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mark_asphodelAs some of you who follow me on tumblr gathered, I went to a labor conference this week. Actually, it was a labor/women's rights convention hosted by a 40-year-old labor/women's right's organization, of which I am a fairly new member.
It was interesting. While the individual people I met there were friendly and helpful and some were inspiring, I got a front-view seat to two of the major, major problems facing any person or group trying to advance workers' rights or women's rights these days.
1) Church Ladies are not down with the LGBTQ people
Many articles have already been written about the difficulty in framing queer issues like marriage equality as civil rights issues in the African-American community. Many organized labor groups, particularly the ones without significant Latino or Asian-American involvement, still seem to be stuck on a "Dr. King" picture of what civil rights is about. Now, the national AFL-CIO leadership is definitely making a point to be inclusive what with Pride@Work and President Trumka giving a specific shout-out to LGBTQ members in the presentation he recorded for our convention. Gay rights is on the agenda nationally. But at the grassroots level, the support from local and state leadership is most definitely mixed, and the senior generation of African-American community leaders tends to be unapologetically against "perverts and dykes." For many of them, it's a church thing. You can't just sway these women to the view that dykes are sisters too by informing them that their pastor is full of shit on this issue(*). Church is their life. Many of them are missionaries. Some of them are the pastors and reverend ministers of their congregations. And so when a labor conference brings in a young, energetic, proudly lesbian speaker like our convention this week did, it breaks open a fissure in the ranks. Basically, just as my local union has a senior leadership of sexist, racist, good-ol-boys who need to retire and get out of the damn way, there are other venerable rights groups out there who are about thirty years behind the times in what "rights" are about and ain't gonna embrace change until the church ladies go to their non-existent sky mansions.
2) Church Ladies are hypocrites
One of the resolutions passed yesterday was a condemnation of good ol' Walmart for their abysmal record of discrimination against female workers coupled with a commitment to aid the organizations that are fighting Walmart. Not less than three hours later, as I was coming back from lunch, I witnessed a stream of elderly women walking from the Walmart across the street back to the casino complex where our convention was held, all of them encumbered by Walmart bags. Every one of these fine ladies was a proud "labor sister" from our conference, and every single one that I witnessed personally was African-American. I'm sure some of the white women there were equally hypocritical (this turned out to be far from the only occurrence of Walmart shopping among our conference goers), but given how women of color get a double whammy of discrimination in the workplace (which was, you know, discussed on the week's agenda), the idea that all these women would vote "aye" on an anti-Walmart resolution and then turn around and organize a Walmart shopping expedition is just mind-boggling. You can't chalk this up to ignorance. It's not like some of my friends who happily enjoy Red Lobster and Olive Garden because they don't know about the Darden Group and the class-action lawsuit against it (I was able to get Red Lobster trip nixed during the course of the convention by speaking out on this). This is fricking Walmart. The resolution was smack in the convention literature that every participant received. The resolution was approved unanimously that very morning. Maybe their lord will forgive these transgressions but I sure won't.
(To her credit, the Church Lady that runs our local chapter was appalled and saddened by the Walmart shoppers, so not every church lady is bad on this particular issue. I just happened to catch about, oh, five percent of the entire convention and thus a large chunk of the church-lady contingent behaving badly in one go.)
But that's the kind of crap that plagues a lot of the institutions that brought about positive change forty or fifty years ago and are now trying to figure out who and what they are and how they'll survive. The mission statement's behind the times and the organization's shot through with pious hypocrites, because times do change and hey, a lot of people are hypocrites. One of the things put forward at this convention was an ambitious plan to bring this particular organization in line with current social justice trends and the new workers' rights movement like Fight for 15 that exists outside of conventional labor strongholds. It was shot down by the membership, but you can bet it'll be back two years from now at the next convention, because that's the only way organized labor is going to make it through another half-century.
Assuming we exist to even have another convention two years from now.
* And just about every other issue, if you ask me. But being an atheist at these events is even less acceptable than being a dyke so I keep my mouth closed on the God thing. Can't do much good if you invalidate your moral standing right out the gate. When the mother of one of my friends and co-workers is the pastor called up to bless the formal dinner in the name of Our Lord Jesus, I get to smile and STFU. We're not even talking "Judeo-Christian" blessings in spite of the presence of quite a few Jewish labor leaders at the event, including some who were being generous with scholarship money and such. Nope, Our Lord Jesus all the way, without a hint of self-awareness.
