> Where were the celebrity gay rights activists making
> high profile appearances on the picket line? Or
> contributing to a Strike Fund until it hurts as a way
> of building gay/progressive alliances?
----- http://www.ufcw.org/press_room/index.cfm?pressReleaseID=67
"ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY UNIONS & CELEBRITIES TO JOIN STRIKING AND LOCKED OUT GROCERY WORKERS ON PICKET LINE
"For immediate release Dec. 2, 2003 "UFCW Locals 770 and 1442, AFL-CIO, CLC" -----
The press release lists appearances by Melissa Gilbert of SAG, the ever-reliable Ed Asner and others.
In any case, baiting Hollywood celebrities is not productive here -- I don't think it takes any special insight to see that most of them are basically shallow liberals, and there's a reason that attacking them especially hard is a favorite tactic of Bill O'Reilly. It's also not only counterproductive, but divisive and bad to counterpose the importance of the gay and lesbian liberation struggle to the demands of "workers" as such (as if there were no overlap between the two!) -- some people have expressed discomfort with the timing of that struggle, for example, or with the celebrities like Rosie O'Donnell who get the most attention in the course of it. I strongly differ with this. We don't always get to choose the time, place and manner of the struggle, but we need to support it when it happens.
We also don't know if any celebrities donated to the strike fund or not -- if I recall correctly, there were a number of very large, anonymous donations to the strike fund of SEIU janitors in southern California some years ago. If that didn't happen here, is that the fault of the wealthy liberal donors, or of strike strategists who didn't seek them out when they could have?
I should also point out that when I wrote that there are legitimate questions that could be raised about the union's strategy here, I did not intend that Chuck Munson should weigh in with his "thinking." Maybe more civil disobedience would have been appropriate. Indeed, I'm inclined to think it would have, and the union could have been prepared (as the janitors' union has always been prepared) to pay fines and legal costs, and also make use of political relationships, etc. Munson grunts that they should have been doing civil disobedience in front of Wal-Mart, though if he has any conception of how this would have fit into a larger strategy, I would be very surprised indeed.
The question once again is, how WOULD a retail workers' union take on an industry like this, in its current form? There must be an answer to this question, even if the UFCW hasn't found it. Though I would be even more surprised if a bunch of dissolute leftists flagellating themselves and eachother over e-mail were to find the answer instead.
- - - - - John Lacny
People of the US, unite and defeat the Bush regime and all its running dogs!