THE SHINERS

Click on photo for better view

Peter Woodruff and I went to the state capital in Augusta yesterday for the labor union rally called to defend collective bargaining rights for public employees. The Republicans in the state legislature have introduced a bill to make Maine a "Right to Work" state, or as the unions called it "A Right to Work for Less" state. The media reported that more than 600 were there and I'd venture a guess that was about right.

Peter and I brought our own signs. We were one of the few that did as most people carried the union mass produced signs as you can see in the photo above. Throughout the large crowd I noticed at most six home-made signs.

Before the speeches began Peter and I climbed the stairs behind the podium as we usually do when we go to these events. Once there we noticed two leading staffers (a man and a woman) from the state AFL-CIO down below talking and pointing to our signs. The woman then climbed the stairs and told Peter, "We don't want to send that kind of message. We still need some GOP (Republican) votes to kill this bill. We want you to put it down."

Peter was shocked. At first he put his sign down. Then he turned it so the blank side was facing the audience. Then when the speeches began he turned it back around so the "offending" words could be seen by the large crowd standing before us. On the way home a perplexed Peter said, "I wasn't calling for revolution. I was calling for participation in the system, for people to vote."

When I read the story published in the Portland Press Herald today about the rally I had a good laugh. The article reported, "Protesters held signs that read: 'Next time vote them out!,' 'Solidarity' and 'It's a war on the workers.'"

Peter's sign was the one that said "Next time vote them out!" and mine said "It's a war on the workers." Not bad.

I've talked before on this blog but can't say often enough that this way of accommodation, of trying not to anger the Republicans, is a sure-fire strategy for failure. But I strongly believe that this is supreme evidence of how the labor unions (in Maine and by and large across the nation) have become appendages of the Democratic Party. And the Democrats have sent the unions in Maine a message - don't come on so strong that you piss off the GOP.

It's the GOP though that is cutting the throats of the workers and poor people in this state and across the land. And, sad to say, it is the servile Democrats (with a few noteworthy exceptions) that are unwittingly, or not, helping them do so by their displays of timidity.

Years ago in Florida when I was an organizer for the United Farm Workers Union I learned about shiners. When a fruit tree was picked, no matter how hard they tried, workers usually found that they missed one piece of fruit and it really stood out in the otherwise barren tree. They called them shiners.

Yesterday Peter and I were the shiners in the crowd behind the podium. We didn't plan it that way. We both are union members and answered the call to come to a labor rally. We made our signs and showed up. Little did we know that the mass produced signs were one way to "control" the message. So our "out of place" message stood out for sure.

As it turned out the 600 workers in attendance were way ahead of their leadership. When the State House sound system couldn't be heard by the workers the assembled began chanting slogans on their own. They too were shiners.