Consider Class Identity

Meaningful Work?

The hardest and most-fraught struggle of my life has been an economic one. It is often difficult to explain what this means this to people, for whom this was not the case. Unlike contemporary kids who go back to their parental home when they are having trouble being self-supporting, many of us don’t or didn’t have that option. By age twenty-two, because of deaths and remarriage, I no longer had a family to return to if I had nowhere else to go.  My family of origin was never wealthy to begin with. My parents, an insurance salesman who worked on commission and a secretary were not regarded as accomplished in this culture. And following our mother’s untimely death, my seventeen-year old sister and I took off for California in her car, to try to make a life for ourselves.

Yes, it was easier to make a living in those years, even in the Bay Area. Working part-time, paying rent and eating was possible then. But there were things I had to learn. To act obsequious and smile were two feats I found particularly difficult. I learned to swallow my pride when gays, lesbians or Jews were insulted, and this happened more often than I’d expected. Even though I was a chronic insomniac, I managed to get up early and go each day to a place where I was neither welcomed nor respected. You could call it prostitution. It was certainly soul-draining, humiliating and degrading. I did it for money, because it was necessary. I did it because I had no other options.

In lesbian activist groups in which I was a participant, friends would tell me how odd it was that I did such politically incorrect work. They said they could only perform a job if it was meaningful and fulfilling. I listened politely not bothering to explain that I didn’t have that luxury. Some of them didn’t procure work until their early thirties. Many never did get paying work and lived on trust funds while pursing art or politics. They put their energy into activities that had the potential of changing the world and looked down on folks like myself. I envied them. They were often very nice people who knew the right behavior for every situation. This knowledge of propriety was a totally new concept to me. I had trouble holding on to jobs, partly because I was too honest.

On three different jobs, all of which I was hoping to hold for a relatively long time, I was fired. It usually happened after I came out as lesbian. On one, after being outed in the SF Chronicle in a Sunday Gay Pride Parade, I was fired Monday, the very next day. Were these firings homophobic? Of course. But they were also class-related because of my poor social skills.

When I visited Cuba, two years ago, I met lots of very poor people. They had tons of issues due to poverty but fear of having no food and no place to live because of lack of money was not among them. Their rent and some basic food staples were given them by the government, but most make less than the equivalent of twenty dollars a month. Insufficient as it was, they had a safety net, unlike the potential free fall in a deep well that we have here in the USA.

I don’t need to worry and struggle anymore. In later life I learned my lesson. I went back to school, Because I could keep only union jobs, I looked for that protection and my work life as an older worker was easier. But my entire journey is part of my identity. When a political person who never experienced the anxiety and pressure of needing to earn their living, speaks to me as though our allotment of “privilege” is the same, I get extremely angry. If I bring up class issues in response, it is often dismissed as a sour grapes thing. “She can’t help her background,” might be said. Of course, she can’t change her circumstances, we are all born with some assets and liabilities.

But now, more than ever, white folks are acknowledging the way race has helped them move through the world. This is a change for the better. It is the same with class advantage. No-one is saying they hate you but our identities are not the same. Never make assumptions that your story is true for anyone else. Open your eyes to the many different routes we all must take to arrive at the same place. And like all members of a wide variety of groups, try to see people in all their identities, all their colors. Life is not just where you wind up. It is also an equation involving the distance traveled.

Unions: Safety and Discrimination Protection

The two tragic fires that have killed workers in Bangladesh remind us of labor’s history in the early years of the twentieth century when the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire killed 146 garment workers most of them Jewish and Italian immigrant women.

Capitalism actively condones the murder of dispensable commodities like people who provide unskilled or semi-skilled labor. Now even the sweatshops of China are moving to even cheaper, less-regulated Bangladesh. American companies like Wal-Mart and Apple have increasingly relied on cheap third-world labor to produce their products as wages plummet and safety regulations evaporate in the United States, our country will once again look like a more desirable sweatshop location for vulture capitalists of all stripes.

With the active collusion of some large city mayors like Rahm Emanuel (Chicago) and Cory Booker (Newark) both labor union power and membership are diminishing. Unions have become an endangered species and will soon go the way of the dodo.

Yes, labor unions fight for the safety concerns of workers. These are paramount. Without your life, a job isn't worth much. But they also fight for job security and retention. The “employment at will” doctrine that is applied in the United States means any worker can be terminated for any reason whatsoever, whether or not it is job related.

