I'm so happy right now that I wanted to share this great news with my Kossacks who love unions, fight for unions, support unions, etc...
Not many people saw my frustrated rant of a diary about my (ex) workplace and all the bullshit that goes on at this non-union plant and how they intimidate temp workers using other temp workers, etc, etc, etc, but if you wanna read about what I've seen at this place, here's that diary.
The funny thing is, I liked doing the job. It was fun for me. However, the bullying from upper management and the way they constantly changed rules and procedures to make me more vulnerable and unnecessarily accountable, boiled my blood everyday. I saw things happen to other people that got under my skin and served as an unspoken threat to me.
On top of that, they put a HUGE Romney/Ryan sign out in front of the place to compliment the smaller Romney/Ryan signs that line the front lawn. Every fucking time I have to drive past that slap-in-the-face-to-labor-workers of a presidential endorsement, I could just fucking SCREAM TO HIGH HEAVEN. I bet you do LOOOOOVE that love-to-fire-people, job outsourcing, anti-labor-union mutherfucker Romney, you PRICKS.
...cuz' you know, I'm an idealist first. I just loved the IDEA of organized labor long before I decided to try to my luck in the manufacturing/labor sector. I'm an office worker, a desk jockey, a pencil pusher, if you will. Now that I'm (was) one of the lost souls languishing in labor, threatened constantly by rich bullies, I'm hell-bent on being a union worker now.
And today, I got the call from my temp service boss. I'm free from that Romney/Ryan endorsing hellhole, making $9.50/hr. I'm starting another job tomorrow at 7:00am, making $13.70/hr.
I went out to my car for my 15 minute break and there was a card taped to my front windshield. That card may have been a winning lottery ticket for the way I felt right then. It was the card of my temp agency boss desperately trying to contact me. I ran back into the building and made the call. Holy shit, it's happening sooner than I thought. I had talked to the guy on Monday and he didn't have much hope that I'd be able to get in before 6 weeks or so. I battened myself down to trudge through at least 6 more weeks of working at this hell hole. 30 more workdays. I was down but I figured that I would live in the hope that at least there was light at the end of the tunnel and I would be free soon. "Soon" turned into "tomorrow" SQUEE!!!
In 90 days, I'm gonna be a union worker. I'm gonna make $18/hr. For the first time in my life, I'm gonna be alright and I know it.
I can't settle down and get to sleep. Do you know what this means for me, a woman in my late 30s? Do you know what it means for a nearly 40 year old feminist who will probably never get married because I DON'T WANT TO BE STUCK WITH A MAN THAT I HATE JUST SO HE CAN HELP ME PAY MY RENT. That is our fate as unskilled labor and undereducated women of the world. We get the worst jobs, the lowest paying jobs. We can't make it on our own this way. We can never hope to be content and secure BY OURSELVES.
Without these opportunities for women, we're doomed. President Obama knows a lot about women. He signed the Lily Ledbetter Act because he knows about women like me. He knows that Sasha and Malia may never have to suffer abuse at the hands of a cretin because their dad is rich. Perhaps President Obama imagines a world where he's not the president of the United States and a world where their mother and father never graduated from Ivy League colleges. What would Sasha and Malia do for themselves in this cruel cold world where poor men's daughters are used and abused their whole lives? President Obama did that for me, a poor man's daughter because I like to think he mentally superimposes the faces of his daughters onto mine when he imagines what the world is like for me. Strings of bad relationships, abuse, tear filled days and nights, relying on the kindness of other people when I'm down and out, having my sexuality exploited by people who pretend to care about me when the entire time they're plotting to kill my spirit and render me helpless, enslaved to a man who can make more money than me because instead of dolls for Christmas, his parents bought him a fucking tool box so he could learn things.
/rant lol
I broke up with a guy who was mentally unstable and emotionally abusive to me way back at the beginning of the year. I lived with this man for almost 8 years because I had nowhere to go. I was making less than $8.00/hr at a gas station before I got the factory job. My soul was beaten down. I was depressed. These last 3 years reading Daily Kos everyday saved my confused and wounded soul.
This crazy orange website gave me the tools to stand my ground as a woman, a minority and a person living under the radar in poverty. Reading about the abuse and mistreatment of women empowered me. Reading about racism and how it affects unemployment enlightened me. Reading about abusive workplaces in popular diary series written by Kossacks here made me angry and full of fight.
And look, I know all this is contingent on my performance over the next 90 days but I have 100% confidence in myself. I can do anything. Whatever I do, I do it well. That's how I survived at that temp job nightmare for just two weeks short of a year.
And I know that it's pathetic that I'm totally psyched about making $13.70/hr for the next 3 months but it's the most money I've ever made. Even as a community organizer, it topped out at about $12/hr and that was over ten years ago when commodities were much less expensive so I was still poor but doing alright. I know that $18/hr is not a whole shitload of money either, but to ME it is. I can help my son fix his car, which he needs desperately because he's a college commuter and his school is 20 minutes from his dad's house. His dad pays for nearly everything and now I can finally help in a way that makes a difference. I can save money for that course at the community college now. I can pay back debts. I can raise my credit score. I can join the world of the living and hopeful.
And all of this thanks to people who looked out for me before I was born. If they hadn't fought for these opportunities for poor people who are able to work, I don't know what I would have done.
And now a word from my hero, Sarah Ogan Gunning:
Oh miner, won't you organize wherever you may be
And make this land of freedom for workers like you and me.
And also my dude Tom Petty. ;-P
Well I know what's right, I got just one life
In a world that keeps on pushin' me around
But I'll stand my ground and I won't back down
...for the union makes us strong. ;-)
Thanks for listening.