Journalism for People Building a Better World
Fall 2022
The Past, Present, and Future of Work Undergrads Fight For Their Right to Organize Labor and Climate Form a More Perfect Union The Café Upending Capitalism To Transform Work, We Must Rest
+
A STORY IN DATA
THE GREAT RESIGNATION IS ACTUALLY A GREAT REIMAGINING BY WORKERS
THE WORK ISSUE
US $6.50 Canada $6.50
23
7
25274 87100 1 Display until July 31
In her eight years of providing in-home child care, Olivia Hernandez says she has only taken one sick day. “Caregivers sometimes pay for extra food or medicine for the children of low-income families we serve,” she says. “But we don’t hold back [any care from the families we serve] to take care of ourselves.” Anne Villen, Page 45
B
:: yesmagazine.org
PHOTO BY JIMENA yes! fall 2022PECK
FROM THE EDITOR
The Work Issue
PHOTO BY CAVAN IMAGES/AD OBE
I am privileged to be able to say that I love the work I do. I find meaning, purpose, and even a sense of identity in my work here at YES! Media. But I also I know that, compared to many people in this country, I am in the minority. Research backs that up: Just 33% of employees in the United States and Canada told Gallup that their job meets their basic needs, offers them opportunities to contribute and learn, and provides a sense of belonging. Yet that percentage is still the highest of any region in the world. America’s particular brand of capitalistic individualism, under which many of us were raised, tells us that our jobs are both necessary—to provide the financial means to secure our basic needs like food, shelter, and health care—and should also be fulfilling. The economic, social, and political upheaval of recent years, compounded with a rampant pandemic, laid bare just how fragile and incapable of meeting those needs this system truly is. Work is broken, and it’s breaking us. But the question looms large: If work is broken, what do we do about it? While there is already an abundance of resources dedicated to managing the “hybrid office” or determining which employee wellness programs best promote retention, YES! has always been about understanding the deeper causes, and uncovering the solutions, to what ails us most. Those solutions, we believe, are what lead to transformative change. So this issue begins by exploring how we got to where we are—why work dominates our time, our lives, and our minds. And because transformation is a gradual process, we look at the ways people are changing the idea of work under the systems and conditions in which we find ourselves presently: underpaid undergraduates forming their own unions, labor organizers translating traditional tactics for today’s technological era, a closer look at the data behind the much-discussed “Great Resignation.” We explore success stories from a café upending capitalism in upstate New York, climate and labor organizers recognizing their common cause, and a Colorado program that aims to provide sustainable support to in-home child care workers—just one set of undercompensated workers abruptly reclassified as “essential” when COVID-19 swept the globe. But transformation also requires vision, and the ability to conceive of something better than what we know today. So this issue also embraces ideas that might seem radical: What if we abolished work? And what if our definition of work included rest? Neither of these are as far-fetched as they might seem. Here at YES!, we try to practice what we preach. In January, we began a trial four-day/32-hour work week without salary cuts. While the path has occasionally been bumpy, the results are clear: Our staff is happier and feels more balanced, and we’ve maintained our quality and output of work. So we intend to continue this policy. Sometimes transformation requires leading by example, taking a risk, and trusting the people around you. That’s the kind of world in which I want to live—and work.
