A fast, not a hunger strike!
So, as Nathan alludes to in the previous post, I participated in a fast from Saturday to Tuesday (several other people fasted for five days, from Thursday to Tuesday). The fast had a very direct, specific goal--getting a particular building owner to consider switching to a union contractor, and thus (for complicated reasons) allowing the janitors' union to re-negotiate higher wages for the entire industry in downtown Providence--but it was also intended to dramatize the fact that shitty jobs have demonstrable negative consequences for society.
I plan to write more about it in The List this week--including some customary criticism of both myself and the campaign--but I should note here that The Grouse never fails to bring trife to even the most humorlessly political of situations. On the first day of the fast, Nathan, Kartik, and Mike came to visit me. Kartik, and possibly the other two, were still hung over from Kartik's birthday party the night before. First, they offered to bring me beer, which I politely explained was not allowed under the terms of the fast (hot water only--no keg stands permitted). Then Kartik, who as usual had not really been listening, asked, "So, what are you guys doing for food?"
Anyway, I'm posting today's Bob Kerr column from the Projo--I apologize for bumping down the posts below. Kerr is always pretty hokey, but he often has the right perspective on things: a couple weeks ago he took URI students to task for passionately protesting dorm inspections but having never protested the Iraq invasion--or anything else, for that matter.
It was the great divide, presented on a downtown Providence sidewalk so that all kinds of people could see it and think about it.
In the heart of the city's financial district, janitors sat down outside the Turks Head building to present to the hustling business community around them the face of the people who perform the work that is seldom noticed until it is left undone.
In their folding chairs, arranged tightly against the wall of the building, the people who clean for a living set up their quiet, hungry protest.
For five days, three janitors, and student supporters from Brown University and Rhode Island College, went without food to bring attention to the work the janitors do and the often poor conditions under which they do it. They chose the Turks Head building, they said, because the janitors who work there receive lousy wages under a nonunion cleaning contractor.
"What happened to them happened to me," said Jorge Cabrera, one of the fasters.
He is a janitor at Providence College. It is a good job that lets him provide for his family. But he has not always had good jobs. He has been a janitor in other places where the pay was so low that he had to take second and third jobs.
And that, he says, meant too often seeing his children only when they were asleep. That is an image carried throughout this protest. The people who do these often invisible jobs wanted to let others know that for janitors to provide for their families, they sometimes have to give up seeing their families as mothers and fathers should.
The fast ended shortly after noon yesterday with the sharing of bread and water. It ended with "We Shall Not Be Moved" in Spanish and English -- with the sound of a guitar and a sense of timeless, peaceful protest brought to the streets.
"I feel victorious," said Cabrera in the last minutes of the fast. "But it is important that the fight not stop here. Together, we can make changes in this industry."
Maybe. The five-day fast drew a lot of attention. Bishop Thomas J. Tobin of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence paid a visit. Ministers and political leaders and union officials lent their support.
On Monday, Judge Stephen J. Fortunato left his bench in Superior Court and walked over to the scene of the fast to see for himself if it was interfering with access to the building. The building's owner, Evan J. Granoff, had complained that the fasters were bothering building tenants.
Fortunato looked, returned to the courtroom, and invoked the names of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. in ruling that the fasters were not interfering and could not be arrested for sitting in their chairs on the sidewalk.
Granoff should be grateful. The forcible removal of the fasters and their supporters would have been an ugly and unenlightened response to some basic and reasonable concerns.
Now, the owner of the Turks Head building and the owners of other buildings in Providence have only to think about how they can best respond to these last five days. The fast brought people who do business downtown face to face with the people who clean up after them. It made invisible jobs a little more visible.
The janitors aren't asking for a lot, just for something close to a decent working wage and decent working conditions. The fast is a good opportunity to begin the process of giving people who do the work few people want to do the opportunity to have a working life and a family life.
To ignore people willing to go hungry for five days to make their point would be a very cold piece of work indeed.
I plan to write more about it in The List this week--including some customary criticism of both myself and the campaign--but I should note here that The Grouse never fails to bring trife to even the most humorlessly political of situations. On the first day of the fast, Nathan, Kartik, and Mike came to visit me. Kartik, and possibly the other two, were still hung over from Kartik's birthday party the night before. First, they offered to bring me beer, which I politely explained was not allowed under the terms of the fast (hot water only--no keg stands permitted). Then Kartik, who as usual had not really been listening, asked, "So, what are you guys doing for food?"
Anyway, I'm posting today's Bob Kerr column from the Projo--I apologize for bumping down the posts below. Kerr is always pretty hokey, but he often has the right perspective on things: a couple weeks ago he took URI students to task for passionately protesting dorm inspections but having never protested the Iraq invasion--or anything else, for that matter.
It was the great divide, presented on a downtown Providence sidewalk so that all kinds of people could see it and think about it.
In the heart of the city's financial district, janitors sat down outside the Turks Head building to present to the hustling business community around them the face of the people who perform the work that is seldom noticed until it is left undone.
In their folding chairs, arranged tightly against the wall of the building, the people who clean for a living set up their quiet, hungry protest.
For five days, three janitors, and student supporters from Brown University and Rhode Island College, went without food to bring attention to the work the janitors do and the often poor conditions under which they do it. They chose the Turks Head building, they said, because the janitors who work there receive lousy wages under a nonunion cleaning contractor.
"What happened to them happened to me," said Jorge Cabrera, one of the fasters.
He is a janitor at Providence College. It is a good job that lets him provide for his family. But he has not always had good jobs. He has been a janitor in other places where the pay was so low that he had to take second and third jobs.
And that, he says, meant too often seeing his children only when they were asleep. That is an image carried throughout this protest. The people who do these often invisible jobs wanted to let others know that for janitors to provide for their families, they sometimes have to give up seeing their families as mothers and fathers should.
The fast ended shortly after noon yesterday with the sharing of bread and water. It ended with "We Shall Not Be Moved" in Spanish and English -- with the sound of a guitar and a sense of timeless, peaceful protest brought to the streets.
"I feel victorious," said Cabrera in the last minutes of the fast. "But it is important that the fight not stop here. Together, we can make changes in this industry."
Maybe. The five-day fast drew a lot of attention. Bishop Thomas J. Tobin of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence paid a visit. Ministers and political leaders and union officials lent their support.
On Monday, Judge Stephen J. Fortunato left his bench in Superior Court and walked over to the scene of the fast to see for himself if it was interfering with access to the building. The building's owner, Evan J. Granoff, had complained that the fasters were bothering building tenants.
Fortunato looked, returned to the courtroom, and invoked the names of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. in ruling that the fasters were not interfering and could not be arrested for sitting in their chairs on the sidewalk.
Granoff should be grateful. The forcible removal of the fasters and their supporters would have been an ugly and unenlightened response to some basic and reasonable concerns.
Now, the owner of the Turks Head building and the owners of other buildings in Providence have only to think about how they can best respond to these last five days. The fast brought people who do business downtown face to face with the people who clean up after them. It made invisible jobs a little more visible.
The janitors aren't asking for a lot, just for something close to a decent working wage and decent working conditions. The fast is a good opportunity to begin the process of giving people who do the work few people want to do the opportunity to have a working life and a family life.
To ignore people willing to go hungry for five days to make their point would be a very cold piece of work indeed.
posted by ch at 10:17 AM
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