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Anthropologists, Activists, and the Labor Movement
Emma Braden
“I want to know why you are doing this,” Sylvia said as she stared at me across the coffee table in our university cafe. She was referring to the local union internship I had recently accepted. It was with the same union she had worked for the year before when the food service workers at my university won a union contract. I stared nervously at her and the union organizer sitting beside her. I was trying to figure out what they wanted to hear. He was wearing a suit and tie, and she was in her barista uniform.
“Don’t just tell me what I want to hear,” she said. “Tell me what you actually feel.”
I took a sip of the coffee she had just made me and thought that over. “Well, I don’t know much about unions, but I do know that I have a lot to learn. I have been told that if I care about immigrant rights, then I have to pay attention to unions. And if I want to learn how to organize, this is where I need to start.”
She nodded her head. “When it gets down to it, all of the social justice stuff that students talk about is just talk,” she said. “I want to see that you want to fight. You’ve gotta have a reason to fight.”
Sylvia was no stranger to fights. A couple of years ago, the food workers on campus fought for and won a union contract with the cafeteria management company. They are known as one of the most successful university cafeteria management companies in the United States and one of the leaders in locally sourced and ethically produced foods. The company prides itself on both the quality of its food and the career opportunities for its workers. However, until that summer they had refused to allow workers to unionize. As one of the leading negotiating committee members, Sylvia was instrumental in that campaign’s success. After they won the contract, she spoke to the press.
“I’ve been a cashier at [this university] for more than 6 years,” she said. “I feel so proud that we now have a contract that gives consistent wage increases, immigration rights and protections, cheaper health insurance for myself and my coworkers, and most importantly, job security.”
When I began interning with Local 000 in February of 2015, my confession to Sylvia was true; I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I began working full-time in the service industry to pay rent and tuition and worked for the union during my time off. Over the next year, the pieces of this complicated and bizarre world slowly began to fit together. One piece came from the workers who shared my table in the cafeteria and the women who squeezed next to me in the locker room before work. Another part came from the union organizers, workers, and fellow interns who supported me in various cities around the United States. The final part came from my anthropology courses, the dozens of texts, and academic contacts that provided me with the language and the questions with which to interpret it all.
Paul Durrenberger invited me to an international workshop on labor and anthropology in Iowa and then asked me to write a chapter for this book from the perspective of a student in the thick of the labor organizing world. To prepare, I maintained contact with many of the anthropologists who attended the workshop and interviewed most over Skype and phone and via e-mail. I also interviewed two union organizers in my city. My findings are based on these interviews, as well as four union workshops, various peer-reviewed articles and books from social science researchers and activists involved in labor research, and media posts from the websites of various unions including the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), UNITE HERE, and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). I have changed all of the names of the people in this chapter.
High Tide
It’s October 2015. A young white woman stands up in front of a room of diverse young adults. She has been working at a local union since college and is now a full-time organizer. Like many organizers recruited to work for unions in the past ten years, she came into radical activism in college and was committed to a larger vision of social justice within the movement. The room is in the basement of an old union building that has been standing since the mid-1900s—the air is thick and stale; you can nearly taste seventy years of smoke and dirty boots that gathered in the carpeted, windowless rooms. This particular training is meant to build connections with different movements around the city, to give young activists the skills they will need to organize, and to recruit promising young adults to work for the union (whether in the research department, on the boycott team, or as active organizers). A couple of people in the crowd work at nonunion workplaces, some are social workers, many are still in school, but all of them have fought for something in their past. That is why they are there.
The woman faces the crowd and poses a question.
“What is your rent like?” Folks slowly begin to shout out their rent prices—$650 for a bedroom in a five-bedroom house before utilities, $1,000 for a studio apartment, $600 for a one-bedroom thirty minutes outside of the city.
“Who feels like their rent is too high?” Everyone raises their hand. Five years ago, when moving to the city, you could find a one-bedroom apartment for $500 easily. If you wanted a really nice apartment in a great part of the city, it would cost you $1,200.
“How much is the bus?” she asks. “Who has had their bus routes reduced or cut since they have been here?” Half of the room raises their hand. “Now take your income and imagine adding a family to that. . . .”
People begin to shift in their seats, many eyebrows furrow, a couple of folks take out a pen and paper and jot down notes. The energy in the room is electric, and it seems as if everyone knows where she is going.
“Food and retail jobs usually don’t pay a living wage, let alone enough to support a family or pay back student loans. . . .”
The average restaurant worker in this large US city1 made an estimated $15,000 in 2009. The reason for this disparity is not due to the economy; in 2014 this city boasted one of the highest economic booms. There are forests of new skyscrapers growing all over town; the skyline is almost unrecognizable from five years ago. The tourist industry is doing better than ever before. This past summer multiple hotels in downtown were sold out every week, setting all-time records in profits. Yet their workers are still getting paid minimum wage or less. If their employers offer insurance coverage, they still spend ridiculous amounts each month paying the premium, and they are overworked as a result of intentional understaffing.
“This is happening to people all over the city,” the union organizer explains to the room ...
