Stagehands: Not For Creampuffs

After my post about the Tinseltown Writer's Strike, I'm moving on to the stagehand's strike, which I see as wholly different.

New York stagehands are striking over work rule changes imposed on them without a vote by their union. They've been working without a contract for several months so the work rule changes were a snipered in while their defenses were down. It was a sucker punch. I don't know exactly what those work rules were, but from past experience, I know that work rules contained in union contracts usually protect the workers' health and safety, and provide a measure of protection from arbitrary and discriminatory changes to job descriptions. If somebody now on strike can expand on this, please write, and I'll publish your comments.

I also know a little bit about labor law from my year as an embattled shop steward and I know that when a company imposes work rule changes without first bargaining with the union that's an Unfair Labor Practice. That is, unless George repealed U.S. labor laws.

In early 2001 I worked a second job on weekends for a stagehand's union in Nevermind, Florida. This part time seasonal work offered to me by a friend in the union, made it possible for me to catch up with my rent which had fallen behind when my full time factory job cut everyone's hours. I was not a union member, but I paid my union dues because I won't scab even if I starve. In those months I worked as a stagehand this is what I learned:

This is no job for creampuffs. It's heavy physical work for the most part. The skilled work, done by electricians and carpenters, can require climbing and working high above stage floors, so it is in everyone's best interest to have work rules that enforce safety measures to ensure workers don't become overly fatigued. Fatigue leads to mistakes, which lead to accidents. When huge stage scenery is moved, it's pushed by a team of stagehands. When trunks weighing hundreds of pounds are lifted into a truck, it's lifted by a team of stagehands. Without a union contract spelling out specific work rules, and providing for adequate rest periods, and the correct number of workers for each job, I know the speed ups and work related injuries that result. I know because I've worked on both sides of the wall.

When you go to the Superbowl, and enjoy the game and the merchandise booths, thank the stagehands. When you attend a trade exposition, learn about innovative products to enhance your business, and enjoy delicious foods served at that expo, thank the stagehands. They put it all together, from the lighting, to the tables, to the cubicle dividers, to the sound. When you go to a concert and the music is awesome, the lighting flawless, thank the stagehands. Without them, the stage would be dark, the sound would be nonexistent, and the stage effects would be blank walls. And when the concert's over, and the last game is played, the stagehands take it all down again, push the heavy trunks and stage props up ramps and down ramps and heft equipment into trucks, secure it in those trucks and move on to the next job so people can safely and comfortably enjoy their entertainment of choice.

This is not work to be done by so called "independent contractors," farmed out to the lowest bidders. This is the way construction work has been done recently in Florida, where a high number of job related injuries and deaths have been the result.

To the parents who came to the city to enjoy a Broadway show with their kids, I have sympathy and a suggestion/possible solution: Ice skating in Bryant Park near 42nd Street main library.

Picket lines are hallowed ground. To protect your Karma, don't step across one.

Too Tired to Blog(Honk if you Hate Halliburton)

Too tired and too sick to blog.

All my energy is sucked right outa me by the vampire economy we live in today. I work and yet I'm broke--how many of you can relate to that? A co worker, who once worked in manufacturing had a job that paid $15 an hour, until the plant got sold and the workers got sold out. And not too far from here, another group of workers went out on strike Thursday. United Auto Workers against Daimler-Chrysler in Whitestown, New York--one of the last union work sites still standing in our union busting nation.

And in Iraq, I learned recently about the e coli tainted water supplied to troops by KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton, Dick Cheney's old company, before he joined BUSHCO. Read about the spoiled meat and canned food a year past its expiration date that was served in mess halls cited for "blood all over the floor." Read about the greed and callousness of Halliburton, its minions and our new privatized corporatized government of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations, but not for the people. Read the whole sordid story in September 6 Rolling Stone: The Great Iraq Swindle by Matt Taibbi.

I'm too tired to blog, and too sick, with no real access to health care because it's really wealth care. But as tired as I am, I'm tireder (is that a word?) still of the greed, the depravity, the heartlessness of the vampires running our country now, sucking the lifeblood out of the people. I'm more tired of seeing people get arrested for non-violent free speech. For exercising their constitutional rights--you know the rights those troops in Iraq are fighting to preserve. So I'm blogging anyway. For the Soldiers, and for the strikers.

I'm blogging to remind you--all five of you who read this--to wake the fuck up. Tell your friends to wake the fuck up. America is being turned into a third world country, block by block, city by city, low paid job by low paid job. Don't you see it--when you look at your paycheck, when you add up the monthly bills, when you buy food? When you buy shoes and they're all made in China. When you read about what happened to the Katrina victims, do you really think nothing like that could happen again? What about the bridge collapse? How fast that story disappeared from the news. The 15 year old girl who was dragged behind a truck in a Christian boot camp. What happened to that story? The miners who died in Utah for an non renewable energy source that produces huge profits for the companies that sell it to you the consumer, squeezing you financially, while it squeezed the life out of those miners in Utah and too many other miners in too many other states. Open up your eyes and ears and pay attention. The average CEO is making 270 times the workers' pay. Forty five million Americans have no health insurance and those who do have it can't always afford to use it because of the co payments and deductibles. The sick get sicker-- and poorer, and a lot of them wind up sleeping on subway trains, like Patrick (Social Insecurity, April) and the rich spit on our graves, and the collection agency scavengers pick at our bones for the unpaid medical bills and credit card bills we ran up because health care in this country is a commodity, like cable tv and light bulbs--not a basic human right-- and people who make starvation wages use credit cards to pay their electric bills and buy groceries. American workers are working more hours than ever for the same pay or less--and our volunteer troops are serving longer tours in Iraq, with no end in sight. WAKE UP!

The night before he was assassinated, Dr. Martin Luther King spoke to a group of striking sanitation workers in Memphis. He spoke against the Vietnam War and called for an end to the dying. And he said this: "Whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere because a man can't ride your back unless it is bent."

In his speech "I've Been to the Mountaintop, Dr. King spoke about developing a "dangerous unselfishness." "
He said: "When we have our march, you need to be there. Be concerned about your brother. You may not be on strike.(or in Iraq) But either we go up together, or we go down together."

Put another way: "An injury to one is an injury to all."

A few years ago in Tampa, Florida, a black judge addressing ten striking Teamsters who were issued citations for "obstructing traffic"while walking a legal picket line, dismissed the charges--
saying the Teamsters "were exercising their constitutional rights." We all win when judges like this one protect and defend our constitution.

If YOU think this war is going nowhere and no way but the wrong way--then speak up! Exercise your free speech option. (And never, ever cross a picket line.) Click the button to learn more. BTW--to David --I agree w/you that race is or should be irrelevant. ID ing the good judge as "black" was merely a way to try to identify and give credit to him for his just decision, as I don't recall his name. I included the reference because it's a stellar example of the justice system protecting free speech rights, and it took place after 9/11. If I were a MSM reporter working a paid job my editor could strike this, but I'm not--I'm a free lance blog writer and I'm free to write whatever I want to...even propaganda :) Thanks for reading.