Sunnivie Brydum YES! editorial director
In solidarity,
yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
1
Fall 2022 | No. 103
CONTENTS
SOLUTIONS WE LOVE
27
INDIGENOUS FOODWAYS
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE GR I NNELL S T UDENT UNI ON
The Benefits of Berries Valerie Segrest 8 TERRA AFFIRMA
The River Reclaims Sarah Gilman 12 PEOPLE WE LOVE
16
THE PAGE THAT COUNTS
18
CULTURE SHIFT BOOKS + FILMS + AUDIO
The Past, Present, and Future of Work Our work environment is deeply dysfunctional. But making a systemic change requires understanding how we got here. Chris Winters 20
Undergrads Fight For Their Right to Organize Sophia L. Burns 27–30 Can Unions Still Transform the Workplace? Sonali Kolhatkar 34 The Café Upending Capitalism Mike DeSocio 36 Labor and Climate Form a More Perfect Union Kate Schimel 42 Child Care: Invaluable and Undervalued Anne Vilen 45 The Job Is Not My Work Sarah Kleinschmidt 48 Reimagining Work to Include Rest Tricia Hersey 50 The Future of Work Is No Work Nicole Froio 52
2
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
When the Climate Crisis Hits Home LornetTurnbull 63 On Becoming a Somatic Abolitionist Ruth Terry 69 Degrowth Gains Ground Jared Spears 66
ALSO: READERS RESPOND 6 A STORY IN DATA
The Great Resignation Is Actually a Great Reimagining by Workers Tracy Matsue Loeffelholz 40 ABOUT YES! 55 OUR WORK AFTER ROE: YES! EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR CHRISTINE HANNA 56 INSPIRATION 65 REFLECTION 71 THE YES! CROSSWORD 72
COVER ART: ALEX WILLIAMSON
CONTRIBUTORS
Fall 2022, Issue 103
PAGE 12
Sarah Gilman is an independent writer, illustrator, and editor who covers the environment, natural history, science, and place. She spent 11 years as a staff and contributing editor at High Country News and is currently a contributing editor at Hakai Magazine and bioGraphic. Her writing, reporting, and illustrations have appeared in The Atlantic, Audubon, The Washington Post, National Geographic News, Smithsonian, The Guardian, and more.
Journalism for People Building a Bet ter World Christine Hanna executive director Sarah van Gelder and David C. Korten co-founders executive editor Evette Dionne Editorial
PAGE 50
Tricia Hersey
is a Chicago native with over 20 years of experience as a multidisciplinary artist, writer, theologian, and community organizer. She is the founder of The Nap Ministry, an organization that examines rest as a form of resistance and reparations by curating spaces for the community to rest via community rest activations, immersive workshops, performance art installations, and social media. She is the author of the upcoming book Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto, which will be published in October 2022.
PAGE 52
Nicole Froio is a ColombianBrazilian reporter, researcher, and translator based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She writes about myriad topics, including but not limited to social justice, feminism, digital cultures, and pop culture. Her reporting has been featured in Harper’s Bazaar, The Washington Post, ZORA, and more, while her cultural and news analysis has been published in Gizmodo, Bitch, and ZORA.
senior editor senior editor art director associate art director racial justice editor digital editor digital producer books editor copy editors fact checkers
editorial director Sunnivie Brydum Chris Winters Breanna Draxler Natalie Pryor Michael Luong Sonali Kolhatkar Ayu Sutriasa Iman Mohamed Valerie Schloredt Kjerstin Johnson Amanda Sorell Esa Grigsby Amanda Sorell
Business and operations director of finance and organizational development development director finance and operations director sr. manager of audience relations finance and hr manager technology manager accounting manager development manager fulfilment manager subscriber and donor support salesforce administrator audience development associate
Julia Pagán Shelly Hunter Audrey Watson Natalie Lubsen Yvonne Rivera Doug Indrick Kathy Murphy Robin Simons Paula Murphy Kimi Mehlinger Lauren Valle Ayu Tanaka
Reprints and permissions: See our online Reprints Page for easy steps to take when sharing our content: yesmagazine.org/about/reprints Newsstand circulation: Disticor Magazine Distribution Services, Attn: Melanie Raucci, 631-587-1160, mraucci@disticor.com
YES! Magazine is printed on responsibly sourced paper stocks made from 30% and 100% postconsumer waste.
YES! Magazine (ISSN 1089-6651) is published quarterly for $24 per year by the Positive Futures Network at P.O. Box 1219, Poulsbo, WA, 98370. Periodicals postage paid at Seattle, WA, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to YES! Media, P.O. Box 1219, Poulsbo, WA, 98370. SUBSCRIPTIONS: $24 per year. CALL: 800-937-4451; 206-842-0216 FAX: 206-842-5208 WEBSITE: yesmagazine.org EMAIL: yes@yesmagazine.org
yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
3
PRESENTS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1PT/4ET
REIMAGINING WORK
Capitalism teaches us that we are worthy only when we’re productive. In our culture, we’re pushed to “rise and grind,” to monetize our lives as much as humanly possible. But we all deserve better. We deserve to rest, complete in the knowledge that we are worthy simply for being alive. We deserve to have our basic needs met, without sacrificing our health and well-being.bodies, our minds, and our joy simply to keep ourselves fed, clothed, and housed. Join contributors to this issue for a conversation about how we can radically reimagine work in ways that center rest, care, and community. Nicole Froio A Colombian-Brazilian reporter, researcher and translator based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She writes about a myriad of topics, including but not limited to, social justice, feminism, digital cultures and pop culture.
