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.

Where the Sustainability Movement Falters...

Of late, I have been participating in a resilience circle. These groups are organized offshoots of the "sustainability" movement whose goal is to create a local, independent economy which can but does not necessarily use currency as a standard of exchange. Theirs is a noble and idealistic vision. But alone, it is not viable for scattered people and communities. The struggle is as unattainable as trying to bring socialism in one fragment of a country in a rabidly capitalist world.

We dare not underestimate the raw power of capital and its well-armed defenders. The magnitude of the force and repression unleashed against the Occupy Movement, particularly in the United States, is just one small example of what we're up against. This once sleeping dog will not settle back into slumber without a fight. People who desire a more humane and interractive world have to actively battle for it on many fronts. The economic struggle is significant, the environmental struggle absolutely critical but these two alone are not enough.

It is imperative that we also organize ourselves against the hatred that is tossed out for our consumption, like a wad of raw meat in order to divert the attention of the underclass and manipulate us into taking out our frustration on one another.

We are given all kinds of targets to keep us busy with hatred and suspicion: immigrants, people of color, women, LGBT folks, Muslims, Jews, atheists and agnostics, even the nebulous category, "intellectuals." To ignore organized prejudice when it rears its ugly head is a huge omission that will defeat our struggle.

I used to mollify myself by calling up that myth, made popular in the book and movie "Exodus," that the people of Denmark all wore yellow stars so the Nazi couldn't pick out and round up Danish Jews. It is a noble, heart-warming story but, like many stories, it is fiction. Nonetheless, we will all have to emulate this fictitious example of our higher nature on the streets and in our communities as certain groups are singled out for mistreatment both by law as well as by lack of legal protection.

Examples of organized lawlessness include the fact African-Americans have served as a kind of shooting gallery for police of late making it clear that some people are more expendable than others. Lack of legal protection has splintered immigrant families, singled out LGBT people for all kinds of discrimination. Laws against rights have prevented many couples from marrying and are now beginning to target women's control of their/our own bodies. Workers, now desperate for jobs, are losing benefits, pensions job security and any control over the conditions in which they work.

No one person can change these terrible injustices alone. We must have an agenda, a complete program that includes both the environment and its people. Doing so requires a discipline, an inclusion and a unity that we didn't have in the seventies when we tried so hard to change the world. We can and must learn from these mistakes. We may not have a second chance.  

Do Managers Merit Admiration?

"Look at me, you fools!"

As I settle into a retired, more gratifying lifestyle, I am in a perpetual state of disbelief. I've never been in a situation where I am not working and not looking for a job. The fact that I never have to return to my workplace of nearly eighteen years seems totally unbelievable.

In my last year at work, the environment deteriorated completely. The element of forced scheduling and overwork certainly  were contributing factors but these alone do not explain how the relationships between my own immediate superiors and myself eroded so rapidly and thoroughly.

I have come to realize that when the iron fists emerges from the velvet glove all the veneer of civility falls away. As a worker, I lost my subtlety as well. No longer could I go through the motions of a devoted employee when we were under such blatant attack. The glue that held the precarious employer/employee relationship together in the past was gone. A huge component of that glue consists of the qualities of admiration and emulation which management types rely onto do their dirty work. No matter how bitter the pills are, that underlings are expected to swallow, many swallow them readily because, someday they would like to be the ones distributing them. When it is clear that a worker holds no desire to climb that ladder they are on, management has no more carrot. They are left only with the stick.

 I admire and wish to emulate many people. Among them are writers, artists, musicians and political activists. I admire all kinds of scientists, doctors, professors and intellectuals putting forth interesting hypotheses and theories. You know, people who actually accomplish something. They do not have to achieve mainstream "success" to earn my admiration, only to be engaged in worthwhile pursuits.

I have zero admiration for people whose main goal is to get others to perform tasks for them. Managers are no more than puppeteers who reap the rewards of manipulation and deception while profiting off the labor of others, an inherently repellent idea whose time has come and gone.

