Three strikes- we're out.

I woke up on the late train yesterday morning, as is my habit. I panicked a bit more than normal, however, as I was supposed to be meeting up with the Jeanie Wylie community to hitch a ride to a delegation. But Bill, Lydia, Anna, Hannah, and I made it to the Bob Evans in Livonia in time to order a cup of coffee as we listened to Elena and Julio explain how the delegation would happen.

I felt excited and confident as we left Bob Evans for the TRW headquarters. Two TRW workers, flown up from Mexico, were with us, as were some pretty experienced rabble rousers. 15 people walked into the headquarters holding signs and followed by Channel 7 news. The woman at the front desk was not happy to see us. She called TRW security to escort the “protestors” out. Strike one- we should not have brought our posters with us. Bill took offense to being called a protestor, and repeatedly told the woman that we were with TRW employees and simply asking for a meeting. TRW security couldn’t kick us out, so the woman called the police.

By this point Julio, Elena, and Bill had managed to speak to a few different employees who had accidentally walked into the situation. We discovered that our timing was bad. Strike two- the Executive Director was in Germany at an auto show, and no one seemed to know who the next in charge was. It was becoming disappointing. At breakfast we had agreed that no one would be arrested, so we knew that as soon as the police showed up, that was it.

The Livonia police arrived less than 15 minutes after we had. Elena and Julio pressed the TRW workers’ request letter into the hands of the police officers, trying to convince them that employees have the right to request a meeting and cannot be accused of trespassing. The officers wouldn’t take it. Lydia handed me her car key just in case she decided not to leave, and Bill seemed to be leaning that way as well. In then end, however, we were all escorted out. The third strike- we had not discussed potential outcomes well enough. Though at the restaurant it had seemed as though arrest wouldn't happen no one seemed to know what to do should anyone change their mind. We stood on the street outside the headquarters for a while holding our signs, and being interviewed by Channel 7, Oakland Press, and a community newspaper.

Eventually we left. I ended up back at the Jeanie Wylie community with Anna, Hannah, Lydia, and Bill. To maintain some semblence of a work day, he and I met on his upstairs balcony with reheated coffee. We talked a bit about the possibility of going back to the TRW headquarters. After all, the workers had come all the way from Mexico! They really couldn’t leave without actually sitting down with someone to negotiate. The same sequence of events, when tried with a different corporation had turned out favorably. Perhaps we could try again?

I think this will be perhaps one of the more difficult parts of this kind of work: feeling as though our request is entirely reasonable, but being ignored completely. I would like to think that if we had presented ourselves in a slightly more professional and less agenda-heavy stereotypical manner things may have gone differently. But I'm not sure that's true. And it's impossible not to have hope heading into a situation like that- it seems so clear that better wages and safe conditions are, in the long run, in the best interest of everyone involved. Yet such a suggestion is ridiculous enough to ignore, and threatening enough to call the police.

Bill and I sat on his balcony for an hour or so overlooking the beautiful garden, the apple tree, and Hannah’s clothes drying on the clothesline. We discussed a few retreats that I may help organize and hopefully attend, as well as what will happen in the beginning of October when Bill is recuperating from shoulder surgery. Bill made us quesadillas for lunch, and then left for a 2:00 meeting.

I’ve spent the rest of my afternoon “working” out of the Jeanie Wylie community. I’ve also eaten a lot of ice cream and Hannah made me ginger tea. This part of work I certainly won't struggle with!

A whole week's worth.

Last weekend I spent a good part of Saturday at Eastern Market. My favorite booths thus far are those that offer samples. Especially when the samples are of delicious honey-almond goat cheese made just outside Detroit. Hannah and I ‘liberated’ mushrooms and broccoli from boxes near dumpsters at Eastern Market. I bought more purple basil to make pesto with. The result of our Saturday shopping was the “localEST” feast we could muster to celebrate Hannah’s birthday. Michigan wine, homemade bread, bruschetta made with tomatoes from the backyard, corn, spaezli that Bill made, there was broccoli involved somehow, and Michigan-made mozzarella too. Joanna did bring some champagne, not from Michigan, to have with our dessert of apple crisp… apples from the backyard. It was a feast, and a great ending to a week that whirled by…

Monday I marched in the parade with the AFL-CIO, handed out fliers for the Social Forum to everyone still marching in the parade, and spent the afternoon at Pastor Pitts’ church cook-out.

