?" Echo interrupted.

"No silly boy, an appendix. Anyway it was then that the Vlandathemostmagnificentofall Act was passed which is very similar to your Taft-Hartley Act which outlawed closed door policies like that. Now for a while we had a union shop, where all workers were required to work for the union for at least a little while but that was outlawed by the right-to-slave- for Emobola Act."

"What will happen to the pay of those who are not on the union?" Echo got an evil look.

"What happen to no-un-one?" Andi asked

"Well," said Vlandithenotsomagnificent, "Usually their pay would be less than ours by about 10%, but we hope to get higher wages for them to in the long run."

"Well that's a wrap!" Frank said as he turned off the camera. "Now to the editing board where I'll trim the story down to 30 seconds and put two commercials in the middle." he turned to Echo, "You don't mind if I cut you out do you?"

But before Echo could protest, he started spinning. "Not Again." he thought.