Street roots., April 13, 2018, Page 5, Image 5

Street Roots
April 13-19, 2018
News
Page 5
WORKERS, from page 4
students - supposedly the winners in the
American Dream Sweepstakes - are
hungry, and 10 percent to 12 percent don’t
have a secure place to live.
In the Global South, where there was
land grab after the 2008 crash by big
corporations looking for safer investments,
millions and millions of people were forced
off their land as it was sold to transnational
farming conglomerates or seed
conglomerates. Conditions creating
migrancy and homelessness. That was
another thing that made people feel like
they didn’t have anything to lose.
I think we’ve reached the point where
things are bad enough for enough people
that we’re seeing an uprising. I think it’s
very similar to the Great Depression, where
we began to see support for socialism; we
began to see unemployed marches. We’ve
seen a return of hunger strikes as part of
this protest movement, and as one activist,
Denise Barlage from the Walmart workers
movement, said to me, “It’s really easy to
go on hunger strike when you’re already
hungry.”
All of those things and the kinds of
communications that it made possible set
the stage for this global uprising.
E.G.: Can you tell me about the scope of
this uprising? Is it reaching every corner of
our planet?
A.O.; It is. It’s broadened. All kinds of
low-wage workers have had a one-day strike
every year in April, in May, and those
strikes have taken place in 40 countries on
six continents in hundreds of cities.
It is truly reaching from South Africa -
from the Western Cape wine industry to the
berry pickers in Baja California, in Mexico,
to the garment shops of Dakar, Bangladesh
and Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to the Thai
berry pickers in Iceland and Lapland.
We are seeing, really, a global uprising of
low-wage workers and also of farmers and
farmworkers. There’s an organization called
La Via Campesina, “The Peasants’ Way,”
that is run by an organic farmer from
Zimbabwe named Elizabeth Mpofu. She
sees what’s happening to farmers and
farmworkers as part of what’s happening to
all workers, and they have galvanized days of
action by farmworkers. There have been
hotel workers’ days of actions that have
taken place all over the world - from Africa
to Albany.
E.G.: Are the conditions faced by low-wage
workers here in the US. all that different from
conditions we’re seeing in developing nations?
A.O.: No, they’re not. There is one story
that I recount in this book of a hotel
housekeeper by the name of Santa Brito,
who went into labor. She’d been asking for
time off while she was pregnant. She wasn’t
feeling that well, and they wouldn’t give it to
her. She was afraid to ask for more, even
unpaid time off, because she was afraid she
would be fired. But when she went into
labor, she asked her supervisor if she could
leave, and her supervisor said no because
her shift wasn’t over. Finally, her water
broke while she was making a bed. She went
to the hospital to give birth to her baby, in
her uniform, stopping only to wash the toxic
cleansers that she works with off her hands.
Two weeks later, she was called by her
supervisor and fired for leaving her shift
Fast-food
workers from
Brooklyn,
N.Y., '
participate in
a 2015 rally
for worker
rights.
P H O TO BY
E L IZ A B E T H
COOKE
early.
those involved are women, and particularly,
Now when I tell that story, people who
women of color. As important as wages are
read this book often remember it because
women’s issues in terms of galvanizing the
it’s so shocking, and they have said to me,
movement. For example, wanting to see an
when I’m giving talks or interviews, “Could
end to sexual violence and gender-based
you tell me that story about the Philippine
workplace violence and sexual harassment,
hotel housekeeper?” And I say, “No. Santa
an end to pregnancy discrimination and
Brito does not work in the Philippines. She
wanting to see gender-wage equity, as well.
works in Providence, Rhode Island.”
E.G.: One chapter is titled, “You can’t
What’s happened is globalization of
dismantle capitalism without dismantling
garment work, of hotel work, farm work, of
patriarchy. ” How is the patriarchy reflected in
fast food has driven down wages here in this
the world’s labor struggles?
country and made conditions worse in this
A.O.: That quote came
country. And the decline of
from a 27-year-old woman
unions has done that as well.
activist named Sister Nice
So no, they’re not that
Coronación in the
different.