Tuesday I made reminder phone calls to all the people on the Faith and Spirituality committee for the USSF, about the meeting Thursday morning. Then I made reminder phone calls to all the people on IWJ’s Board about the meeting Thursday afternoon. I spoke with the president of IWJ in Detroit, who would be chairing the meeting- Pastor Pitts- and put together an agenda with him.

The D-LOC meeting was at 5:30 and we got into an interesting discussion about what purpose, if any, the Forum could serve in the present. A few people are very interested in using the Forum to pull in support for current issues, maybe calling on the Forum to endorse a certain stance on healthcare or get involved with a union. To some, the Forum needs to start acting as well as discussing. To others, this could be going against the focus of the Forum; it is a space for conversation and action, but is not a support in and of itself. There was no real conclusion to these thoughts, but rather the vague idea that perhaps the Forum could learn about a few current issues.

Wednesday I was nervous about Thursday. And worried about all the unreturned voicemails I had left people on Tuesday.

Thursday finally came and went- leaving me with a drink on my balcony by 6pm.

The morning meeting with the Faith and Spirituality committee of the USSF went well. I took the minutes, and interestingly enough one of the first things that was discussed was the same question of the Forum’s purpose. Though at this meeting, that purpose was questioned not as how it can be useful in the present, but rather, what will happen after the Forum itself? What is left after so much effort goes into producing it? In all honesty, I feel that question is much more valid. The Forum is going to require an enormous amount of energy, creativity, time, hope, and more. What will be left? Will Detroit be better off in July because the Forum happened in June?

I don’t know what July will be like, but it isn’t the Forum itself that is so important, rather the connections and ideas that build the Forum. And those will remain once the Forum has come and gone.

The Board meeting in the afternoon got off to a tumultuous start. Pastor Pitts called me as I was on my way to the meeting to let me know he would be unable to make it. So- I got to chair the meeting. I probably don’t need to tell any of you how terrible I am at interrupting people, and the meeting took some interesting turns- union drama caused a rather heated debate about an hour in. It was a long meeting, we got off track a few different times. As it turns out, the disagreement stemmed primarily from some misinformation, and our meeting in October should go smoothly. I’m crossing my fingers.

Friday I was so happy the Board meeting had happened, everything seemed to go perfectly. I somehow ended up at AFSCME for a press conference at which AFSCME announced it was revoking its endorsement of current Mayor Bing, and instead supporting candidate Tom Barrow (Joe Louis Barrow’s grandson!) I had gone on the assumption that it was a press conference about the AFSCME Childcare Workers campaign. Oh well. I have now seen both Bing and Barrow speak- without meaning to. (Bing was at the Labor Day Luncheon I wrote about earlier.)

Friday night was a religious experience to say the least… I went to an Iftar dinner at the Muslim Center. One of the Board members, Imam El-Amin, runs the center and invited me after the meeting Thursday. A few different people spoke about Ramadan, the different parts of fasting; not only does one fast from food, but also from judgments, from gossiping, from holding grudges etc. Imam El-Amin then read a part of the Qu’ran, a message about God being a God of all people- that neither Muslims nor people of any other faith should feel superior to another. Of course the Qu’ran is more eloquent.

After dinner I left, got lost on the maze of Detroit highways for 30 minutes or so, and arrived home to a house full of 15 Jesuit novices and lots of beer. It was a great evening.

A luncheon guaranteed to last a long time... and the following events

As if I hadn’t stumbled upon enough odd connections coming to Detroit, I got to hear the author of the book I am currently devouring speak at the AFL-CIO Labor Luncheon two days ago. Steve Babson, author of Working Detroit , spoke of historic events in labor history and the ways in which their context parallels the current state of Detroit.

He mentioned the waiters’ strike of 1921. At the time, the service employees union only worked with white males, and encouraged the all-white, all-male wait staff working at a country club to strike. As soon as the waiters did, the management of the country club decided that black men could wait tables just as well as whites. The black men were not included in the union so they took the jobs offered, and the strike failed.

The necessity for inclusiveness has not disappeared, Babson pointed out. Undocumented workers are often in much the same position as blacks at the time of the waiters’ failed strike. The labor community must recognize the importance of including all workers, not only for the workers' sake, but also for the success of the union.