Plus more special guests— go to yesmagazine.org/rework for the full lineup!
4
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
Tickets are FREE Register now at yesmagazine.org/rework Tickets are pay-what-you-can to ensure that anyone can participate in this event. Our events, like all our work, are made possible by the support of our generous community, so please consider contributing at a level that’s meaningful to you.
yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
5
READERS RESPOND RESPOND READERS
Join our conversations! Send us your ideas and responses.
Email us at letters@yesmagazine.org
WE ASKED: What brings you pleasure outside the bounds of consumerism? J P B B W
Finding Freedom in Black BDSM
W 2021 S 2022
THE PLEASURE ISSUE
THE POWER IN Pleasure
Can Better Policy Help Reduce Overdoses? Platonic Matchmaking for Intentional Friendships
+
INDIGENOUS FOODWAYS
MEDICINE OF THE TREE PEOPLE
ADRIENNE MAREE BROWN
Discovering Accessible Delight Black Joy in Pursuit of Racial Justice Growing From Labor to Leisure How to Build Resilience to Shame
US $6.50 Canada $6.50
22
7
25274 87100 1 Display until July 31
102 Cover and BC.indd 3
5/1/22 10:22 AM
W
e hope that our Summer 2022 issue was, well, a pleasure to read. The “Pleasure” issue explored what it truly means to center pleasure in our lives— how does it transform our social movements, relationships, and bodies? From building resilience to shame to embracing pleasure as part of disability justice, we hope the practical and radical ideas and tools we shared inspired you—or at least sparked some interesting conversations. The issue also challenged the ways capitalism can restrict our access to pleasure. Consumerism tells us that pleasure will only come from luxurious resort stays and expensive massages, but if pleasure is really a foundational human need, like guest editor adrienne maree brown posited in her feature article, then it cannot be solely accessed by spending money. In the issue, YES! editors shared their own anti-capitalist pursuits of pleasure. Their answers included taking walks, reading fiction, crocheting, and spending time with kids. But we know we don’t have all the answers—so we asked you, dear readers, to share your favorite free pursuits of pleasure with us online and on social media—and you flooded the comments with thoughtful responses.
6
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
A cup of herbal tea with honey from a local farm, cuddles with my dog and my daughters in bed before sleeping, sitting by the fireplace or the fire pit, making a really delicious meal to share with people I love and enjoying that meal with people I love, listening to someone play the guitar, gardening, long hot baths with salts, herbs, and oils, going for walks in the woods... . I could keep going. —Carolina Miranda, Cambridge, Ontario, Canada Not having to perform or produce brings me immense pleasure. Simply being, connecting with nature. —Vee Ramos, Houston, Texas Dancing! In my kitchen, living room, or in the streets, I love dancing outside with others anywhere a boom box will reach. —Soad Kader, San Francisco, California The feeling of the warm sun on the back of my neck. I had long hair for decades (long, thick curls so nothing is getting through) and recently had to cut my hair short for medical reasons. I found myself stopping outside to feel how warm and wonderful the sun felt on the back of my neck, reminding me there is beauty in every stage of life. —Rebecca Angel, Albany, New York Walking through a neighborhood, noticing the details of the season, patterns, quirks, history, people, and presence. —@kelly_world Hearing babies laugh, seeing dogs wear sweaters (or any clothing), bare feet on good grass, sitting in the sun after being inside all day, seeing elders hold hands. —Stacey Sickler, Fort Collins, Colorado Laughing till I can’t breathe with my sisters. —Alejandra Cariño, California Making art that subverts beauty standards. —Jen Noone, Annandale, New Jersey Making a new friend! —Zahra Khozema, Toronto, Canada Choosing active transportation. Moving by foot or by bike feels good and structures spontaneity into my routines. For example, I’m more likely to greet people I encounter, or stop to enjoy a park, than if I were in a motor vehicle. Lots of short- and long-term benefits personally and socially! —Lars Åkerson, Harrisonburg, Virginia
SOLUTIONS WE LOVE
Livable Planet The River Reclaims | 12 People We Love Rebuilding Society in an Indigenous Image | 16 The Page That Counts | 18
THE HEALING BENEFITS OF BERRIES
yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
