letters
TO THE EDITOR
VOLUNTARY TAX
Did you vote “yes” for the recent
school tax measure? If we all sent a check
for the amount we would have paid, or
any amount, we could save some jobs and
preserve school programs.
Mail checks to Eugene Education
Fund, PO Box 1015, Eugene 97440. Mark
the bottom left of the check for “4J
staffi ng,” or “(name a school) staffi ng,”
or divide your contribution such as “50
percent 4J staffi ng and 50 percent (name
of school) staffi ng.” To donate online, look
at the Eugene Education Fund website. All
donations are tax deductible.
Perhaps some people who voted no
might still like to make a contribution that
would support the staffi ng of a specifi c
school. Or soften the impact of prospective
drastic cuts.
So, just do it. Write that check now.
Garrison Keillor said, “Nothing you do for
children is ever wasted.” Let’s do this for
children and for the quality of life in our
community.
Paulette Thompson
Eugene
UNBALANCING ACT
It is all so clear now, makes me wonder
why I didn’t think of it: Just increase federal
taxes and we can solve the budget defi cits
in all 50 states. Makes me wish I would
have stayed in school and gotten a Ph.D.
in political science rather than a BS in
accounting and a CPA license. I am certain
I will never be an advisor to Congress.
Mike Tayloe
Springfi eld
FACTORY FARMING
Free
press
advocates
viewpoint
have
been
outraged recently by bills in Florida, Iowa
and Minnesota legislatures to prohibit
the possession and display of videos of
factory farming. Yet, for the meat, dairy
and egg industries that push for these bills,
the prohibition makes perfect sense.
A year ago, undercover investigators
exposed Texas E6 Cattle Co. in Castro
County chaining dairy calves in tiny wood
crates and bludgeoning their skulls with
pickaxes. Last June, Cal-Cruz Hatcheries
in Santa Cruz, Calif., were found
grinding up and suffocating live chicks.
In August, Iowa’s Hillandale Farms
and Wright County Eggs were forced to
recall 550 million eggs for Salmonella
contamination. If I was running one of
those operations, I certainly wouldn’t
want people with cameras anywhere near
my facilities.
Filthy conditions and cruel practices are
likely to remain legal and commonplace
on U.S. factory farms, and their operators
will continue to avoid public exposure.
Our only option as consumers is to stop
subsidizing these conditions and practices
at the checkout counter by shifting to
wholesome, cruelty-free vegetables, fruits
and grains, as well as grain- and nut-based
meat and dairy substitutes available in
every supermarket.
Edward Newland
Eugene
SALES TAX
Governor Kitzhaber was right. The
way we fund schools in this state has to
be changed. What we are currently doing
is not working — and it hasn’t been for the
last 30 years. During that time however, it
did correct the economic gap between the
changed without our vote. We would be
back to the previous way where we voted
on school taxes, only we would do it on a
state level, instead of by each city.
Yes, there are some who would call
this a sales tax, that’s what it was called
in 2002, when Sen. Carter submitted it
to the legislature. They ignored it then,
but it was a good idea, and even a better
idea now. About fi ve percent would
cover everything from pre- kindergarten
through community college, and it would
have built in funds for income variance.
Let’s ask the legislature to give up their
supervision of school funding and leave it
to us. What do you think?
Bob Cassidy
Eugene
BY ROBERT BUSSEL
The Threat of History
Gov. LePage, meet Ms. LeClair
B
ack in March, Maine Gov. Paul LePage ordered the state’s Department
of Labor to remove a mural depicting scenes of working-class
activism and union struggles from the lobby of the agency’s
administration building. A spokesperson for LePage explained that
the labor murals did not refl ect the governor’s pro-business agenda
and asked why there were no paintings on display of L.L. Bean, the
founder of the famed outdoor gear fi rm based in Maine, whom she
described as a “job creator.”
This is not the fi rst time that conservatives have displaced
labor art from public buildings. In 1994, when Republicans gained
control of the House of Representatives, they removed a painting
showing images of the epic 1912 Lawrence, Mass., textile strike from
the hearing room for the House Subcommittee on Labor and Education.
So what’s behind these efforts to cleanse the public record of the visual
history of worker militancy and labor activism? Although promoting a business
agenda is doubtless one motivation, I believe that there is another objective that
is far more disturbing.
What conservatives really fear, I suspect, is that contemporary workers might
draw on this history for insight and inspiration, see parallels between the past and
the present, and gain a deeper appreciation for the critical role that unions have
played in creating economic fairness and social justice. Greater social awareness
of this history also threatens to undermine conservative arguments that while
unions might once have been necessary, they are no longer relevant given the
expansion of legal protections for workers and a more enlightened employer
approach to labor relations.
The painting showing images of the 1937 strike that LePage ordered removed
is a powerful example of what it means to deprive us of these vital historical
4 JUNE 2, 2011
rural and urban schools, which was good.
The band-aid approach of a city income
tax was recently soundly rejected. It is a
whole state problem. There may be some
waste in the administration of school
funds, but getting rid of that would not
solve the massive problem of lack of funds
to properly run the school system.
What we need to do is give all of us
in the state a chance to vote on a new tax
that will correct this 30-year-old problem.
It has to be a tax that can be used only
for education. It has to be subject to our
approval, both in initiating it, or changing
it in the future.
We could call it a dedicated education
tax based on consumption. It would be
in the state constitution and couldn’t be
EUGENE WEEKLY
memories. This strike, which I learned about while writing a biography of Congress
of Industrial Organization (CIO) leader Powers Hapgood, involved thousands of
shoe workers, many immigrant women of French Canadian descent, who sought
to improve their poverty-level wages and stop their supervisors from engaging
in sexual harassment. One of the strike leaders was a French speaking stitcher
named Alexina LeClair, whose powerful speechmaking and singing led
strikers to nickname her the “sweetheart of the CIO.” Noting at a union
meeting that she was given good work until she “refused the attention
of the boss,” LeClair eloquently summarized the aspirations of the
strikers: “We will earn a living and not simply an existence.”
Due to intervention by the courts and intense employer
resistance backed by local police and the Maine National Guard,
the strikers failed in their organizing effort. Nonetheless, the
issues they raised — the right to a living wage, freedom from sexual
harassment, insistence that employers respect the right of workers
to organize, demanding that immigrants deserved a chance to achieve
the American Dream — remain highly relevant during a time when we
are suffering through the worst economic downturn since the Depression.
Through the stirring example of Alexina LeClair, we are reminded that
unions can help ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things. Her rallying
cry, that working people deserve “a living and not simply an existence,” speaks
to the visionary hopes and aspirations that have often guided working-class
activism and trade unionism. These are the kinds of memories that LePage and
his ideological allies are attempting to erase from public awareness.
Yes, an honest account of our history should acknowledge the contributions
of pioneering business fi gures such as L.L. Bean. But it should also include
recognition of working people like Alexina LeClair. During these hard times,
LePage could learn a lot from LeClair, a fellow Franco-American whose story
represents an integral part of our shared history that deserves to be told.
Robert Bussel teaches history and directs the Labor Education and Research Center at the UO. He is
the author of From Harvard to the Ranks of Labor: Powers Hapgood and the American Working Class.
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