It's A Union Thing

I grew up in a home where both my parents worked, my mother an office manager for a water pipe company and my father owned his own independent insurance agency. We lived a normal middle class life and I remember never needing for anything.

Our family life seemed normal, just like most of my friends. I would get up in the morning and my mom would be getting ready for her 8-5 job. My dad would still be in bed -- owning his own business gave him the luxury to make his own hours. My parents were always home on the weekends and during the evenings. I never even questioned that aspect of my childhood and teen years.

As I headed into the working world in my early twenties, I took different jobs here and there - most of them above the minimum wage range. I remember when I told my dad that I got my first union job as a meter reader at Puget Sound Energy. He was instantly upset that I was going to have to join a union; unions are corrupt and that they make you pay extra, he argued.

I only knew of the jobs that my parents had and neither of them were union. I hadn't ever heard of union jobs and was so excited to here about all of these benefits and was really proud to have a good job. I'm not sure if I ever fully understood my father's point. I think after he saw how well I was doing and what great benefits I had, he left it alone.

I don't think it was until this last summer, some 12 years after my first union job, that I completely understood the role of unions. I was volunteering on a political campaign and one of the the issues revolved around the 1,500 container truck drivers at the Port of Seattle. Now, I'm just going to let you know that I have a bleeding heart and care for everyone, especially those that are down and out. So when I heard about the truck drivers and the way they were being treated, I really started paying attention.

Most of these truck drivers are immigrants from Ethiopia, Somalia and India. Their families invested what little money they had to buy outdated semi trucks, so these men could come to America and find good paying jobs. But due to greed in the profiting trucking companies, most of these truck drivers make very little money and have no benefits to show for all their long hours that they work.

Port truck drivers pay for all of their own maintenance fees, insurance, fuel and any other upkeep on the trucks. They start lining up at the terminals around 4:30 am every morning, because it's first come first serve and if you miss out on containers, you don't get paid. As you can read in this article from the Seattle Times, these truckers work hard for very little.

In this specific industry, there are lists that are kept on who is top and who is not and if any of these truck drivers make a stink, they can be sent away with no runs. The companies have all banded together to keep it this way and protect their own interest and their profit margins.

These truck drivers would love to unionize so they can have the opportunity to make decent money and have benefits. But they are afraid. Most of them are the only bread winners for their families and if they lose their jobs, they may not find anything else. I hope that in the future these drivers will finally get their fair shake at life and what they deserve.

I have a feeling that if my dad was still with us today and he was able to meet some of these fabulous, hard working truck drivers, he may just have a different opinion of unions and how they work and who they are good for.

Paris, Texas: Trapped in Time

I have seen the Hollywood period movies (like O Brother, Where Art Thou) with the Klu Klux Klan men in white hoods, fire burning on crosses and the stage set up high for everyone to see with a noose attached to a beam, blowing in the wind.

It's really sad to know that this actually used to happen and it was so real for so many people. I can't imagine what this must have been like, to be black and live in fear of others who hate you and want to kill you because of the color of your skin!

Oh, wait, I said used to happen! This isn't really going on anymore, right? Well then somebody should ask what the heck is up in Paris, Texas?

In 2007, within a 3 month period, two girls did two separate and totally different bad deeds and got themselves into trouble. The first, a 14 year old white girl was charged with arson and only got probation as punishment. Then, just a few months later in the same town a second girl, also 14, shoved a hall monitor and got sentenced to 7 years in prison....why the drastic difference? Well because, silly, she was black!

There was then the story most of us heard about in October of 2008, where a young black man, Brandon McClelland was run over, dragged under a vehicle and partially dismembered. At first when authorities came upon the body, it was considered a hit and run. Two white men with ties to supremest groups were arrested, sparking protests from the KKK and counter protests from NAACP and other groups in little Paris, Texas.

So, I guess with this type of racism still going on in Paris, Texas I shouldn't have been shocked to read just one more piece of garbage that I came upon last week while browsing the CNN link on my phone.

Now it's 2010 and for more than a year black employees at Turner Industries' pipe factory complained of racism. Some examples include nooses hung around the plant, confederate flags on lunch boxes and racist slurs written on walls. The complaints have gone ignored by management and it has gotten so bad that some have been threatened with retaliation for even bringing it up. One specific worker was quoted “I’ve been called colored boy, coon, monkey,” Dontrail Mathis, 33, a painter’s helper, told the Dallas Morning News.

