The Face of the Union

I just got back from the most moving experience I’ve had in years.  While I was there in my state capitol (although I've had the information coming in all this week for that matter), I learned a few hurtful things…

I’ve learned that I’m entitled. 

And lazy. 

And living off the backs of everyone in the private sector who pay taxes so I can supposedly live high on the hog. 

I’m not going to lie.  I’m completely perplexed by this.  Anyone who really knows me, knows I suffer from serious self-worth issues.  I don’t think I’m entitled to anything, even if people say I’ve earned it (and many times more).  I won’t approach anyone to start up small talk because I can’t imagine why anyone would give a shit about what I’d have to say.  Once in a while, someone manages to convince me that I can take a little (not even my full share), but I usually end up feeling guilty, and return whatever favor tenfold.  I've been convinced to start this blog because someone thought I had something to say that I can't personally believe anyone would want to read.  At the same time, my inner compass is driven by doing the right thing for the right reasons, which do not typically include self-motivations.  And let’s face it, society doesn’t value any of that…I’m definitely not validated for my values.  Yet operant conditioning just doesn't seem to work on me because it doesn’t change them.

I’m stunned that anyone could think me lazy.  Most of those who have spent any real time with me know I suffer from Type-A personality as a disease process.  I actually look for things to do when I’ve finished doing what I have to do.  I gotta get the A+++ in classes.  I’ll push myself until I’m sick or injured because my body, mind, and soul can weather it.  There isn’t a seam between my home and work lives.  I can be rather warped in my need to be sure I’m doing my part.  I use work to avoid other work.  (Who the hell does that??)  I end up arriving late to appointments, parties, and the like because I think I can get that one last load of laundry in so my hubby doesn't have to do it, or maybe because I want to assist a colleague finish up with something before going home at the end of a long day.  Relaxing is something I’m learning to do now (with difficulty) at the ripe age of 45, yet my work ethic is a sickness; I get that.  A sickness I'd hardly label “laziness”.

I’m not afraid of giving my share.  I’m not.  In fact, I’d rather give more than my share if I’m being honest.  Sometimes I have to force myself not to give of myself, but most times I do.  So to ask me to pay more to lighten someone else’s load isn’t a difficult decision for me.  I know people pay taxes…that includes me.  LOTS of taxes actually.  But you want me to pay more for things you feel are my personal responsibility because you'd like to pay less?  That makes sense, and I’m okay with that as well.  Truth is I believe in the services that others get so I don't have a problem with the paying more taxes part anyway.  I’m okay with paying for someone else to get the help they need because if I have and they don’t, I’m okay with sharing.  Seriously.  And not that it's the point, but I don't have a problem taking care of my fair share of insurance and retirement plans either.

I don’t live ostentatiously.  Oh, but if I could!  Nah.  Not true.  I would end up donating and gifting a lot of it if I were a rich girl.  I'd feel guilty for having it.  (See personal issue number one.)  Call it faulty hardwiring.  I guess I prefer to live more modestly anyway.  In part because that's who I am.  But mostly because that's what my checkbook allows.  I don't make the great riches that have been erroneously portrayed in the media.  Their numbers are GREATLY inflated.

So when people say how public unionized employees are entitled, lazy richiebitches, I am left completely stunned because that is not the woman looking back at me from the bathroom mirror.

Wanna know something?  My kind of work ethic is the rule, not the exception.  Outside of colleagues at my institution, I have a friend Pam who, no shit, works 3 different jobs to survive.  Probably one of the hardest working, most responsible women I know.  Not only a public servant, but a public worker, by the way.  She has ZERO problem with doing her part and then some.  I don't see her in the negative, media-hyped description either.

Wanna know something else?  The reason most people work a 40-hour week in a safe environment with any benefits at all instead of working in sweatshops is because of unions.  Approximately 150 years of fighting for the rights of workers.  All workers.  Yeah, you may think the Union works only for their members, but the truth is that all workers garner the benefits, whether they recognize them or not.

I’m scared that people won’t wake up.  I am.  Or worse they’ll wake up too late and be very aware of what they could have stopped.  I spent the day at our state capitol at the most peaceful protest I’ve ever seen, even though yellow journalists tried to spin it as some crazed, out of control, anarchist situation.  Seriously.  The people I saw didn’t even get into each others faces spouting nastiness, let alone get violent with each other.  There were about 1,000 members of opposition to about 70,000 union folk, and there weren’t ANY altercations of which I knew.  That’s how the middle class is though, isn’t it?  We don’t really want to hate each other, do we?  But we sure would rather keep our eyes closed, humming songs to ourselves...

This fear and lack being promoted by the power elite isn’t really us everyday folk, is it? 

The fear is being promoted to divide and conquer all of us.  And it’s working.  Their plan is genius in it’s perfection.  We’re all biting, hook after hook.

The power elite is playing us ALL like pawns in some nastily contrived chess game where they use us as little pieces.  They will use one side of us to take down the most powerful pieces first, eliminating their rights one by one, but you can be certain that no one's rights are safe, and in the end, only the power elite “king” will win, laughing all the way to the bank; 100 percent power corrupting 100 percent.

Yeah, I may not be perfect.  I honestly don't claim to be.  But I try really hard to make good choices, fair choices.  I always try to choose the whole over the one, or the me, as it were, even when it is to my detriment.  If you know me, really, truly know me, you know this is true.  Ultimately, I live from that space.  Thinking of the whole.  We are the whole.  All of us.  Even the power elite.  The power elite needs to know that we want to work with them, too.  Just do the right thing.  That's what we're asking.  One human unit on this planet.  You, too, Union.  Play fair and nice.  I truly believe we are all One.

In the end, here’s what I absolutely know with all my heart. Removing someone’s rights doesn’t resolve a budget problem, especially when a surplus is turned into a deficit because the power elite has been given a financial get out of jail free card.  (PS.  Think they’re really going to use that tax break to hire more people?  Really?  When has that ever happened on a global scale?  It has been proven again and again that this sort of economic policy does not work and that those monies end up in CEOs pockets while we peons flounder.) 

Asking people to sit down and talk about what they can give up to help the budget not only can help resolve budget issues, but it preserves the rights for everyone and develops trust.  It gives people a sense that they are part of a solution rather than being in an adversary role.  Isn't that a better, more peaceful solution?

Truth is this "war" isn’t about a select few paying their share.  It’s about the power elite's attempt at eliminating the political power of unions so that the power elite can do whatever they want to all of us Joe Blows eventually.  And they do it by pitting us against each other.  And we’re playing along just how they want it. 

I hope we wake up before it’s too late and find out the rights most important to us are already on the chopping block, and there's nothing we can do to stop their demise.  I hope that they realize that we are all being used in some big corporate game where richie-rich CEOs everywhere are laughing their asses off like we’re all some big middle--soon to be lower--class joke.  In the meantime, I pray the power elite grows a healthy conscience.  Rich does not equal evil.  Some power players get the big picture while playing nicely in the sandbox, and I thank them for that.

And the Union?  In the event that you think the Union is some outside entity that is the perfect focus of your hate and contempt, I’ll tell you one simple fact.

If you are my family or true friend, you need to know you don't have to agree with me, but your constant open hate and lack of support hurts me deeply.  You see…

I am the face of the Union.