#77 September/October 2005
The Washington Free Press Washington's Independent Journal of News, Ideas & Culture
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TOP STORIES

Dentist Gone Native: The prophetic nutritional research of Dr. Weston Price, DDS
by Dr. Stephen Byrnes

TOWARD A TOXIC-FREE FUTURE from Washington Toxics Coalition
Diazinon ban sends homeowners looking for other insecticides;Washington Lakes Get a Break from Pesticides
articles by Philip Dickey and Erika Schreder

What About the Rank and File? Labor leaders are still ignoring Labor's biggest asset: volunteer members
opinion by Brian King, part 1

MEDIA

MEDIA BEAT by Norman Solomon
Bush's Option to Escalate the War in Iraq: Mainstream media and Democratic leaders are complicit

The Value of a Non-Commercial Newspaper: Do you see it, too?
from the editor

Contributing writer David Bacon again wins national 'Censored' honors; Articles in the Washington Free Press which have won Project Censored 'top 25' rankings
by Doug Collins

FREE THOUGHTS

READER MAIL
Seeking WWI history; Democratic Pary Co-opted; American Christianity: the Jihad Within

WORKPLACE
Breast Perspective: A breastfeeding mom bares feelings about bare breasts
by Tera Schreiber

IMMIGRATION

Virtual Americans: Guilty parents, innocent children
by Domenico Maceri

Undocumented migrants face bigger obstacles, but still come: Arizona Borderlands Report
by Marie & Phil Heft

HEALTH

EPA Unions Call for Nationwide Moratorium on Fluoridation
from US Environmental Protection Agency's National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), Chapter 280

Is Your Water Fluoridated?
by Doug Collins

CULTURE

The Canoe Race
anonymous progressive joke

Stock Market Seppuku; Carrizo Plain; White Male Adult, 2001
Three Poems by Robert Pavlik

Unfortunately/Fortunately
humor by Styx Mundstock

The Wanderings and Thoughts of Kip Kellogg, #2
by Vincent Spada

POLITICS

Who's Behind the State Initiatives?
by John Merriam

Reforming Supreme Court Appointments: It's helpful to look at appointment processes in other countries
by Steven Hill

ENVIRONMENT

TRASH TALK by Dave and Lillian Brummet
Water Conservation in the Kitchen; Lawn Mowing
also
"Trash Talk" Authors Win BC Recycling Award

CONTEST
Send us a conservation tip and enter to win a copy of the book "Trash Talk"

NW FORESTS

Trees win in court, but still lose ground
Judge Upholds Protections for Old-Growth Forests;Logging Plan Halted in Old-Growth Reserve
from Cascadia Rising! and Conservation Northwest

State of Cascadia: Dire Straits in Paradise
by Alicia Balassa Clark

How I Spent My Bank of America Officially Sponsored Summer Vacation
by John Doe, Jr., and Glenn Reed

CONTACTS/ACTIVISM

NORTHWEST NEIGHBORS
contact list of subscribers who like to talk with you

DO SOMETHING! CALENDAR
Northwest activist events

WAR & PEACE

Phony terror charges threaten free speech in international anti-war movement
by Guerry Hoddersen, Freedom Socialist Party

Are Americans Immune from Empathy?
opinion by Don Torrence

MISCELLANEOUS

BOB'S RANDOM LEGAL WISDOM by Bob Anderton
Rental Car Insurance: Rip-Off or Necessity?

BOOK NOTICES
"Sprawl Kills: How Blandburbs Steal Your Time, Health and Money" by Joel S. Hirschhorn; "Rational Simplicity" by Tim Covell
from the publishers

New Orleans and the Rubber Ducky Dilemma
by Doug Collins

What About the Rank and File?

opinion by Brian King

There was major change in the air on Navy Pier as the union delegates gathered for the 2005 AFL-CIO convention.

The big reason for all the controversy surrounding the meeting in Chicago was the crisis that stems from the steady decline in membership that American unions have experienced since the end of World War II. The numbers are attention grabbers.

Right after the war, roughly one third of American workers were members of unions. There was a common perception in those days, held by workers, managers, Democrats, and Republicans alike, that unionization was the wave of the future. One day, it was thought, just about every American worker would belong to a union. How could anyone have looked at US labor at that time and thought anything else?

But it hasn't turned out that way. Instead of steadily growing during the second half of the 20th century, unions in the US shrank relentlessly. This year, 2005, unionization in the US stands at about 8% of the private workforce. If government workers are included, still only about 13% of workers in the US are organized today.

Wal-Mart, the largest private employer in the country (and in the world, with more than a million workers) practically sneers at unions. It dares labor to try and organize its "associates" (a Wal-Mart euphemism for low-paid and insecure employees).