If I had been unable to seek out union jobs, I could easily have been a street person instead of a retired homeowner. As a political activist and openly lesbian worker, I have been fired from employment in at least three instances where I was dismissed with the comment, “Your work is fine, you just don’t fit in.” Eating and having shelter are very important factors for a decent quality of life. They are necessary for both those who fit in as well as those who do not. It makes me angry and sad to think that LGBT young people today, who are lacking family emotional and financial support, cannot keep themselves out of poverty.

We desperately need international guidelines concerning workers’ safety. We also need non-discrimination laws to protect the livelihoods of non-traditional employees. Our lives and our jobs should not be too much to ask. We must resuscitate the unions before it is too late. 

Chicago Teachers Strike Hope in the Hearts of Workers

Chicago Teachers
and Supporters

Who would have the chutzpah to go out on strike in a vicious anti-worker climate like this? The answer, has now been made loud and clear as the Chicago Teachers with support from their union and a large percentage of parents in their districts is out on strike for a third day.

Wages are not even their main grievance. They are protesting the pressure to teach solely to obtain test scores rather than overall education. Teaching has become a humiliation fest for those educators in the most difficult schools where getting students to memorize answers and inane details of a culturally insensitive exam has become increasingly irrelevant. One of the latest techniques in New York City has been to publish the names of teachers along with their test scores in the paper.

Other issues of concern include unwieldy class size, lack of job security (teachers have been turned into temp workers), the rising cost of health care and the attempted privatization of the US education system by the spread of charter schools that employ young, non-certified idealists for a couple of years until they are burned out and move on to their "real" careers.

Obama, contrary to Romney's statements, has not expressed support for the strike and, in past speeches, has echoed the prevailing opinion that teachers' concern for these issues along with fair pay, job security, healthcare and pension benefits is nothing but selfish blather. Perpetuating this attitude of bullying and mistreating teachers is his former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. Now, as the mayor of Chicago, Emanuel has been a driving force behind the vilification of unions and the teachers they represent.

A system that treats its teachers as no more than machine parts, a collection of implements of instruction that can be used and discarded, will not encourage a generation to engage in critical thinking and analysis. It will only serve to create a minimally literate underclass and deepen the ever-widening abyss of economic inequality.

So onward Chicago teachers! We wish you the best and are inspired by your determination.

The War on Workers Intensifies

As Republican reactionaries wage their battle against the most fundamental of women's rights and Rush Limbaugh flaunts his pathetic ignorance, the war against workers, unions and the most basic of protections such as job security, paid sick time and health benefits continues at every level.

Teachers are the latest public enemy and the drive in New York to evaluate them publicly based on the test scores of their students is gaining momentum. At long last teachers are speaking out and being published in the mainstream media. "Confessions of a 'Bad' Teacher," appeared in the New York Times and "What Value is Added by Publicly Shaming Teachers?" appeared on the Huffington Post.

My own workplace, a large library system in that city by the bay, has joined the trend, shamelessly hammering the relatively few employees who are still working there. Everyone who could retire, has done so and I must add that I am hoping to join them shortly. In the meantime, and it is mean time in every sense of the word, threatening and provocative emails arrive in our inboxes almost weekly, warning us of how we will lose our employment if we conduct any sort of political activity, even on our own time, from work computers.

Oh, did I forget to add that we are in contract negotiations?

The latest threat letter was specifically geared to employees on part-time requisitions (of which I am one) who are seeking extra hours through a substitute-finding database linked to all the Library Branches. I'm not going to bore you to death with direct quotes from this unsavory document but I can sum it up like this: Employees are not permitted to search for extra hours on work time, even during their own breaks. And employees who use any combination of sick leave on their regular work hours when they are scheduled to sub in a given week, will be penalized by not being allowed to use the sub service for time periods ranging from 1 month up to six months.

I am aware that some people, to get more work hours, sometimes schedule themselves for seven days a week of work, followed by another seven. So you can see why someone who is working this way may need to use some sick time to keep going. Oh, did I tell you how much work we have because we are so understaffed? Or how stressed out and crazy members of the public have gotten since the economy went into the toilet.

Well if I didn't, just use your imagination!

