“Up with the workers…yeah, yeah!
Down with the bosses…boo, boo!”
I always feel a little silly walking the picket lines, and this past Sunday was no exception. Nevertheless, I marched dutifully on, hoping that my presence - among about fifty others as part of the CLEAN Car Wash Campaign– would help convince the owner of this Car Wash to pay the workers the legal minimum wage.
On the other side of the fence, the carwasheros themselves started an impromptu soccer game, since most of the potential customers respected the picket. The managers brooded and scowled.
There’s a lot of time to think when your only essential task is to put one foot in front of the other, so I began to reflect on my surroundings. We the protesters, I realized, with our like-colored (Union made!) t-shirts and kitschy slogans, could easily be mistaken for fans of the soccer game. Except that we were players, too. Our task was to prevent cars from driving onto the field.
I imagined that in place of the large sign reading “Vermont Hand Wash” there was actually a scoreboard. I kept a mental score as I marched and chanted.
A worker strikes an errant ball, which skips off a managers pant leg. The manager must bend down and wipe off a streak of resulting grime! Workers: 1, Bosses: 0
A car starts to turn into the driveway…but wait! A protester hands her a flyer and…yes! The car changes course and pulls back into traffic! Workers: 2, Bosses: 0
Things are looking up. We’re way out in front now. Our chanting grows fiercer and the collective energy swells. Nothing can stop us! We wouldn’t be surprised if the owner came out waving the white flag of surrender at any moment, agreeing to raise wages, improve conditions and recognize the Union.
2 o’clock comes and the protesters pack it in. We filter off to our regularly scheduled Sunday afternoons, secure in the feeling that we’ve struck a mighty blow for justice.
Two hours later, I drive by the wash and notice that it is packed with cars. There’s no time for soccer now, but the game goes on as the workers sweat with exertion--furiously working despite the harsh chemicals they are inhaling or the illegally low wages they are being paid. My mental scoreboard is reversed and I am left wondering if perhaps our protest wasn’t just a minor inconvenience for the owner and a missed opportunity for tips for the carwasheros.
Ordinarily, this is how the game would have ended, and I would have felt the way I did after casting my vote for John Kerry. (“I want my fifteen minutes back!”)
But instead I feel hopeful. With Barack Obama headed for the White House and Hilda Solis on the way to the Department of Labor, the odds that have been stacked against Unions and workers for so many years may be starting to change. Come 2009, our little band of volunteers and worker-organizers will have some power on our bench.
Facing card check neutrality and funding for wage and safety enforcement, Mr. Pirian might start to see our protests as one face of a ferocious justice-seeking behemoth.
Or maybe Obama, Solis and the new Congress will do such a fabulous job that our protests won’t even be necessary, and we can all spend our Sundays playing soccer.
