LB11ers
To THE
EQIJPB
morning? And why, again, were no military
jets "scramblect
"·' to intercept the "off course"
planes, as is customary? And what about that
Israeli company (Zim) that hastily broke their
lease and evacuated the WTC one week be-
fore the "attacks"? What about "building 7"?
And it just doesn't make sense that Flight
77 didn't nosedive into the center of the
iPentagon from above, but instead did an im-
probable 270-degree hairpin circle around
the exterior of the Pentagon a few feet off the
ground at 400 mph to hit the only part of the
Pentagon that was evacuated for renovation.
Coincidences? I'm not sure what to be-
lieve any more. But I think it's also interest-
ing to note that most of the SEC's investiga-
tive records of Enron (big news just prior to
the "attacks") were stored in the World Trade
re nter at the time it went down.
Don Schneider
Pleasant Hill
~
ViQWQQiQT
8X TQY&
Certainly, these industrial polluters pro-
vide some jobs, but these come at the expense
of commercial fishermen and tourism indus-
tries who once thrived on the banks of a fer-
tile river. It is time to rise up and tell industry
that we want our rivers and streams back, that
the destruction of the land is too great a price
to pay for a nickel off at the market place, that
we will endure their underhanded manipula-
tion of our fine democracy no longer.
It is time for our representatives to throw
off the shackles of corporate investment and
see to it that our laws are enforced and the
public is well served.
Tom Denton
Eugene
,RAGE FOR THE RIVER
-:>:
While reading Mariel Alexandre's letter
(6/26)
on the sorry state of Oregon's water-
, n
1 8ways, I was overcome with a sense of despair,
1 ")which deepened into rage. For too long, the
wishes of the working classes for clean water
have been ignored by the greed-fueled corpo-
rate interests that dictate our civic enforce-
ment of our clean water laws has caused the
Willamette to become a cesspool of heavy
p metals an.ct other persistent toxins. At what
~
oint will our leaders wake up and realize
that their mandate comes not from corrupt in-
dustrial interests, but rather from the will of
their constituents?
~~are
VOTE TO IMPEACH
I have joined with the more than 250,000
people who have called for the impeachment
of George W .• Bush and Co. at
www.VoteToimpeach.org This campaign,
initiated by former Attorney General Ramsey
Clark, has drafted articles of impeachment
for introduction in Congress and is gaining
great momentum around the U.S. Why, I ask,
is the current administration so mean spirited,
secretive and devious?
Sincerely, a U.S. citizen for 46 years,
Jozef Siekiel-Zdzienicki
Eugene
LETTERS POLICY: We welcome letters on all topics
and will print as many as space allows. Please limit
length to 250 words, keep submissions to once a
month, and include your address and phone number
for our files. E-mail to editor@eugeneweekly.com
{please put "letters" in the subject line), fax to
484-4044, or mail to 1251 Lincoln, Eugene 97401.
~
J
Fertility Center of Oregon
~:s helped many couples
achieve pregnancy since 1978.
We are in need of Egg Donors to
continue to help infertile women .
Procedures are done in a pleasant
local environment over ~ period .
of only six weeks, and donors are
compensated $2500 for their
~ertility
time. If you are a healthy woman
Center
ll
of
www.eugeneweeKtv
.com
Applying ethics and values
to workers' rights.
E
very summer I go.to the Vancouver Folk Festival.
There's music from all over the world, I get to
see friends, eat good food, and my child goes to
the children's festival. At one concert my 8-year-old and
I heard a group of 100 young fiddlers play "Union Maid." It
was repeated so often by old time folkies like Faith Petric and
Utah Phillips that my son sang it throughout the day.
I filled with pride. I knew my ancestors were smiling. Radical uniqn activists
raised me. My grandmother, who I lived with, worked in the New York garment
district sewing "foundations." We didn't always have much money, but we had
lots of bras and girdles. My father was a teamster; my mother belonged to
1199. "Never pass a picket line" was a religious statement. Even when it meant
economic sacrifice, you supported the union. Everything was union - from
your social life, like the picnics we went on, to your d'eath - family cemetery
plots were purchased through the union.
Along with pride though, I knew my relatives would be "turning over in
their graves." It wasn't just that many unions had become big business, as my
grandmother sadly saw before. her death, but also that the concept of unions
and workers' rights has sometimes become so twisted. There have been num-
bers of organizations in town, such as All Women's Health, EFN, and Mother
Kali's, rife with ccmflict about workers' rights. Workers' have organized in a
variety of ways with a variety of results. I don't know the details of all these
organizations, but when Bobbie Willis wrote about Mother Kali's (6/12), I felt I
must speak up. I unsuccessfully tried writing a letter, but when I heard my
child singing "Union Maid" and felt my ancestors, I knew I had to try again.
R
eporting on Mother K9Ii's labor struggles, Willis drew on her interview
with Terri Cicacci. They focused on events since fall 2002, but efforts
to secure workers' rights have _
a much longer and different history. For
four years prior, former staff, volunteers, community members, and myself,
then manager, advocated persistently for reasonable responses to harass-
ment, equal pay for equal work, a community represented board, etc., with for-
·mal mediations, negotiations, and legal means. Evaluations, which I instituted,
and hiring freezes were not at issue. Despite success at my job, when I fought
for fair labor practices for staff, I was forced out, amid claims that staff and I
were jeopardizing the store's well-being with our demands. How many times
have workers been told fighting for their rights jeopardizes business? Former
staff "left" in solidarity when I was forced out and when their jobs were threat-
ened if they protested unfair treatment.
cfb ?J?niracle
t3eceme <1%n
~33 Vener
Th,
Union Maid
age 21-31 and are interested, call
683-1559 or visit our website at
www.WomensCare.com.
.
'
T
he board was relieved of pressure to negotiate in part because it was
easy in this economic climate to replace me and virtually the entire
staff with the current manager and staff. I don't think it should have
been easy in progressive feminist circles. In my youth, my extended family was
often in economic straights, but still supported workers' rights. Difficult eco-
nomic times should bring us togeth_er, not tear us apart. The new manager and
staff were aware of the conditions under which they were hired, so their ironic
claims to now represent u's are not healing and do not feel like workers' soli-
darity or sisterhood.
Healing could have taken place in any of numbers of ways suggested to the
former or current board. Indeed, the board still hasn't dealt with the griev-
ances and unionizing now won't support workers off the books almost a year.
It's a sad story that changed lives. I imagine there are other stories from other
organizations. We need to look at why this is happening so much and insist
responsibility is taken for actions taken ..
Changing personnel and even unionizing in this case.silenced rather than
resolved conflict. Before we support actions and organizations, we need to
look at the full story, applying ethics and values when it comes to workers'
rights, or anyone's rights.
I
imagine some people will complain at this condensed description of what
happened, while some will say everyone was trying, and others say time~
are hard. I've heard all that before and it hasn't effected much change. I
don't want my child to just sing "Union Maid," but to understand its values and
how those values are important not just for yourself, but for others, and for
your ancestors and children's children. It's hard work living in hard times, but if
we don't support each other in deep ways, take responsibility for actions, and
tell our full stories, none of us will have anything left to sing about.
tova (Stabin) is a free-lance writer, teacher, editor, librarian, mother, and life-long working-class Jewish les-
bian feminist activist and organizer. She was a manager of Mother Kalis for four years.
eugene
weeKlV
AUGUST
14, 2003 1