7
INDIGENOUS FOODWAYS
Valerie Segrest Illustrations by Lea Linin
The Benefits AS LIFE BLOOMS AROUND US,
so does the summer fragrance. Sweet scents of honey, blos-soms coming of age, and crisp, sun-warmed air transport us to another reality. Sum-mertime greets us with patches of berry brambles paneled with verdant leaves and embossed with berry
8
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
gemstones. You reach out delicately with clutched hands, pluck-ing the ripened fruit from a system flawlessly designed to fabricate them. You notice the weight and reward of the harvest and observe the coating of the exocarp, the spe-cific heat it emits, the color of its opulent
juice behind that thin outer skin. Harvesting berries can be a powerful meditation, centering us in the power of “now,” and is one of the oldest human experiences. This simple action can be an opportunity to revel in the abundance of nature. Tangibly
of Berries interacting with food that is so wired into its life source is otherworldly, and it reminds us of a time when humans were more di-rectly connected to the origins of our food. It is a grounding experience that demands every cell in your body to resonate with the source of our food, catalyzing
our connec-tions to the universe. It’s not just about taking nature’s bounty, it’s also about tending. For millennia, great effort was put into cultivating, harvesting, and preserving berries. As they ripened through the seasons, entire villages would shift their daily actions and organize their
lives around these plant teachers. The abundance of nourishing food brought annual berry harvests that are now inherited and renewed through generations. It is no sur-prise that for the first people of these lands, berries emulate feelings of love and child-like joy and are equated with long life and good health. Many creation stories from In-digenous communities are centered on berries. Blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, cranberries, strawberries, and elderberries, to mention just a few, were central pillars to deep traditions and practices of cultivation in North America. In fact, this is a shared global tradition. While numerous berry varieties are available in supermarkets, many others are still cultivated in wild spaces and har-vested with reverence seasonally. They can be found thriving in forests, high mountain meadows, lowland pastures, urban landscapes, and our contemporary gardens. Berries are high in fiber, vitamins, and minerals, and support our human bodies in many valuable ways. Employing one-of-a-kind superpowers, these fruits can manufac-ture phytonutrients naturally, a power us pitiful humans simply lack. We rely on the ber-ry to bestow these healing properties to help us fight off colds, repair broken blood vessels, and aid in our digestion. Berries not only offer powerful nourishment, but also cultural continuity and bounteous life lessons. Here are a few of the berries native to North America that have been nur-tured since time immemorial. yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
9
Blueberry Wild blueberries are very close kin to the varieties of blueberries available in grocery stores today. From a culinary standpoint, blueberries from the store shelves are seam-lessly interchangeable with huckleberries and wild blueberries. They also share rela-tions with the bilberry, a European variety of wild blueberry. Found fully ripened throughout the summer months in the United States, blueberries are delicious in their raw form but can also be transformed into tasty syrups or jams and make great addi-tions to smoothies. Medicinally, blueberries can assist in treating a patchwork of hu-man issues, from urinary tract infections to circulation problems. Blueberries bear a specific phytochemical called anthocyanin that can help relieve suffering from glau-coma and cataracts.
10
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
Strawberry Shaped like little red hearts, strawberries are often attributed with love and our human heart. Adorned with seeds and vines that like to shoot into empty spaces, strawberries can be quite prolific, perpetuating life everywhere they grow. Perhaps this is why they are at the center of so many creation and love stories for Native peoples of North America. They are typically the first berry to ripen, leading the season. Impressively, these berries can help irritated tummies and can be used for oral health, as they con-tain malic acid, a natural teeth whitener. They are also high in vitamin C and critical minerals that support blood vessel health.