No one knows what the final tipping point will be, when labor will fold its tent. But it can't be far off. Maybe, if union concentration gets down to 5% of the workforce, unions will come to be seen as a quaint anachronism, something workers will shy away from because they don't want to be associated with an irrelevant joke.

Does it have to be this way? Can unions grow again and provide good lives for their members and help move America in a progressive direction once more? If you care about things like weekends off, vacations, a right to quality health care, social and pension security for the retired and disabled, racial justice, and just about everything else that is and could be good about America, these are vital questions for you that command answers soon. I, for one, don't ever want to see a United States of America without strong unions.

Ten years ago, I attended the founding convention of the Labor Party in Cleveland, Ohio. I was inspired by the potential power on the side of good this historic meeting promised. Unions representing a million organized US workers met that summer and agreed to a platform that, if successful, would result in a far more decent and secure America than the one we live in today.

Besides looking forward to working for the Labor Party program, I came back to Seattle really wanting to become a member of a union. I figured that simply getting a job in a union hospital wouldn't be adding as much to the labor movement as organizing a new group of workers into a union. So I decided to begin "talking union" to my co-workers at the Seattle hospital where I had worked as a respiratory therapist for the previous eight years.

In the fall of '96, I sat at a table in a cafe with Glen, the organizing director for a major SEIU local in Washington State. He was a big, pleasantly disheveled sort of guy with a loose mop of black hair perched on top of an open, honest face, with clear attentive eyes, and a ready smile. He sat hunched over a bagel and coffee across from my friend Ray and me. We had called and told him we wanted to talk about organizing unions at the hospitals where we had jobs.

"You guys want to organize the bargaining units where you work, huh?" Glen took a bite of his bagel and looked from one to the other of us. He seemed to be trying to gauge our reactions.

"Yes," I answered, "people at my hospital need a union as much as anyone else and that means they need a union a lot." Glen looked at me intently as he wiped crumbs and cream cheese from his mouth. He waited for me to finish. "Besides," I continued, "it would be a great way to give the Labor Party a boost around here, don't you think?"

Glen smiled, put his bagel down, and gestured toward us. "I'd love to help you guys organize, and here's a thought I want you to take away from our meeting." He paused for a second to heighten the effect of what he was about to say. "Organizing a large group of workers at a hospital is a daunting task. It's going to take a long time and you're going to need a lot of help from your co-workers. Get yourselves ready for something at least as hard as anything you've ever tried."

A couple years later, I was in full-swing as a volunteer member- organizer at my hospital in Seattle.

I was headed back to the Respiratory Department one afternoon when a friend of mine, a unit secretary named Sheila, stopped me in the hall. "Hey, Brian. How're things going with the union?"

"Doing OK, Sheila." I gave her a friendly nod. "You get all your guys signed up yet?"

"Not just yet," she chuckled. "By the way, I've been wanting to mention something to you."

"What's that?"

She gave me one of those "listen now" looks. "Since you've been working on this union thing, you seem like a much more upbeat person."

I raised my eyebrows and waited for her to finish. "Really, a lot of us have noticed." She glanced at her watch, "You're definitely feeling pretty good about life these days."

Sheila was right about the effect being a member-organizer had on me. It gave me a whole new way to relate to my sisters and brothers at work. It was something totally different from the dog-eat-dog relations everybody is constantly forced to have with each other. It gave me a voice for the kind of decency and fairness people always crave, but seldom find. It was fun!

There were disappointments, too. There were times I was ready to give up, for sure. We had two unions basically walk out on us. Later, I was to find out that the Organizing-Institute-trained hotshot from one of them reported to her boss that my group didn't stand a chance of coming together enough to win a union election.

When I was about four years into the union effort at my hospital and going through a period of skepticism, a bio-med technician named David stopped me in the hallway. We were just outside the Respiratory department door.

"Hey, Brian, come over here a minute." He gave me a nod, calling me over to where he stood.

What does this guy want? I wondered. David is a little scary looking when he's serious about something. He's six feet tall and has a shaved head with prominent, expressive eyebrows. He pumps iron a lot, and his muscled arms are covered with symbolic looking tattoos. I politely complied with his suggestion.

"There's going to be a union meeting, a week from Saturday." He worked his eyebrows a little. "Wanna come?"

"Sure, man." I was elated to see David's initiative. "Just say when and where."

David had first called somebody at the Washington State Labor Department, who recommended that he contact the UFCW. The guy at the Labor Department said that union looked to him to be serious about organizing.

And so we hooked up with our third union.

To be continued: the conclusion of this article will appear in next issue.


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