Unions
The Gary Work Ethic
Published June 27, 2009 @ 10:15AM PT
As the coverage of Michael Jackson's death subsides, and it will eventually, the brief spotlight shone on Gary, Indiana will disappear as well. The NYT gives the declining, forgotten? city some due as the birthplace of the King of Pop:
But was there something particular about Gary that the Jacksons took with them? Something particular to the place that made them great? Thomas Neal Jr., a lifelong Gary resident, thinks so.
“Joe Jackson believed you had to go get what you want to succeed,” Mr. Neal, 41, said. “That determination, that striving, was part of the Gary work ethic. Nobody came here unless they wanted to work.”
This is captured towards the end of the article that details Gary's creation as a company town for US Steel in 1906, and its declining fortunes and intense poverty since the 1960s and de-industrialization. The reason I'm featuring this excerpt is because it captures an overlooked sentiment I so often describe here, a sentiment I think is part of what makes our country great and defies explicitly the notion of dependency. That sentiment is striving, as I call it, and though Joe Jackson's abusive strategies to make his sons famous are not what I'd reify here, I like the focus on Gary's better past. If only we could regularly embrace the positive aspects of our troubled cities and communities, we might wring a lot more success out of our varied social policies.
(Interior of the abandoned City Methodist Church in Gary, Indiana by Craig Finlay)
Poverty in America's Image Problem?
Published June 22, 2009 @ 09:49AM PT
Sorry for the long delay posting this weekend and today. I've been traveling around CT, NY and MA for wedding-related activities. I had a chance to catch up with a group of friends Saturday night that included fellow political junkies and writers and some finance types. People were pretty interested in my blogging gig, and Change.org more generally, which was very cool. A friend of mine's husband who I don't know too well wanted to know what the other causes were at Change.org, and was surprised to learn how popular global warming was compared to domestic poverty - and not because he's particularly interested in the latter. It was an interesting conversation in its randomness and it got me thinking - again - about how or whether people think about poverty in the U.S.
On the road yesterday with my fiance, I ventured that domestic poverty needs an appealing iconic image. He offered the migrant mother - taken by immigration, I responded. Homelessness is its own category; children offer represent hunger, child abuse or neglect, or the failure of public education. Or child poverty as its own issue area. Poor men are often memorialized as white homeless men, perhaps with mental illness or substance abuse problems, or as African-American criminals. Thanks to Reagan and the rest, all we're left with is the "welfare queen." Native American poverty is virtually invisible to the public eye, and the current economic crisis has disappeared the working poor, who, in their employee uniforms waiting for the bus, were the emerging image of domestic poverty in the 21st century.
The other challenge for domestic anti-poverty activists is to distinguish our work from global anti-poverty efforts. Of course, there's an indelible connection between our exploitative, global economic systems and poverty at home and abroad, and we'd benefit from a global workers' movement. But the surge in activism in recent years to significantly cut global poverty often overshadows the enduring problems we face here at home. The combination of our siloed approach to social justice with the scope of global poverty with our negative, individualistic approach to poverty in the U.S. really creates a rough road for us fighting economic hardship here at home.
I cruised around Flickr and Google this morning, comparing search results for the different Change.org causes and our respective blogs Google rankings. "Poverty" on its own is actually the biggest topic after immigration. But the more one encloses parameters around poverty, adding "America" or "domestic" or "United States", the more the web and image results shrink. "Poverty in America" is one of the smallest.
I'm pleased that this blog is in the top 20 Google results for "poverty in America" (3), "poverty" + "America" (6), and "domestic poverty" (14). I really believe a renewed anti-poverty movement is afoot in this country, but it's not going to look like the War on Poverty of years past, but more likely will grow hand-in-hand with rights-based movements for workers, immigrants, women, and as part of racial justice, environmental justice and economic human rights movements. Social justice is not neatly packaged nor successfully achieved within single-issue activist frames. The beauty of Change.org is its aggregation of a multiplicity of social causes in one place. But we must work together and learn from one another to make our world a more just and equitable place.
You want to know more about Poverty in America? Believe me, have we got it covered here at Change.org.
(Top photo from Newark, NJ by Tony the Misfit; bottom photo of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign's March for Our Lives at the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN by Andrew Ciscel)
Priced Out of Food Stamps by the Stimulus
Published June 18, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT
Under the economic recovery plan, laid-off workers have seen a $25 weekly bump in their unemployment checks as part of a broad expansion of benefits for the poor. But the law did not raise the income cap for food stamp eligibility, so the extra money has pushed some people over the limit.
The story that follows is infuriating and heart-wrenching. It's the accumulation of anecdotes like this that cause people to hate the government and its "red tape." Never mind that I've had similar outrageous bureaucratic snafus with corporate America - though, none, by the way, that caused me to go hungry. At least in DC they're trying to increase access to and the value of food stamps.