Raspberry Messy raspberry shrubbery is made of up of prickly, thick canes that sprout soft, silver-ish leaves. They produce bright white flowers that transform into floral, tart-tasting ber-ries. Like its close relation the rose, raspberries are high in minerals that help tone our blood vessels and strengthen the health of the heart. Nowadays, raspberries can come in many colors, including white, yellow, red, and even purple. Raspberry leaf can be harvested, dried, and consumed as a tea to help strengthen the uterus, treat menstrual cramps, and relieve labor pains.
Summer Berry Fruit Leather Memories and flavors of gathering berries on warm summer days can be amplified with this preservation method. 4 quarts berries (blueberry, raspberry, strawberry, blackberry) ¼–½ cup honey (optional) Juice of one fresh lemon After harvesting, rinse your berries and add them to a blender along with the optional honey and lemon juice. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or wax paper. Pour blended berry slurry onto the sheet and spread the mixture out to create an even consistency about ¼ inch thick. Set the oven to the lowest possible temperature of around 170 degrees Fahrenheit and leave the oven slightly cracked to allow the berries to dry out. This process can take up to 6 hours. Cut the dried berry leather into strips, roll them up into pinwheels, and store in a cool, dry lace. Enjoy, and try not to eat it all at once!
Blackberry Blackberries are shaped like raspberries but have a hardened, solid core in their cen-ter. They are deep purple to black in color and are typically ripe from June to August. Blackberries can be eaten fresh or cooked and make a tasty fruit leather. Blackberries and their leaves have been used to help soothe indigestion, ease coughs, and speed up the wound-healing process. Hundreds of different types of blackberries grow all over the world, from large brambly bushes with huge fruits, originating in Armenia, to lowgrowing vines with tiny, sweet berries found in the forests of the Pacific Northwest.
Cranberries Cranberries have historically grown in bogs, cultivated in a belt spreading from one end of North America to the other. Adorable pink flowers shaped like the beak of a crane inspired the current name of these berries: The crane-berry eventually came to be known as the cranberry. These tiny plum-tart berries are effective at treating bacte-rial infections, particularly in the urinary tract, and can also restore the immune system to help fight off common colds. Native peoples harvested these berries in late summer or after the first frost and stored them in baskets and boxes throughout the winter for a springtime treat. During colder months, cranberries can often be found simmering in a pot on the stove for fresh tea. Their tart flavor is also medicinal, activating our digestive system so we can effectively absorb nutrition in our food.
Elderberry Elderberries grow on small bushes that have the potential to grow up to 20 feet high! In the early summer, a plume of white umbrella-shaped flowers blossoms and later turns into dark blue or black elderberries. These trees can grow so prolific with elderberries that their weight can snap the branches in half. Harvesting can feel especially reward-ing as one snips away a bunch of berries, and the flexible branch enthusiastically re-turns to its upright position, reaching for the sky once again. The elderberry is one of the most medicinal of all the berries, renowned for its ability to ward off viral illnesses and effectively reduce fevers. It has a great ability to boost the immune system, with its high content of vitamins A, B, and C. Elderberry is often made into a syrup and used as a healthy sweetener, poured on top of pancakes, or added to anything that could ben-efit from a sweet, rich berry flavor. Think jams, jellies, and popsicles—yum!
Valerie Segrest (Muckleshoot) is a nutrition educator who specializes in local and traditional foods. She is co-founder and director of projects at Tahoma Peak Solutions LLC.
yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
11
12
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
13
14
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
15
Wilhelmina Yazzie of the Navajo Nation was the lead plaintiff in a suit to ensure her son Xavier Nez and other Indigenous children could receive adequate education. Pictured: Yazzie and Nez in Gallup, New Mexico, in 2018
16
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
PHOTO BY BRANDON N. SANCHEZ
PEOPLE WE LOVE
Natalie Peart
BEYOND DECOLONIZATION These activists are working to ensure Indigenous perspectives are included in fields as diverse as education, health care, and scientific research.