Things escalated once Barack Obama became president. A white man at the plant made a comment about the President: "if it ain't white, it ain't right."

Finally on April 14th, 2010 the EEOC came in and determined that African American workers were subjected to racial treatment and targeted by the management and threatened to be fired if they complained.

Now, not all the white employees were involved here, many tried to stand up for their co-workers but they too were retaliated against and even fired.

After the EEOC finished its investigation, the company came out with a letter to both its employees and to its customers. In his letter to employees, Turner Industries chairman and CEO Roland Toups said:

“As you may be aware, the EEOC has issued a statement that certain employees in our Paris, Texas fabrication plant were harassed or were victims of retaliation. I want you to understand that we strongly disagree with the EEOC’s findings, and we are defending our employment practices at that facility, as well as any job site that may be mentioned... Because of the personal and professional relationships we have forged with you, we are concerned that you might be misguided by any negative inferences or portrayals in the media,” Toups wrote.

What disgusts me most here is the blatant denial of the company's racism and the CEO's arrogance in blaming this on the media and the EEOC. Has he seen the pictures taken at his own plant?

According to No4Corners.com "Mathis, a painter’s helper, said one co-worker who found out he was married to a white woman told him, 'In the Bible, it says that white women shouldn’t mix with monkeys.' When he called Turner’s corporate office to complain about that incident, he heard nothing back, Mathis said."

When I read this I checked my watch -- is it really 2010 or are Mathis and his co-workers at Turner Industries stuck in a 1950's movie set?

What will I get for sitting on your lap?

While listening to NPR (National Public Radio), I thought about our class discussions on sexism in the workplace and media backlash.

I heard a story come on about an upcoming interview between Sarah Palin and Chris Wallace of Fox News. The story went something like this... Chris Wallace was doing a live interview with Don Imus and Imus asked Wallace, "are you going to have Sarah Palin sitting on your lap while you conduct the interview with her?" and Wallace replied "one can only hope."

There was some backlash from other media journalists on how this was a sexist remark and how women are still being treated with less respect than their male counterparts. One journalist that had something to say about this was Cokie Roberts, who is a senior news analyst for NPR. She was a guest on the Michel Martin NPR program Can I just tell you? where Roberts and Martin discussed how women are easy targets for this type of harassment, and that men escape this type of behavior.

Now, Don Imus is not new to the arena of criticism. In 2007 he called the Rutgers women's basketball team a bunch of "Nappy Headed Hos" which landed him in some pretty hot water. He was eventually fired only to get his job back after he met with and apologized to the Rutgers team.

After Roberts' and Martins' opinions of the interview got back to Imus he was the first to jump all over the story. He and Wallace once again were chatting live on air and they decided to talk about Cokie Roberts and smear her as if she had no room to question them, completely demeaning this very successful women.

To me, it's ridiculous how they make her out to be the bad guy (gal) in the story, saying something along the lines of Cokie's mind is in the gutter most of the time. Imus, of course, makes an attempt to play down what he means

IMUS: So you know, that morning that you were on and I asked you you (sic) were going to interview Sarah Palin and I said is she going to be sitting on your lap? Here is what I meant by that and I would tell you otherwise, I meant was it going to be a friendly interview.

WALLACE: That's not what you meant at all.

From: Huffington Post

Wallace then tries to clear himself from all the garbage and says he was just trying to get away from the conversation. They then go on to bad mouth Roberts and call her hysterical. Classic example of a women, right?

So my question here is: where is Sarah Palin and what would she say about this?

Cokie Roberts and Michel Martin put themselves out there to defend women from the feminist-bashing male media and to question why it continually happens mostly to women. I want to ask "would Sarah Palin stand up for herself and other women and say enough is enough, or would she sit on Chris Wallace's lap to get a vote?"

I would like to think she is a feminist in some small way and wants to see the movement of sexist behavior shut down. This would be a great time for her to step up and have a say, and to fight for women everywhere. She is in a fabulous power position and a lot of people are listening to her. (I personally am not.) But if Sarah Palin was to say something of great value like "stop demeaning women," I might just pay her a little attention.

I don't see with all her winking, her red leather jackets and her "you betchas," Sarah Palin will be stepping up to the plate and pissing off the men in the media that love her best!

As a matter of fact, I think this is one scenario where being sexualized is paying off. Sarah Palin definitely is appealing to a certain demographic and she knows it and loves it.

For the rest of us, it is just one more sock in the gut!

Photo from Scrape TV.