I need to remind myself that I am not a professional journalist. I am, help me, a “blogger” with no cover and no paycheck. I need to write for an imagined audience that includes all my friends, comrades, neighbors, family and girlfriends (past, present and future) as well as all of my employers, past and prospective.
I’d like to offer all of my opinions on Tuesday’s “restructuring” of the AFL-CIO that closed and merge departments and laid-off a third of the federation’s staff, but I’d like even more to work in the labor movement again. So, I’m just going to offer a few links. Jonathan Tasini has a lot of inside information of how the news went down at 16th Street. American Prospect has a good piece by Harold Myerson on the politics of the cuts. And, as always, the Unite To Win blog has all those anonymous staffers slugging it out.
I’ve been looking for work for six months, and now I’m going to be joined by 167 experienced union staffers, while the whole movement seems to hold its breath, waiting for the outcome of the federation’s convention in July.
It’s very frustrating. All I want is to be a part of a growing, fighting union. I want to take on Wal-Mart. I want to take on Bloomberg and Pataki. I want to take on Sodexho, Aramark and Cintas. I want to get off of the dole, already!
Speaking of Wal-Mart, I’m organizing a few people to help the Wal-Mart Free NYC Coalition leaflet at the Staten Island ferry during rush hour on Thursday. Let me know if you can join us.
Finally, for your amusement, a picture of the YPSL contingent at Sunday’s No Nuke rally.