(Disclaimer: This entry was written on my own time, at home from my personal computer) 

Labor and the Left in SF: Refusing to Mingle

I marched for workers on May Day in San Francisco. The march was morale-building, energizing, an extremely SF-style event. Mission Street brimming with thousands of foks. (I won't get into the estimating racket here but 3-7,000 probably covers it). Immigrants rights, all kinds of civil rights, queer immigration rights, Arizona boycotts, Gray Panthers, Code Pink and of course, worker's rights. Individual members of unions were there with some renegade signs, but the split between labor and the left in the Golden State was evident. SEIU held separate events and will hold a rally of its own on the SF Embacadero today, Tuesday May 3rd.

This isn't a lovers' quarrel, this spat between organized labor and the organized left. It's more like a gaping abyss, a great divide. In Wisconsin, the two groups, labor and the left actually came together and it was inspiring to see cops and firefighters in the same room as avowed socialists, pulling together for the same end.

Here in San Francisco California it's kind of a warriors versus worriers situation. Leftists want big change, but have a bad reputation for being insular and dogmatic. There is some truth to this. But the left is way ahead of labor on the analysis part of the big picture. You can't have rights for working people without considering the ways that society oppresses everyone. The Latin origin of the word radical means "at the root." And deep rooted change is what we need. An end to severe economic disparities, civil rights for all people, freedom of speech and the press and the whole laundry list of causes that shape societal attitudes and cause the repression of some individuals.

But the labor movement is worried. Part of that worry is because it isn't the thirties anymore. Labor has gotten far too complicit with management, forcing workers to take all sorts of concessions to pacify and pander to the bosses instead of focusing on improving the quality of life for their members. They are also worried about aligning themselves with the "wrong" people. Many union big-wigs rely on the status quo for their paychecks. Still, the public face of labor is changing. It isn't as straight, white and male as it used to be. In spite of that it still keeps one foot in the McCarthy era. The "Red Scare," is part of what prevents them from uniting with another despised segment of the population, radicals and leftists.

So much is at stake now. If we're going to win this struggle we're going to have to unite and find some common ground. It will take more than the unions' "working families" rhetoric to bring people together. Fighting bigotry is an essential component of our struggle. If organized labor won't come out for these issues we will just have to come to them. So move over boys. Ready or not, here we come!

Can We Commandeer This Handbasket?

Happy Birthday Cesar Chavez. You must be restless in your grave today.

Ohio has just rammed through an anti-union bill even more drastic than Wisconsin's. The senate vote was along party line but Republican outnumber Democrats so it was a done deal. The clause that would put striking workers in jail was deleted. Ohioans are pinning their hopes on a November referendum to defeat the measure.

In Michigan governor Rick Snyder is now going after unemployment benefits, hoping to cut them down from 26 weeks to 20.

Governor Paul La Page of Maine is in the process of removing a mural depicting workers from the Labor Department wall.

And in Florida, Governor Rick Scott has proposed the drug testing of all public sector workers.

Alternet's Joshua Holland has uncovered a brutally, naked plan by Republicans to lay-off state and city employees to free up an educated segment of the work force for the private sector. This, they claim, will reduce "labor costs." Of course it will. By eliminating, decent, middle-class jobs and forcing us all to work for peanuts will reduce manufacturing costs and bring the US into line with other struggling third world nations.

And determined Dairyland Dictator Scott Walker has illegally published his new law against collective bargaining, against the instructions of a judge who will be hearing the case, and has tried to implement benefit and pension cuts by trimming their paychecks on his own. Today another judge put an end to his despotism.

So, the gloves are off and all pretense is gone. The choices have been narrowed down to the lowest common denominator. Either we fight back or we get steamrollered into oblivion. April 4th is a day of actions nationwide Check the site: http://www.we-r-1.org/ for updates on your area. Organizing is also beginning for a May 1st action in San Francisco in honor of International Workers Day. See you in the streets!

An Injury to One...

