Agency links workers and Thanksgiving
11/20/09 | 5 comments
Jack McKay

Agency links workers and Thanksgiving


OP ART BY JENNIFER KOHNKE

Thanksgiving wasn’t always just about family, food and football.

The First National Proclamation of Thanksgiving was given by the Continental Congress in 1777 and recognized “the Trade and Manufactures of the People, and the Labor of the Husbandman.”

And in 1863 the modern Thanksgiving Day, to be celebrated on the final Thursday in November, was proclaimed by President Abraham Lincoln who gave thanks to the work of “the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe [that] had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, [that] have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore.”

As we enter this Thanksgiving season with news reports describing yet another “jobless recovery,” we are confronted with an economy that over the past several decades has given America’s workers a worse deal.

Every Thanksgiving since 2003, Food AND Medicine, or FAM, an organization whose goals include aiding laid-off workers in gaining basic necessities such as food, medicine, and housing, has organized a Solidarity Harvest. Unions, farmers, churches and small businesses work together to provide local foods for Thanksgiving basket to laid-off workers and families in hard times. This year FAM will distribute more than 200 baskets.

For each of the past seven years, members of FAM, including laid-off workers, have met and talked about the layoffs. A constant theme has been the lack of a workers’ voice both at work and in policy decisions.

During this time we’ve witnessed trade policies that support outsourcing of jobs, health care policies making insurance companies’ profit go up 428 percent in the past eight years while millions face a life of choosing between basic necessities and health care, and a corporate bailout paying billions to the biggest banks, while regular people lose their homes.

Workers haven’t just been front row spectators, they’ve borne the brunt of these decisions, and hearing workers’ voices can help the whole community understand the impact. FAM has gained special permission from HBO to show “The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant,” a 40-minute HBO documentary film directed by Steve Bognar and Julia Reichert and told completely through the voices of workers. On Dec. 23, 2008, the General Motors assembly plant in Moraine, Ohio, shut its doors. At least 2,500 workers and 200 management staff lost their jobs and much more. They lost the pride they share in their work and the camaraderie built through the years. Work on the assembly line proved to be much more than a paycheck, for many it became an important part of their identity. “The Last Truck” views the final months of the plant through the workers' eyes as they reflect on their work and consider their next steps.

“It could have been us” was the theme of comments of laid-off workers from the paper mills in Eastern Fine, Millinocket and Baileyville after watching a preview of “The Last Truck.”

“People who’ve got jobs, young people need to see this,” said Randy Tompkins, an Eastern Fine worker from Brewer. “You’re not too employed to be unemployed and you’re not too young to be unemployed.”

“People need to wake up,” added David Blanchette, also from Eastern Fine, about what jobs really mean, “what it’s like to work with a bunch of people for that long.”

With so much at stake, Blanchette adds, “We can’t let the company have all the say.”

When listening to the workers in “The Last Truck,” or to any laid-off workers, certain truths emerge. The first is that a job is a lot more than a paycheck. It supports you, your family, your community and ultimately the whole economy. Like it or not, it’s where you spend a huge chunk of your life and make some of the most important relationships. To describe the employer-employee relationship as simply a “labor marketplace” cuts short a useful conversation about the meaning of jobs.

Far from being just being bought and sold at a “labor marketplace,” workers are critical in giving input on the big public policy issues of our day.

This Thanksgiving, it would benefit us as a society to appreciate and listen to those who do the work. Just maybe, we’d give more support to keeping jobs from getting outsourced to sweatshops, use our nation’s treasury to back up workers instead of big banks, and design policies that provide health care for all instead of obscene profits for health industry corporations.

Jack McKay is the director of Food AND Medicine in Brewer. “The Last Truck” will be shown free to the public at 6 p.m. Nov. 20 at the Bangor Opera House. After the movie will be a panel discussion featuring laid-off workers and CWA President Larry Cohen. For more information call 989-5860 or go to foodandmedicine.org.

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Comments
5 comments on this item
On 11/19/09 at 6:35 PM, Ladyslipper wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Oh but haven't you heard, Mr. McKay, Pres Obama is holding a jobs summit next month........