It was interesting. While the individual people I met there were friendly and helpful and some were inspiring, I got a front-view seat to two of the major, major problems facing any person or group trying to advance workers' rights or women's rights these days.
1) Church Ladies are not down with the LGBTQ people
Many articles have already been written about the difficulty in framing queer issues like marriage equality as civil rights issues in the African-American community. Many organized labor groups, particularly the ones without significant Latino or Asian-American involvement, still seem to be stuck on a "Dr. King" picture of what civil rights is about. Now, the national AFL-CIO leadership is definitely making a point to be inclusive what with Pride@Work and President Trumka giving a specific shout-out to LGBTQ members in the presentation he recorded for our convention. Gay rights is on the agenda nationally. But at the grassroots level, the support from local and state leadership is most definitely mixed, and the senior generation of African-American community leaders tends to be unapologetically against "perverts and dykes." For many of them, it's a church thing. You can't just sway these women to the view that dykes are sisters too by informing them that their pastor is full of shit on this issue(*). Church is their life. Many of them are missionaries. Some of them are the pastors and reverend ministers of their congregations. And so when a labor conference brings in a young, energetic, proudly lesbian speaker like our convention this week did, it breaks open a fissure in the ranks. Basically, just as my local union has a senior leadership of sexist, racist, good-ol-boys who need to retire and get out of the damn way, there are other venerable rights groups out there who are about thirty years behind the times in what "rights" are about and ain't gonna embrace change until the church ladies go to their non-existent sky mansions.
2) Church Ladies are hypocrites
One of the resolutions passed yesterday was a condemnation of good ol' Walmart for their abysmal record of discrimination against female workers coupled with a commitment to aid the organizations that are fighting Walmart. Not less than three hours later, as I was coming back from lunch, I witnessed a stream of elderly women walking from the Walmart across the street back to the casino complex where our convention was held, all of them encumbered by Walmart bags. Every one of these fine ladies was a proud "labor sister" from our conference, and every single one that I witnessed personally was African-American. I'm sure some of the white women there were equally hypocritical (this turned out to be far from the only occurrence of Walmart shopping among our conference goers), but given how women of color get a double whammy of discrimination in the workplace (which was, you know, discussed on the week's agenda), the idea that all these women would vote "aye" on an anti-Walmart resolution and then turn around and organize a Walmart shopping expedition is just mind-boggling. You can't chalk this up to ignorance. It's not like some of my friends who happily enjoy Red Lobster and Olive Garden because they don't know about the Darden Group and the class-action lawsuit against it (I was able to get Red Lobster trip nixed during the course of the convention by speaking out on this). This is fricking Walmart. The resolution was smack in the convention literature that every participant received. The resolution was approved unanimously that very morning. Maybe their lord will forgive these transgressions but I sure won't.
(To her credit, the Church Lady that runs our local chapter was appalled and saddened by the Walmart shoppers, so not every church lady is bad on this particular issue. I just happened to catch about, oh, five percent of the entire convention and thus a large chunk of the church-lady contingent behaving badly in one go.)
But that's the kind of crap that plagues a lot of the institutions that brought about positive change forty or fifty years ago and are now trying to figure out who and what they are and how they'll survive. The mission statement's behind the times and the organization's shot through with pious hypocrites, because times do change and hey, a lot of people are hypocrites. One of the things put forward at this convention was an ambitious plan to bring this particular organization in line with current social justice trends and the new workers' rights movement like Fight for 15 that exists outside of conventional labor strongholds. It was shot down by the membership, but you can bet it'll be back two years from now at the next convention, because that's the only way organized labor is going to make it through another half-century.
Assuming we exist to even have another convention two years from now.
* And just about every other issue, if you ask me. But being an atheist at these events is even less acceptable than being a dyke so I keep my mouth closed on the God thing. Can't do much good if you invalidate your moral standing right out the gate. When the mother of one of my friends and co-workers is the pastor called up to bless the formal dinner in the name of Our Lord Jesus, I get to smile and STFU. We're not even talking "Judeo-Christian" blessings in spite of the presence of quite a few Jewish labor leaders at the event, including some who were being generous with scholarship money and such. Nope, Our Lord Jesus all the way, without a hint of self-awareness.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-18 04:34 pm (UTC)I feel like for a great number of people, religion isn't about the credo as dictated by holy books and venerated historical figures so much as it is about your community and what it believes. Except when you say you believe so-and-so because of your religion it suddenly becomes a more powerful line than "because my father thought so."