"This is our Moment, Everybody up off the Couch Now!" is a quote from Michael Moore on Democracy Now where he appeared today speaking out against the abhorrent tactics used by Wisconsin governor Scott Walker to railroad through his controversial "budget repair bill." Moore galvanized both Madison and the country with his moving speech on Saturday railing against the ever-unfolding damage done to working Americans as a result of the Wall Street meltdown of 2008. But yesterday evening, March 9th, Scott Walker trampled our rights further by reworking his bill stripping workers of collective bargaining rights. He divided the old bill into two smaller parts that required only a simple majority, instead of a quorum, to pass. With the Democratic 14 still out of state, it took only minutes to pass this totalitarian, draconian piece of pseudo-legislation with only one dissenting vote.  So, T(yranny) Party faithful, Walker pulled a fast one on the people of Wisconsin and the people of the USA. While the legality of his move remains to be decided in a court of law, the ramifications of his undemocratic action are already underway.

A recent, similar bill in Michigan, not only strips bargaining rights but makes it legal for the governor or his designated representatives to appoint an "emergency financial manager" who would have nearly unlimited financial power over decisions ranging from workers' contracts to the running of school districts and the removal of elected city officials.

Even my home state, Ohio, has passed a union-busting bill that eliminated the ability of public sector workers to bargain for health care, pay raises and seniority issues, plus mandates a fine or jail time for workers who go out on strike.

All this is happening under the auspices of "budget repair." While there is an unhealthy dose of  Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine" philosophy in this strategy, eliminating the power of unions is a major, financial stepping stone to defeating Obama in 2012. After the inappropriately named, Citizens United decision, (stating that for purposes of political fundraising, corporations can be perceived as individuals thereby giving them license to buy government elections) the unions are the last source of significant amounts of capital available to the left.

Since these developments, the State House in Madison has been flooded with people who are resuming their campout. Saturday, the agricultural workers will be riding their tractors into Madison and I'm betting that they will have lots of company. Those of us in the rest of the country need to get off our butts as well and make our presence known in our respective states and cities. This is our moment, there may not be another. See you in the streets!

Protest Spreads to Ohio

The Streets of Columbus

The Midwest seems to be rousing the American working-class from its long, winter's nap that has had it hypnotized by T-Party nonsense since the crash and banker bailout of 2008. As an anti-christ, agnostic I must say, Praise the lord and pass me a picket sign!

We have stood by passive and mute as the financiers of Wall Street rifled through our pockets, taking our homes, our jobs and chunks of our salaries. As a public-sector worker, I have undergone wage freezes, furlough days and pay cuts, all the while watching the anti-austerity protests in Greece, Ireland with awe wondering what it was going to take to get us out on the streets again.

Then came Iran which, although they were creamed, was an inspiring battle. Of late the people of Tunisia, Bahrain, Algeria and, of course Egypt have all entered the fray as well, spurred on by some of the same conditions we experience here, falling wages, rising prices and a general lowering of the quality of life. In Egypt the people actually drove out a dictator even though the kind of government they will build remains to be seen.

Now the Wisconsin struggle to hold onto the last vestige of unions, collective bargaining, has spread to the state where I was raised and the town of my old alma mater, Columbus Ohio. Will this be a watershed moment, a turning point for US politics or will this be the beginning of a clash between left and right wing Americans, with have-nots fighting each other in the streets? Civil rights or civil war? I am hoping for the former. That working-class T-party reactionaries will wake up to the fact that fighting against decent wages, benefits and health care is contrary to their own interests.

"Family Values"--the New American Mantra

Childless folks, especially those of the queer persuasion have been cast in the role of pariah, the new American enemy. I'm not fond of the institution of marriage, the very same one that brought us domestic violence, incest, child abuse, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I am all for same-sex marriage, mind you, I believe that we queers are entitled to full civil rights and to be just as unhappy as straight people.  I understand that the right-wing and tea-party wingnuts roll out the family values wagon at every opportunity. What I object to is when the left takes up the cry as well, sometimes with queer breeders in their ranks.

Of late, my union, SEIU, has begun making all its references to "working families" instead of that old Marxist favorite, "workers." This nouveau McCarthyism that casts us all as family units is working my last nerve. I am not only proud to have a friendship group instead of a biological family, I am lucky as well. I actually get to select the folks I spend time with instead of being stuck with them. The friendship group (FG?) that I have does include my biological sister and my not-so-domestic partner, who I have been with for 12 years and no, we don't live together, but I'll get into that in another post.

I have often wanted a bumper sticker that says, "Nuke the Nuclear Family," but I'm opposed to nuclear weapons so it might be counter productive.