In other news, If I don't close out some of the tabs in Firefox, my PC might crash on me, so here's a domestic poverty news dump:
Questions Obama Should Answer Today
Published June 17, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
Within the hour, President Obama is scheduled to speak on financial sector reform and regulation. I am running around all afternoon getting ready for a trip out of town, so won't have a chance to take stock until tonight or tomorrow. But The Baseline Scenario has 10 questions, and wants yours, that the President should address but may not in his speech today. "...the implicit story the President tells will frame our collective discussions going forward and – on some points – could even help tip the balance against established lobbies."
Read the questions and leave your own here. And let us know here at Change.org what you think of his proposal.
Finally, in preparation for Obama's plans, yesterday the new advocacy group Americans for Financial Security launched: "The coalition includes a broad array of financial experts and advocates who are joining together in an unprecedented campaign to reform our financial system and rebuild our economy." Members include trade unions, consumer protection groups, civil rights organizations and progressive entities. Emphasis is on "policing Wall Street," and protecting our communities and pocketbooks. Check 'em out. (H/t)
Welcome Back!
Published May 26, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
I can tell from my Google Analytics that most of you enjoyed a lovely weekend away from the web. Good for you! It was lovely up here in Boston.
But now you're back at work (sigh), so here's a round-up of our weekend here at Poverty in America, to help you ease back into the work week:
Iraq & Afghanistan vets and their loved ones deserve our care and support - and a coalition of agencies is responding.
From working-class roots to the White House, Michelle Obama steps out as a role model for low-income children of color.
What was NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg thinking, appointing a former Wall St exec to run the city's public housing authority?
Meanwhile, Florida refuses to re-consider its boom-and-bust development economy.
Finally, support the Employee Free Choice Act! In a random sample of over 1,000 union organizing drives, employers threatened to shut plants down almost 60% of the time.
I'll catch up with you this afternoon. Any excellent weekend stories, leave 'em in comments.
More Proof That We Need the Employee Free Choice Act
Published May 23, 2009 @ 07:39AM PT
Remind me again why the Employee Free Choice Act is so important, you ask:
"A new study by a Cornell University professor of 1,004 union organizing drives has found that employers threatened to close plants in 57 percent of the campaigns and threatened to cut wages and benefits in 47 percent.
The study, to be released Wednesday, also found that employers fired pro-union workers in 34 percent of the campaigns. And it asserted that management’s antiunion tactics had helped pushed down the unionization rate to 12.4 percent, from 22 percent three decades ago."
That's why.
Is it just me, or is 22% not even that satisfying?
This is a post more suited for the last long weekend of the summer, Labor Day. But let's not forget the organizing work and support that we need to give to the EFCA in these coming months. I live in a pretty pro-union state and city, and come from a union family, more or less. I know that unions can become a problem unto themselves, when they sacrifice the good of all their workers for a few, and that many of the unions have a history of racism and exclusion. But enforcing workers' rights and encouraging unionization is key to reducing poverty; we'd be better served as a society if we worked to strengthen unions - including their internal practices - rather than trying to eliminate them outright.
We need to respect the rights of workers, the value of labor in business, and the benefits of collective action. Think about it as you hopefully get a reprieve from your own hard work this long weekend.
Tell Congress and President Obama to support the Employee Free Choice Act today!
Action: Bill Offers Up to 7 Days Paid Sick Leave for US Workers
Published May 19, 2009 @ 06:47AM PT
The Healthy Families Act was introduced in the House and Senate yesterday. It would require businesses with at least 15 employees to provide one hour of sick leave for every 30 hours worked - or up to 7 paid sick days per year.
The legislation’s preamble notes that nearly half of private-sector workers and three-fourths of low-wage workers do not receive paid sick days. Far too often, advocates say, such employees feel compelled to go to work even when ill, because they fear being fired or at the least losing the day’s pay. (My emphases)
These kind of universal (i.e., federal) bills disproportionately benefit low-wage workers, who lack so many of the protections offered by larger companies. Furthermore, they disproportionately benefit women, immigrants, and African-Americans, who are overrepresented in low-wage work. As anti-poverty advocates, we need to give vociferous support to this bill.
Expectations are low that it will be passed this year, but the signs look good, pundits say, next year - an election year that tends to make our elected officials more responsive to "family-friendly" legislation. (There's a fitting summary of how our government works!) But there's populist momentum for this bill, with 12 states debating similar versions, two cities already requiring paid sick leave for workers, and recent voter approval for an equivalent bill in Milwaukee - which was subsequently blocked by business groups in the courts. Furthermore, groups as varied as the National Partnership for Women & Families, the Catholic social justice lobby Network and the Human Rights Campaign all have campaigns supporting the bill.
TAKE ACTION: Tell Congress to Support the Healthy Families Act!! Let's bring the U.S. into the fold with the rest of the industrialized world, shall we?
Figure from the Center for Economic & Policy Research's new report, Contagion Nation.
