Got cruelty? The capitalist class is trying to dish it out this week, be it through austerity budgets, union busting, or harassment at work, but workers are standing united — and not having it. #MeToo because there should never be another “you too?” ? This week, enter the Hellhole…
An Editor’s Note on the Supreme Court Nomination and Class, Race, and Gender
The US House is voting on the tax cuts for rich (2) bill during the confirmation vote because it’s likely they’ll push both through like a blitzkrieg on society. Neither are distractions from the other and economic precarity is part of why men like Brett Kavanaugh get away with the awful privileges his class, race, and gender grant in our society.
Organize so less is concentrated in the hands of a few and into the hands of the many, whether it be the relative privileges of Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford or Maria Miranda Gonzalez and other campesinxs at Darigold.
Darigold Dozen: Still Fighting to End Harassment, Injury, and Poverty Wages.
Like a phoenix scorching down the naysayers that tried to harm them, the Darigold Dozen and fellow Darigold farmworkers are back in the news. As covered previously, Darigold workers demanded dignity and freedom from harassment, poverty wages, and injury.
This time, with backing from UFW and other unions, Darigold farmworkers met power head-on in demonstrations at Darigold’s Georgetown office for a protest, testimony, and fast. They also went to Starbucks in Pasco, one of the leading purchasers of Darigold’s ill-obtained supply. Why Pasco? The Darigold Dozen filed lawsuit against the Ruby Ridge Dairy located there (which is part of Darigold’s land-owner boss cartel, cooperating not with workers but other bosses. Paul Ryan’s older brother, Stan, is chief executive of Darigold. One small, monopolistic, anti-worker family making life hell for workers, eh? As reported previously, Stan the Darigold Man boasted in their corporate responsibility materials that: “Farmers generally demonstrated good performance on these audits, with no child labor, slave labor, or minimum wage violation issue.” The hell? That’s not even the ground floor of decency for workers!
According to the workers, Maria and Yolanda were fired after reporting sexual harassment at the fair. The indignity survived here is horrific. ¡Somos más de 12! Follow their struggle here: https://twitter.com/somosmasde12
Maria and Yolanda were FIRED after reporting sexual harassment at Darigold member dairies. SEE their stories and help by retweeting the video. Tell @Starbucks– a major buyer of @darigold milk- to take responsibility for the products they use #gotabuse @somosmasde12 @UFWF #MeToo pic.twitter.com/dh1zI8Kdcr
— United Farm Workers (@UFWupdates) September 27, 2018
Durkan’s Cruel Budget
We covered just one portion of Mayor Durkan’s cruelty-heavy budget last week: roads for the rich and anti-poor solutions to traffic and climate change. There’s more.
Shelter beds will be cut, in addition to sweeps of official tiny home villages this week. There will be no additional funding for safe consumption, and the city will take out debt instead of pursuing popular revenues sources like the super-rich (who are transforming this city from a multicultural, working-class port town into a dogged class chasm straight out of a Dickens novel).
Somehow missing is that these policies of austerity aren’t new. In fact, it was the status-quo under Mayor Murray and Council-Members before. What is there to do?
Organize every worksite into a union, so we can fight together for the greater instead of isolated, as we saw with Longshoreworkers backing Crane Operators and Teachers recently. We can organize tenants in every building against every slumlord. Basically, the only prescription is to fight the power.
Your boss is organized with Mayor Durkan? Are you and your coworkers organized in return?
Not bad: Charles Mudede’s piece in The Stranger: “Durkan’s Austerity Budget Is All About How the Rich Oppress the Poor” It’s a deeper dive and worth reading.
Amazon Tries to Bust Unions; Bezos Boss, et al, Can Bust Rocks
Noted human cueball and robber-baron lifestyle enthusiast, Jeff “Big Baby” Bezos, is under fire again for Amazon’s anti-labor practices. Jeff fears unions so much at Amazon that he even paid for a 45-minute (and in our opinion poorly animated) cartoon to convince workers that they should be happy to suck eggs. The video is like a “Blues Clues” wherein the viewer trained to sniff out union organizers by spotting words like “living wage” and “hanging out.”
Notwithstanding, Amazon also pays and/or program bots that unironically hashtag stuff like #FreeToPeeAndNotASlave, a totally normal thing that needs to be said despite reports otherwise:
I shall leave this here… https://t.co/f57zuBHnzU
— LordJackass (@lordjackass4u) September 13, 2018
Note: The Seattle Hellhole represents the views of its writers and are not official positions of Seattle DSA at large. Its writers are a collective working on independent pieces, editing, and design to deliver this each week. If you want to volunteer, join us in #communications on Slack or email [email protected]