What: Annelise Orleck
Philippines, and it was her
book signing and
E.G.: What stands out to
view, and it’s the view of an
discussion of the global
you as different about today’s
organization called World
labor movement, as compared
low-wage worker uprising
March of Women that she
with movements of the past?
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, was part of, that patriarchy
takes advantage of women
A.O.: There are a few
April 19
workers, uses them as a
differences. One is that,
Where:
Powell’s
Books
on
surplus labor force willing to
though there has always
Hawthorne, 3723 SE
come in at lower wages
been global rhetoric, social
Hawthorne Blvd., Portland
because they have children
media has really made it
to feed. It uses sexual
possible for workers to
violence and sexual
organize very quickly and
harassment to keep women
globally because they can
compliant, and it also uses children and
communicate with each other within
women’s lack of access to reproductive
seconds. And through using social media,
devices, birth control, as a way of creating
they’re no longer dependent on professional
more workers who are more desperate and
media to spread the word or to cover their
who will work under any circumstances. In
events. They can cover them; they can
all of those ways, she sees capitalism and
shape the images coming out of those
patriarchy as intertwined.
protests.
In addition, the flash strike is taking the
E.G.: You wrote that to many of the labor
place of long, drawn-out grinding strikes.
rights activists you interviewed, “the living-
Workers have been able to do these one-day
wage campaign is inextricably tied to the
strikes so they don’t lose too many wages
struggle against police violence and for
and companies don’t usually fire people, but
immigration reform. ” Can you explain how
they are nevertheless able to get out their
these seemingly separate civil rights issues are
discontent with the brands and to have
connected?
protests all over the country, and the world,
A.O.: (Fast-food worker) Bleu Rainer
that show up huge multinationals like
explained really clearly how the fight for
McDonald’s and Walmart for the promises
living wage is tied to the struggle against
they’ve broken, for the lies they’ve told and
police violence when he said, “We are the
for the illegal things they’ve done to
same people. We are the people who are
retaliate against workers for organizing.
harassed and beaten by police when we are
The final thing is that the majority of
tired and coming home from our second or
IF YOU GO
third job, which often brings us into the
streets late at night because we have to
work so many jobs to survive.”
And he pointed out that, for example,
after police shot teenager Michael Brown in
Ferguson, Mo., it was living-wage activists in
a local McDonald’s who invited protesters in
to get a safe space away from police
v i o l e n c e . I t ’s v e r y m u c h Che s a m e p e o p l e ,
a n d I th in k th e im m ig r a tio n s tr u g g le is a ls o
tied to it because they are also the same
people.
A veteran activist for the hotel workers,
Maria Elena Durazo, said to me, since the
early 20th century, the labor movement has
been tied to the struggle for immigrant
rights because immigrants are used to
breaking unions to drive down wages. They
have always been used to make extra profits
for capitalists, and now more than ever, she
feels that it is essential for the labor
movement to stand with immigrants, and
we’re seeing that happen.
E.G.; I was surprised to read that in
Denmark, fast-food workers earn the equivalent
of $21 per hour, with paid vacations, benefits
and subsidies to attend college. Do you think
something like this is achievable in the U.S. in
your lifetime?
A.O.: Yeah, I think it would. First of all,
the first question that people always ask is,
“If we raise wages, aren’t prices going to go
up?” No, because there is plenty of surplus.
Part of what’s happened is that corporations
are engaging in shareholder buyback,
because CEOs’ worth and salary is
determined only by how much the value of
the shares of the company increase.
One thing that I would like to see, that
has started to be called for, is limiting how
much of the profits of the company can go
into shareholder buyback. Maybe instead,
you can have a regulation that says a certain
percentage has to go to raises; a certain
percentage has to go to benefits. In the past
40 years, you have CEOs that make 20, 30,
80 times what their lowest-paid workers
make. Now it’s like 350 times what their
lowest-paid workers make. No one’s asking
See WORKERS, page 13