Dehumanization in the Capitalist Workplace

Along with the relatively recent rebirth of a movement against economic injustice has come not only questioning not only of the great wealth divide but also the structure of the capitalist workplace itself. As jobs disappear many are re-examining the hierarchy of the American labor force and formulating ways to make it more just and humane.

Marxist economist Richard Wolff points out that financial transactions don’t work within the family unit because they promote greed and discord, so why would anyone expect these same skewed priorities to function any differently in the workplace?

Capitalism requires all workplace interactions at work to have, at their foundation, the profit motive that requires the maximum accumulation of capital is the goal of any endeavor. In a service industry such as a hospital, library or school, this goal translates to servicing the greatest number of people with the lowest amount of expenditure. This is effected by a work speed up requiring more desk hours, patients and ever-increasing class sizes. In order to enforce this speed-up, the pressure is applied to middle management.

This group consists of folks who are offered extra goodies in exchange for extracting the maximum amount of monetary value from the effort of each worker, like squeezing as much juice as possible from an orange. There are always people willing to control others in return for their own personal comfort but no matter how you slice it, this process is inherently unpleasant. 

In the workplace it is commonly accomplished in one of two ways: manipulation or intimidation. Most often, it winds up being a combination of both. Manipulation includes not only the concept of worker discipline, but the more pleasant aspects of a worker/manager relationship as well. For example, praise for work is included here. While, in some cases, this may be genuine, it also serves the function of motivating the worker to continue to work hard. Intimidation is the method that is more fundamental to the manager/worker relationship. Every interaction at work harbors veiled threats to the survival of the worker because, at any moment, his position could be terminated. In the private sector, where the“employment at will” doctrine prevails, job insecurity creates perpetual stress. It is only with the advent of union protection that working people were granted a bit of relief from this sword of Damocles. 

In an inauthentic, contrived, highly-pressurized environment like the capitalist workplace, collateral damage is everywhere. In public sector work, managers are trained to distance themselves from treating and even perceiving their subordinates as human beings. Training workshops are instituted to instruct them not to engage their underlings in genuine conversations about the actual concerns in their lives. Any opening that might let friendship in must be slammed shut. This would interfere with the credo of putting production first and foremost. A philosophy where suppressing anything close to emotional intimacy is an absolute necessity.

For starters, we can begin rethinking and reworking ideas that have ceased to function properly and replace them with a more beneficial and productive vision. We all deserve something better. How can we create a cooperative workplace? Is there a way to pay people for creative contributions to society, not just wage slavery? A cooperative model would be a good starting point. Those who have a say in their lives at work will be more likely to pull together for a common goal. In a world where everyone can earn compensation for some kind of contribution, there would be no need for every exchange to be predatory or adversarial.

Alliances are stronger than hierarchies. Subordination only breeds varying degrees of resentment.. We are all tired of the tired old degrading capitalist model that is now longer functioning. Instead of begging for a piece of the pie, now is the time to throw out the moldy mess and begin to bake something entirely new.

Management Manipulation of an Economic Crisis

Richard Wolff

One of my favorite economists, the open and unabashedly Marxist Richard Wolff, states the following about a concept very foreign to American workers, democracy in the workplace. He begins by commenting that for a democracy-loving people, Americans sure do make a glaring exception for the world of work:

"If democracy belongs anywhere, it belongs in the workplace. Yet we accept, as if it were a given, that once we cross the threshold of our store, factory, or office, we give up all democratic rights. If this agreement at least delivered a rising standard of living, it might make sense that people would accept it. But now we have an economic system that imposes an undemocratic workplace and doesn’t deliver a decent economy in exchange."

Wolff finds it both stunning and amazing that a freedom-loving, group of people who extol the virtues of individual initiative should find an authoritarian-style work environment inevitable.He finds the uncritical acceptance of status hierarchy not only oppressive to workers but counter to productivity as well. 

