My Chicagoland Black Friday in words and pictures
Filed under: Society and Economy, Unions
As I was writing this blog post on Sunday morning, news came from the Associated Press about the real human cost of our Black Fridays:
“DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — At least 112 people were killed in a fire that raced through a multi-story garment factory just outside of Bangladesh’s capital, an official said Sunday. Bangladesh has some 4,000 garment factories, many without proper safety measures. The country annually earns about $20 billion from exports of garment products, mainly to the United States and Europe. Bangladesh’s garment factories make clothes for brands including Wal-Mart, JC Penney, H&M, Marks & Spencer, Carrefour and Tesco.”
Walmart stocks up on products manufactured under deadly sweatshop conditions. It organizes Black Friday sales knowing they can touch off riots in their stores. Then Walmart sends security guards and police after peaceful demonstrators who only seek justice in the global workplace. Who said irony is dead?
I didn’t hear of any Black Friday shopper nastiness in Chicagoland, but there were a number of peaceful demonstrations against Walmart and other retailers who exploit and abuse their own employees and supply chain workers around the world.
My Black Friday began at around 4:30 am with a drive from my home in Oak Park to Bedford Park, a suburb south of Midway Airport. The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) had rented a hotel meeting room there as a staging area for Walmart protestors, plus buses to carry them to several Chicagoland Walmart stores and eventually to downtown to support food and retail workers there.
It was dark and deserted within the complex of hotels, but when I found the yellow school buses, I knew I was in the right place. Once in the lobby, a UFCW staffer saw me and guided me to their meeting room where staff people were already giving away lime-green Our Walmart tee shirts, buttons and signs. About 30 people were there drinking coffee and munching on donuts.
Will worker justice take flight at Chicago airports?
Filed under: Society and Economy, Unions
“I make $10.50 an hour, which is not a living wage here in Chicago, but due to the new victory which we won…in a year I’ll be making a living wage. This is a huge victory not only for me but for my family and my coworkers and their families as well. I will be able to move my kids into a safe neighborhood and with the new contract I will be able to afford health insurance.”—Tamekah Shivers, O’Hare Airport concessions worker who recently gained a union contract
O’Hare Airport is a confusing crowded warren of human activity. Even Chicago natives get lost in O’Hare, an airport that always seems to be under construction somewhere. Fortunately there is an abundance of small shops where harried travelers may find refreshments and reading material to lower their stress levels. The same is true at Chicago’s much smaller and more human-sized Midway Airport.
At O’Hare you may meet Tamekah Shivers, an O’Hare concession worker. She is a single mom with 3 young boys. Her 8 year old has Downs Syndrome and her 3 year old is a sickle cell anemia carrier. Perhaps you’ll get a meal served by Aida Olavarria who supports her daughter and grandson on her small O’Hare restaurant salary. If you buy a coffee and pastry at an O’Hare Starbucks, you may get back some change from Peggy Willis. Willis is determined that her 3 year old son will go to college when he is older, no matter what. Read more
Don Moore 1942-2012: A lion who roared on behalf of public education
Filed under: Education, Society and Economy, Unions
“Don Moore was the most persistent, thoughtful, smart advocate I know,” said Anne Hallett, director of the Grow Your Own teacher preparation program. “He would get his teeth into something and not let go.”
“We have lost a giant. We have lost a lion.”—Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis
It’s easy to stereotype public policy wonks as data driven, numbers crunching, analytical geeks with horn-rimmed glasses and bad haircuts who provide the research for the real organizers who go out into the real world and mobilize for social change. Chicago’s Don Moore, who died last August, defied that misleading stereotype. Besides being Chicago’ s premier educational researcher, Moore was a coalition building organizer par excellence, a strategist with a grand vision for educational democracy and one who possessed a deeply held moral vision. It was a vision that still stirs those who knew him even after his life’s journey has ended.
He was a genuine educational reformer, not a fake like the Michelle Rhees of today. Rhee and those like her call themselves “reformers” but use hi-stakes testing and school privatization to generate profits for huge corporations who hope to gain control of Amerircn education.
Don Moore always put children over profits understanding that a child is always more than just a test score.
