Yesterday I went to the union meeting. The negotiating team came to us (the rest of the members) to tell us that the college will not negotiate on those key issues, and mediation is the next step. Tempers are high. All kinds of interesting dynamics. The room was mostly full of irish-american women with thick Boston accents in their fifties, these were the most vocal. Then the (mostly) male side of the room from facilities, and security, also mostly older and irish-american, and a few african-american men including some I recognized from college supply, parking and the copy centers, and some african-american women, mostly a little younger (40s) and a few in their thirties. I was still the youngest in the room. And the only (well maybe one other) jewish person. Ah, Boston.
One (30's-40's ish) white guy on the negotiating team came off as more apologetic and cautious, he got heckled and argued with a good deal, especially by the older white women. A couple men also heckled him. I remembered this tension at an earlier meeting as well. At one point, he was trying to explain something and a male voice from the back called out "[apologetic guy]'s not on our side!" A little chill went around the room. Divisive, nervous. The waters closed over it with no comment. One black woman finally got up and pointed out that the members elected the negotiating team before us, and they were telling us what had been happening and it was up to us to decide what to do, we'd already mentioned a course of action, and lets get to it (and stop harassing the team, was her inference). Some cheers. Finally, something besides venting. After a little more heckling and argument, we set the date for an 'informational picket.' Apologetic-guy wanted us to wait to set a date until the official union rep got back, but that was roundly slapped down by a variety of folks.
The amount of anger at the meeting I can totally understand, but I was frustrated at the lack of articulateness. I don't think I wanted hierarchical leadership, but we spent tons of time going in circles, and I could see frustrations building -for some it was whenever managment was apologized for or explained. For others it was as the discussion came full circle or was derailed. the fact that the negotiating team didn't seem that articulate was disconcerting. Apologetic guy often sounded confused, and the other folks soudned more like the angrier members. When tensions are high, I guess that's how it breaks down, you either want to ally yourself with the membership,w hich means echoing their tone, or face hostility.
There was a lot of hostility towards management, but I'm not sure exactly who people mean when they say that. Universities are weird places. I can see from the inside now why the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (who I worked for a couple summers) developed the model they did for organizing at universities. A lone secretary in a department full of professors is very different from a room full of shopfloor workers and a single supervisor. An us/them mentality is not sustainable, especially when professors aren't really 'managers', not like in a business. Although it's fairly obvious that the university's negotiating team (or whoever tells them what to bargain on) sees it that way.

The more I think about the contract the college wants, the more angry I get. A couple of the part-time faculty, plus my favorite professor (a chomskyan linguistics specialist) were supportive and outraged at the contract. It will be interesting to see who comes out for the picket and what happens next.

10/28So I just got a flyer from my union. The union of staff at my level at this university. Contract negotiations are underway, and apparently are now stalled. I have gone to one union meeting here, at which i was the youngest by easily 30 years. I felt a little out of it, also because I don't see this job as my future --I'm only here for a year. Buit the contract seems to be a real bitch. Some of the main things the union is refusing to agree to adn the college is refusing to back down on:

• a bi-weekly payroll (as of now,we're paid every friday),
• mandatory direct deposit (something i already use but only because I have enough savings that i'm not paying bills or buying food directly out of my paycheck),
• raises based on merit, rather than seniority (inflation and cost of living rise yearly, and wages should keep pace with that regardless of anything else)--plus a revision of the evaluation system categories, from: satisfactory/unsatisfactory to: excellent, satisfactory, unsatisfactory, needs improvement. "needs improvement" is a horrible category. this means that a supervisor can effectively LOWER your wages (as inflation and cost of living rise) by saying there are areas you need improvement in. grr...
• and finally, a new salary system wil take twice as long for workers to move up in payscale.

