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ACTUAL READERS




Dear Editor,
As you know from my having called you to express my opinion verbally, I consider the article about health problems of Boeing workers exposed to chemical substances, and Boeing's virtual stonewalling of compensation ["It's All In Your Head," Feb/March issue] to have been magnificently researched and written. I'd like to add something about the industrial management "culture" causing such callousness.
Going back 500 years or so, the Spanish indenture indigenous men in what is now South America were forced to work in tin mines. The approach was simple (and brutal): work from dawn to dusk, get fed minimally, and ultimately expire. Then replacements are put through the same routine.
In this country, slavery was followed by sharecropping, which was simply another form of slavery until well into the 20th Century. The Industrial Revolution in Great Britain and in the United States was financially fueled by paying barely subsistence wages for 10 hours a day, six days a week, and by working people, including children, in lofts that had numerous safety hazards. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City in the '20s was a well-publicized example of dangerous facilities and working conditions. Scores of young women lost their lives.
Have we progressed? Yes, conditionally. The unionization of workers had to be fought for with blood and guts. Companies hired goon squads to kill workers on picket lines and at demonstrations. The police helped the goon squads. But, there was ultimate progress, and the 8-hour day was born out of it, as well as other benefits. Dangers in coal mining, however, had to be fought longer by John L. Lewis, leader of the coal-miner's union. Much was won, but not enough as evidenced by more recent strife in that industry.
All of the above is preliminary to my addressing the question of corporate management culture in the USA. Workers are simply means to an end - commodities. The end result by which managements are measured is profits and dividends, as we all know.
Why has this been different in Northern Europe (excluding England)? I know from direct contact that Swedish unions have the same status at the highest government levels as industrialists. Furthermore, 85 percent of Swedish workers are unionized. The workers have the stature and pride of work which ensures their satisfaction. Here in our country, we have virtually stamped out unions to the point where about 15 percent are members. Furthermore, the managers of the largest remaining unions have become corrupted to the point where their interests are to please and maintain peace with corporate management, as your article indicated.
As to Boeing specifically, I believe the workers must ultimately take concerted action outside of their union framework, if necessary, to attain respect, dignity and safety. I hope our working society's economic distress and uncertainty can be weighed against the prospect that giving their lives to the company may be final result, as in the suicide case[s] caused by Boeing.
Irv Pollack
Seattle

[Editor's note: Lest any of us become too secure in the gains made since the Shirtwaist Factory fire, I'd like to remind readers that 25 workers, mostly women, burned to death in a 1992 chicken-processing factory fire in Hamlet, North Carolina. The owner of the plant, who paid workers $4 per hour and worked them in part-time shifts so he didn't have to pay employee benefits, had ordered the fire doors chained shut to prevent employee theft of leftover chicken parts. Since Hamlet is a small town, and the factory was centrally located in the community, nearby children heard the screams of their burning, dying mothers. The owner of the company has since declared bankruptcy, which means the survivors get burned as badly as did the women who died in that hell.]

Please see Another reader response to the Boeing story.

Editor,
I noted in your "Reel Underground" section that you credit Adolfus Mekas with founding Film Culture magazine. However, it is Aldofus's older and creditably more talented brother, Jonas, who takes that honor. As for "Hallelujah the Hills," well, it is drivel; a sort of ghastly attempt to emulate the early French new wave. While it is admittedly kinetic in style, it lacks both the wit and the edge of the originals. It has a certain period charm, but that stretches mighty thin by the end.

The reason I take the time to point this out is that Adolfus Mekas is himself a parasite living off of his older brother's reputation and slowly drinking himself into oblivion at Bard College, where he is considered a rather petulant joke. This is certainly beside the point, but having had the opportunity to meet Mr. [Adolfus] Mekas, I can confirm that he is a spiteful little man clutching himself to a perch that the world has long since passed. Still, he amuses himself by getting drunk and dyeing his hair periodically while surrounding himself with a little fiefdom that parrots his outdated and rather pathetic nonsense.
The sort of consideration accorded Mr. Mekas and his film annoys me because it is held up as a fine achievement of underground filmmaking, when it is really a rather cloying attempt to make commercial underground film. Mr. Mekas is merely a Steven Speilberg in a ratty suit. Hardly one of the successes of the sixties cinema that needs unearthing.
Anyhow, I love your column; it's the best info on film going in this rain-soaked town.
H. Wagner
Seattle

[Editor's note: He's MINE?! Hey Ma, I got a man! See this issue's Reel Alternative for more Mekas madness.]

Editor,
Your article on John Scannell, whistleblower extraordinnaire, was of personal interest to me. I've never met Mr. Scannell, but I owe him a great deal, as do many, many others.

Through his tireless efforts on behalf of substitute and part-time city employees who were illegally deprived of retirement benefits, I was able to reclaim what was owed to me. It meant that I could retire from Seattle Public Library almost two years earlier than I'd thought.
Six weeks ago, I left a work situation [at Seattle Public Library] that could charitably be described as "Kafkaesque." Oh, what a relief it is. Thank you, Mr. Scannell. I wish you the very best in 1994, both professionally and personally.
Marlene Jameson
retired librarian
Nanaimo, BC, Canada

Editor,
It sure beats me how the Commons project, featuring the brief incestuous relationship between John Fox and the desire of The Seattle Times to build a new printing plant, could make the "censored" list.

One of the saddest triumphs of the corrupt old Seattle business culture is any lingering belief that the area south of Lake Union should actually be preserved in its present state, or tossed piecemeal to private developers. In reality the area is a key piece to more than one urban puzzle. An easy walk from Lake Union or downtown, it's obviously choice residential for people who don't want to own a car. It also happens to be close to wherever rapid transit must run. Once, the neighborhood served as a warehouse district and service area for downtown, generating numerous semi-skilled jobs; these industries have moved or disappeared, many of the buildings standing only because they were constructed of a particularly durable (and ugly) concrete.
Almost every existing element of this area is a fossilized remain of some past mistake, the streets a catalogue of blind alleys and compulsory turns that poison the neighborhood without providing any meaningful ability to move, the buildings settling in the uneasy fill, most of the residents contemplating, if they are realistic, some eviction in their future. This is not a slum; the degree of social organization is relatively high, the people on the streets "belong" to the neighborhood, and in spite of the high vacancy rate and location the area is little subject to black-market activities.
One of two things is going to happen to this neighborhood; owners will develop individually, or they will develop under a plan. The development between Westlake North and Aurora may be the most likely model. Developers of these buildings will happily pay to have low-income housing built elsewhere. As much as they may wish that the neighborhood were nicer, they will develop when they can, and largely escape any participation in covering Mercer, accessing the lake, or interfacing with transportation and downtown.
The alternative is to be involved in a plan. The Commons people are making an issue of the fact that this land is valuable to people who like a high-density pedestrian environment; they are making an issue of the fact that the land was once part of a coherent plan; they are making an issue of the fact that the area is rich in both problems and opportunities; and my guess is that they would even make an issue of the need for affordable housing if they were forced to do so. Even if all of this weren't the case, it would still be true that fighting a park and housing when there are so many real problems is just stupid. Get a life! Or maybe I misread him. I kind of liked the fellatio idea.
Terry Scott
Seattle

Dear Laura Vanderpool,
Hey, I completely agree with your review of Mark Lanegan's Whiskey for the Holy Ghost. It's just good. But trust me, I've played The Winding Sheet more. I guess writing you just to tell you that makes me some worthless piece of shit horse's ass, but I just thought I should.

Once again, that was a nice review you wrote.
Jason M. Talley
Seattle



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Contents on this page were published in the April/May, 1994 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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