Of course, the fact that co-operative style workplaces where everyone has a voice and an interest in the organization's success operate more efficiently and humanely is a no-brainer. Even when the product is public service at, for example, a large urban library, a democratic workplace could improve both morale and efficiency, making the institution more relevant and meaningful to all who are involved in its operation.

The current concept of increasing productivity involves a certain type of management that plays down any human commonality between those on the serving end of instruction and those receiving it. This strategy is basically just the sugar-coating of a management manifesto of manipulation. The workshop tips that proliferate in the civil service workplace are indicative of the contempt in which employees are held.  

What exactly are these apprentice managers, some of whom make only about $5,000 a year more than their charges, learning? Shocking, anti-human things like how to avoiding exchanging personal information or having any kind of a genuine relationship with inferiors. They are boning up on ways to ward off and field questions from underlings in order to avoid any degree understanding or emotional intimacy. They are provided a treasure trove of stock phrases to parrot back regarding sick pay, vacation pay or any kind of personal leave. In short, the foundation of this "management training" consists of indoctrination in the "skills" of remaining aloof and barking out directives at people who are assumed to be lazy, devious, potential scammers.

I have worked at my library workplace for seventeen years and have, of late, witnessed its deterioration into a sweat shop. It started when the San Francisco City Librarian gave birth to the idea to keep on only a skeletal staff. This wasn't done by layoffs but simply by no replacement workers being hired after folks move on or retire. This natural attrition has left a skeletal staff in the place where a full staff used to be. A micro-staff that is expected to work just as hard as the full staff used to. Why not five hours a day on the public desk instead of three? Why not have everyone work some evenings and weekend days? Why not have one person order books in three subject areas instead of just one?

This kind of "experiment" is taking place right now in workplaces across the country: speeding up production as salaries drop due to furlough days, fewer sick and vacation days, increased employee contributions to health and pension benefits or the elimination of these benefits altogether.

Yes, if nothing changes the workplace for the "lucky" few employed workers of the future will be upper management's wet dream and the working stiff's nightmare. The way they put it on 60 Minutes was that it's a "buyer's market" for employers. But all it really means is the value of labor has become dirt cheap and those who perform it, totally expendable.

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!

Pink Slips, Pills, War on Women

Walker has now begun sending out as many as 6,000 layoff notices to public sector employees in Wisconsin. Even Lisa Fitzgerald, the wife of republican and state senate majority leader Scott Fitzgerald has gotten one. This is a familiar strategy to try to scare folks into compliance. Just last year on March 5, 2010 the then mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom sent out more than 15,000 pink slips to city workers threatening us with termination.

In 1994, every employee of the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Newspaper Agency went out on strike. We were tired of working without a contract and going without cost of living raises for so long. After about one week of walking the picket lines, management sent out certified letters to all employees that said we would lose our jobs if we didn't come back to work. Luckily, when I answered my door, my porch was covered with strike/picket signs. The postman said he had a certified letter for some of this name, mine, but it was clear that she wasn't home to sign for it. "Yes," I replied, "she is gone and no-one knows when she'll return." I experienced so many acts of solidarity during that brief, 11 day, strike. BART employees gave us free rides, truckers brought us big boxes of burgers, it felt like a huge extended community.

Well, there seems to be a double dip in the housing crisis. Prices are still falling and new home sales are diving faster than a cormorant on cocaine, Obama's loan modification program has not functioned very well due to lack of cooperation from the banks, gas, food and the prices in general keep rising. Now, the media keeps telling us the recession is over, thinking if they repeat it often enough we will start to believe it.

And, if that's not enough salt rubbed in our wounds, yesterday I saw a televised ad for a new anti-depressant. The commercial begins something like...are you having money troubles, family problems?...Well, ain't that a kick in the head, sell us medication to take while you rob and rape us! This brings me to the GOP's new war on women. Their prescription for returning women to a subordinate class: make abortion illegal, change the definition of rape, and in Iowa and South Dakota there are bill being presented todecriminalize the murder of doctors in clinics that give women access to abortion. So much for all their talk about "right to life."