10/26 Well of course I didn't make it. I was going to share a ride out there because it was waaaay on the other side of town. But the longer I sat there waiting for my friend to call. teh more it echoed in my mind "thirty dollars....hot bath...thirty dollars....cable tv.....thirty dollars...peace and quiet..." Of course when my roommate generously agreed to drive me to my parents house it was decided. I brought a ton of food, four movies (I only managed to watch 2 and a half) my school books (hah!) and my laundry. Bath salts. ice cream. it was great. I didn't watch all the movies due the seductive call of cable tv, specifically VH1 fashion TV. That shit warps your mind. After watching an hour and a half on Janet Jackson, plus another half-hour of models wearing dental floss and spray glitter I was thinking "jeez. maybe I should do more sit-ups or something..." I was watching BET for a while, but I kept getting disoriented because the ads look exactly like the videos. MTV The Real World was on but everyone on it was a psycho or an idiot or both. It was a nice weekend, I read a lot too, ate good food, took a bath for about an hour, soaking in my dead sea salts which make you float no matter what. Went to a birthday party on Saturday night and scored a ride home, from Chinatown to arlington heights! I have good friends.

10/23 later in the day I'm trying to round things up so I can go see Bounty Killa tonight. But it's way the heck out of town and ridiculously expensive (I don't even know if other folks are playing with him to make it worth the steeeep price). And to top it all off, I am house-sitting tonight for my folks. Well, for the woman who is housesitting for my folks. This is way at the other end of town. Suburbia, kinda. I am torn between the two images of my evening: one, curling up in the whirlpool-bathtub in candlelight reading one of my mom's books while my laundry hums dry in the basement, a stack of videos by the cable-enabled tv. Two, rockin out discreetly in a crowd of dancehall reggae fans, feeling insideoutsider, whitegurl with dreads, half-jewish junglist feeling the beats down Dorchester way. Call of suburbia vs. the call of what people in boston persist in calling the "inner city" cuz it's poorer and blacker, although it's on the edge of the city. Logistically speaking, the tub makes more sense.

earlier in the day
Last night I watched another episode of "Africans in America," PBS's documentary of America and Slavery. It's pretty good. I watched it out of a combination of curiosity and inertia, since having gone to ex-hippie-run private schools in the Boston area for most of my life i have seen nearly every civil-rights/slavery/african-american experience documentary that PBS has ever made. But it was inspiring. Remindded me of why I was a history major. They described this episode in Boston in the 1840s when the rights/citizenship of people who had escaped slavery in the south to come north was still being debated. Antony Burns was one such person. he was arrested as a fugitive, and placed in jail. During the course of his trial, tensions rose in boston. On the decision of the court to send him back to slavery, the streets erupted in protest. The National Guard was called in. The courthouse was mobbed. People broke in to try to free him. In the confrontation with police, a deputy was killed. The governer mobilized armed guards to surround the jail. Protesters from the surrounding towns, as far away as Worcester and beyond, poured into the city. When the chief guard (i can't remember if he was actually the police chief, but he was a higher-up in the police force) was ordered to take Burns to the train, he resigned in protest. Unfortunately, Burns was eventually sent back.
So. Fighting in the streets has been commonplace in America. this shouldn't be a lightbulb to me, but still, i blink, having come through the american educational system, which teaches that unrest happens in other countries. Labor History drew me because its a good place to recognize coercive force by government, business or both in cooperation, and its effect on the options available to working people -especially poor ones- to better their situation. The violent suppresion of the Communist Party in the south in the 1930s (a primarily black sharecroppers' organization), the general strikes in Seattle and cities around the country, the repeated occupation of mining towns by the national guard --actually the use of the national guard repeatedly in periods of labor unrest, all challenge the idea of the nation as constructed by those who have historically been in power. Who have the national guard protected?
Take a look at the veterans of World War One's march on Washington during the Depression. (actually, there'a decent PBS documentary on the deperession that talks about this as well.) They set up a tent city across the river from the capital, demanding their veterans' bonuses. The army was called in and opened fire on the tent city. Who led them? Patton. Who was underneath him? why, Eisenhower. So can you be suprised at who they allied themselves with later?
Rant Rant rant. It's conspiracy day. rather than swerving into humor right now, i'll send you here for another great satire. My natural wit and sense of the absurd will return after this emergency broadcast *beep*. thank you for calling central services, this has not been a recording.