He started wrapping up by calling us to pursue a “vision as daring as the actions necessary to obtain it.” We cannot continue to work within a structure that has brought us to this point of economic disparity. Not only is action imperative, but action driven by a vision for a different world. (Which happens to be similar to the tagline for the USSF.)

I ate seated between a UAW retiree and Pastor John Pitts, the President of the IWJ Board of Directors, and across from Tanise Hill, the secretary to the president of the Metro-Detroit AFL-CIO. Pastor Pitts is a wonderful man, and was fasting. He was not fasting, as I originally thought, in solidarity with Muslims during Ramadan, but rather in prayer for someone he knew whose home was being foreclosed. I don’t think Tanise sat down for the entirety of the luncheon, she had so many people to see and talk to. She could easily be described as “a character,” and she knows absolutely everyone. She’s good at it though, and when I called her just this morning to reschedule the Board meeting, she told me she had a found a book I should read.

Once the luncheon ended (3 hours after it had begun) a few tables were pushed together and 30 people stayed to meet concerning the labor committee of the US Social Forum.

Steve Babson stayed to find out about the USSF, along with Rev. Rowe, IWJ Board member of the Central United Methodist church (where my office is), Iris Pita, IWJ Board member, Saundra Williams, President of the Detroit AFL-CIO and IWJ Board member, Brenda Moon, of the National AFL-CIO office. Fran Tobin from Jobs with Justice and Charles Williams, a Baptist minister facilitated the meeting. These names probably don’t mean much to most of you, but I keep finding business cards in different parts of my office, and people keep mentioning lots of the same names, so it’s very exciting for me to finally meet the people that match all of these newly familiar names.

The USSF meeting took maybe 30 minutes, and Dave Ivers, Bill Wylie-Kellerman, and I met after that. We picked yet another table in the union hall and sat to discuss my role with the Board, the division of my time, and my involvement with various campaigns. It was great to meet with both my supervisors at once, and it looks like I will spending half my time on preparing for the USSF. Four and a half hours, and three tables later, we left the IBEW union hall. Dave for some reason had bought toilet paper as a housewarming gift for us poor JVs. So I drove back to Central United Methodist with toilet paper in the trunk and one more meeting to go.

Rev. Rowe is a new addition to the IWJ Board, so rather than discussing his past involvement with IWJ he listed off various groups that operate within the church and whose members are oftentimes part of his congregation: (NOAH, Westside Mothers, Welfare Rights, Swords into Plowshares, and more…) He also explained much of his work with the labor movement, and he has done a lot! He started community organizing on the Southside of Chicago before he was done with the seminary. Recently, he allowed his church to be used as a meeting place for Workers United (formerly the local chapter of UNITE HERE) when their decision to split from the regional group caused a huge conflict. The regional group tried to crash one of their meetings, and Rev. Rowe himself asked them to leave. He signs his emails and ends his prayers: “Grace, Peace, and Power.”

I got home, changed, sent an email about the Board Meeting. At seven Imam Dawud Walid (Executive Director of the Michigan branch of Council on American-Islamic Relations - CAIR) picked me up for a tour of Detroit –my third- and to break fast. This time I was driven through Hamtramck and Dearborn. Both of these areas reminded much more of Chicago than any part of Detroit that I've seen so far. He pointed out all sorts of wonderful, hole-in-the-wall, family owned restaurants serving food from Lebanon, Yemen, Jordan, Iraq, there were Polish sausage places, Bosnian mosques, and Indian dessert shops next to Arabic music stores. And people were walking everywhere!

We ended up at a Pakistani restaurant at 8:00, exactly 18 minutes before the fast was to be broken. Our waitress suspected that I wasn't Muslim (I didn't look like her normal customers she told me) and she brought me some water. At 8:18 the buffet opened, and we loaded our plates with lamb, rice, a spicy lentil and spinach combination, and all sorts of things I didn't quite recognize. We ordered naan and mango lassis, and spent most of the meal talking about Islam. I quite enjoyed myself. Before dropping me off at home, Dawud gave me a cd of Senegalese music he had found at a West African market. And I found out that he loves ataaya. The next thing to do is find someone who speaks French- but at this pace I'm guessing it will happen soon. I feel as though I'm falling very quickly and easily into a network of generous, diverse, and intriguing people- and somehow it is considered my job!