JESSICA HERNANDEZ
ABIGAIL ECHO-HAWK
WILHELMINA YAZZIE
University of Washington, Bothell
Director, Urban Indian Health Institute
Lead plaintiff, Yazzie and Martínez v. State of New Mexico
In spite of climate change’s far-reaching impacts, Jessica Hernandez says the way it is taught in universities remains largely one-dimensional, focused on the physical processes in the atmosphere. When Hernandez, a postdoctoral physics researcher at the University of Washington, Bothell, who is Binnizá and Maya Ch’orti’, first taught introduction to climate change courses, she was determined to change that. She integrated place-based lessons focused on how Indigenous communities experience the changes. For example, when it came time to teach the chemistry of ocean acidification, she also connected it to impacts on salmon and on the Northwestern tribal communities who rely on the fish. “Students were able to see these concepts that are an abstract concept,” she says. “It’s something that we cannot necessarily see in person.” It’s just one part of Hernandez’s effort to support Indigenous ways of creating knowledge. She trains high school physics teachers to incorporate equity and Indigenous knowledge. A lesson plan on energy could include an explanation of the colonial origins of the concept and how Indigenous communities have studied it. She also recently published a book, Fresh Banana Leaves, on Indigenous science.
A 2016 CDC report found that nearly half of all death certificates inaccurately reported Native Americans’ race, effectively erasing a vital source of information on community health. It’s a phenomenon Abigail EchoHawk, an enrolled citizen of the Pawnee Nation, calls “data genocide,” and it significantly impacts treatment and policy. The erasure became particularly pronounced during the pandemic, as the tracking of Indigenous people’s illnesses and deaths lagged. For example, much of the research on long COVID-19 is based on electronic medical records, which often fail to correctly identify Native patients. That makes it harder to get an accurate diagnosis, as well as knowledge about the disease’s frequency in Indigenous communities and the resources to deal with it. Through the Urban Indian Health Institute, Echo-Hawk works with hospitals and other health care facilities to reconsider how to treat and serve Native American and Alaska Native communities. The pressure she and others put on federal health officials led to Congressional hearings in 2020 and 2021 and a letter from 25 members of Congress demanding transparency and better tracking of Indigenous COVID deaths and cases.
When Yazzie’s son reached middle school, he noticed his non-Indigenous friends taking advanced classes he couldn’t get in, despite his high grades. When Yazzie pressed school administrators and then district leaders about the discrepancy as well as other she had noticed, they rebuffed her. So she, along with other families, filed suit against the state of New Mexico. The suit argued that the state had failed in its constitutional responsibility to provide an adequate education to Indigenous, Latino, and other underserved students. In 2018, a judge ruled in their favor, but the challenges didn’t stop there. Even in 2020, as the chaos of the pandemic stranded many students in Navajo Nation without internet access, the state sought to have the suit dismissed. Yazzie and other activists fought for the state to provide technology and remote instruction, securing major investments in some districts. Yazzie continues to advocate for the rights of Navajo students, pushing the state to provide everything from financial resources to Diné language and culture instruction.
yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
17
THE PAGE THAT COUNTS
Miles Schneiderman
Years from 1972 to 2022 that Republicans have controlled the presidency: 29 Years from 1972 to 2022 that Democrats have controlled the presidency: 22
Number of Supreme Court justices appointed by Republican presidents in that time: 12 Number of justices appointed by Democratic presidents: 5 [1]
Number of people who have served as Supreme Court justices in U.S. history: 116 [2] Number of justices who have been Constitutional originalists (i.e., believe the Constitution should be interpreted as it would have been at the time it was drafted): 6 [3] Number of those justices currently serving on the Supreme Court: 5 [4 ]
Number of incarcerated workers in the United States prison system: Almost
800,000
Share of these workers who say they will face punishment, including solitary confinement and loss of family visitation, if they refuse to work: 76% Average hour wage range of incarcerated workers: 13–52
cents
Share of this wage taken by prisons to cover fines, taxes, restitution, and other fees: Up
to 80% Value of goods and services generated by incarcerated workers: Over $11 billion per year [5] Number of the 100 largest American private defense contractors that profit from incarcerated workers: 37 Share of the 25 largest American arms manufacturers that profit from incarcerated workers: 64% [6] Total CO2 emissions from the U.S. military in 2017: 23,367.1