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On 11/20/09 at 10:57 AM, muguet wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

"What is good for GM is good for America..." right? That sort of thinking has guided public policy toward the interests of employers, with the assumption that prosperity would be shared by working citizens. As business has learned how to divorce wages from productivity growth, and direct ALL gains into profits for shareholders, the premise has proven to be incorrect. Further, policymakers who believe workers exist to serve the economy ( the word does not include working people -- hence the troubling term, "jobless recovery") prevail over those who believe the economy exists to serve them... History has taught us that the middle class does not exist outside of a strong, public policy framework, and deference to corporate America is an anathema to freedom. It's time to heed those lessons. Thank you, Mr. McKay, for your fine work and insightful article.

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On 11/20/09 at 5:20 PM, EJParsons wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Oops! The writer forgot to mention that Thanksgiving is a day set apart to thank God for what we have. If it weren't for God, we would have nothing. So, let's all gather 'round the feast this Thanksgiving and be thankful to God no matter our lot in life.

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On 11/20/09 at 5:36 PM, SantiniSpagoandSpike wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Sorry to kick the bees nest again, but blame unions for a lot of the upset in the auto industry and more. When I can buy (and have shipped to the US) a nice Toyota Land Cruiser LC200 with automatic transmission, leather seats, completely loaded for less than I could buy it in Los Angeles or even a Hummer (which I did buy) at a lesser cost overseas and have it shipped-in,; plus, these vehicles are better-built than domestic rides - you tell me what is wrong with the picture?

Insofar as my opinion goes, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and some other holidays we observe around the US happen once a year. We always think of the unfortunate who do not have a bounty to set on their table on these nice holidays like we do, for the most part. But, we supply the soup kitchens, church basements, clubs, and auditoriums with the meal-of-the-day for the unfortunates...and then forget them the rest of the year. This is the unfortunate part of the deal.

The "first Thanksgiving", if it ever happened, was really, from some history books and not from memory or recollection of some TV special I saw, was very harsh indeed. I don't know nor care what these Pilgrims wore or fed to the Indians, if many Indians did come to the gathering for peace, food and friendship (baloney), but the festivities ended up with the Indians fighting among themselves, with Pilgrims, the Pilgrims fighting with themselves and after the mêlée, the situation in the community was none the better. Not, at least, until two, three or four years went by and people settled-down and began to accept each other. The dream-machine of school time history lives on, and as we all know, we cannot believe too much anymore what is "real history" or not.

The real problem of the article describes several things, but the root of the matter are illegals to the US, sucking-off the system at large. One Connecticut Senator, a Hispanic, advocates if the illegal alien, no matter their culture or heritage, works in the US and can afford to pay for health insurance, and be able to go to a hospital to be treated, (etc), the current laws prevent this, but reform on this Act is being pushed through Congress as we read this comment, and the prime advocate backing this program up is none other than President Obama! The program flares-out into other related avenues, too, saying if an illegal alien can work in the US and buy this and that, get welfare just like other out-of-work Americans, etc, etc, etc and blah-blah-blah, maybe someday it will be the absolute taxpayer base that will be partaking of food kitchen assistance and the illegals will be the ones supporting everyone else. Not really, but things are looking worse all the time for the US.

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On 11/20/09 at 5:54 PM, SantiniSpagoandSpike wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Just as an added afterthought...quickly...I'd prefer to buy US products as vehicles are concerned, for one item. However the quality has diminished. The last Cadillac and GM product I owned had so many problems; others who bought the Cadillacs I know also had problems; Chrysler sells nothing but junk in our opinion, and the best vehicles are foreign made corporations; even though they are produced on US soil. This does nothing to boost the US economy at all, and we realize this, and it is terrible, but as a consumer, I cannot purchase a major consumer product as like in a vehicle, and to allow it to nickel-and-dime me to death or create complete dissatisfaction and frustration! It seems it is a no-win situation for the manufacturer's, and a win, partially, for the consumer, and a loss for the US in general . Things have to get better in the US!

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