kilotons
Rank of the U.S. military for highest CO2 emissions, compared to the world’s nations in 2014: 45 [7] Percent of toxic air spider plants can remove from a small sealed chamber in 24 hours: 95
to 100 [8] Increase in productivity measured in offices with indoor plants: Up to 15% [9] Square feet of space from which peace lilies can remove toxins: Up
Share of respondents in a 2021 poll who said houseplants supported their mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic: 57% [10] Typical age at which a human child can solve an “Aesop’s Fable paradigm,” which involves dropping stones into a tube filled with water until a piece of food floating in the water becomes accessible: 7 Number of non-human animals found to be capable of solving this challenge:
3 (rook, Eurasian jay, New Caledonian crow) [11]
SOURCES: [1] U.S. Supreme Court. https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/members_text.aspx. [2] U.S. Supreme Court. https://www. supremecourt.gov/about/faq_justices.aspx. [3] ACLU, via Democracy Now! https://www.democracynow.org/2022/6/30/aclu_right_wing_scotus_ shreds_rights#transcript. [4] ACLU, via The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/30/supreme-court-originalismconstitution/. [5] ACLU. https://www.aclu.org/news/human-rights/captive-labor-exploitation-of-incarcerated-workers. [6] Mint Press News. https://www.mintpressnews.com/1-3-big-defense-contractors-profit-us-prisoner-suffering/279648/. [7] Royal Geographical Society. https:// rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/tran.12319. [8.] NASA via New York Post. https://nypost.com/2018/04/20/clean-the-air-in-your-homewith-these-nasa-approved-plants/. [9] University of Exeter, via ScienceDaily. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140901090735.htm. [10] Wonder. https://askwonder.com/research/indoor-outdoor-house-plant-wellness-expressionists-gpdfl4x51. [11] PLOS One: https://journals. plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0103049. [12] Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/
18
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
THE WORK ISSUE
The Past, Present, and Future of Work
20
Undergrads Fight For Their Right to Organize
27
Labor and Climate Form a More Perfect Union
42
Can Unions Still Transform the Workplace?
34
Child Care: Invaluable and Undervalued
45
The Café Upending Capitalism
Reimagining Work to Include Rest
50
A Story in Data
36
40 The Job Is Not My Work
52
yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
19
The Past, Present, and Future of Work Our work environment is deeply dysfunctional. But making a systemic change requires understanding how we got here. Chris Winters
Participants march during a “Fight Starbucks’ Union Busting” rally in Seattle on April 23, 2022. As of August 2022, more than 180 U.S. Starbucks stores have unionized their staff, according to Starbucks Workers United.
20
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
O
ur relationship with work can be summed up in two words: It’s complicated. Here in the United States (but elsewhere, too), work dominates our lives. Upon meeting someone new, our standard first question is “What do you do for a living?” Our identities, even our names, often reflect an occupation. And yet, for too many people, their work is a thankless task for which they are undercompensated. It provides just enough sustenance to get through the day, so they can wake up the next and start over. And the countless hours take a toll on physical and mental health, relationships, and families. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” is a common refrain. Earlier generations said, “Idle hands are the devil’s tools,” a phrase that may have come from a 4th-century letter written by St. Jerome, in which he captured the essence of the ancient workaholic: fac et aliquid operis, ut semper te diabolus inveniat occupatum. Or,
“Engage in some occupation, so that the devil may always find you busy.” There’s nothing like the threat of eternal damnation to motivate you to drag yourself out the door for another day in the trenches. Some people may like, or even love, the work they do. But for many others, “work” is a compendium of indignities—low pay, inadequate benefits, toxic and abusive environments, to say nothing of the disrespect, discrimination, and exclusion that greets many people of color and other historically excluded groups. But what if it wasn’t? What if “work” were a thing we chose to do with our time because we wanted to do it and not because we needed to keep destitution at bay? What if our worth as people in society was measured by something other than where we punch a clock? What if work was something that lifted up and supported our whole lives, instead of something that we endure just so that we may live?
PHOTO BY JASON REDMOND/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
21
27 B.C.–476 C.E.
Estimates suggest that as much as 10% of the Roman Empire’s population was enslaved.
1490s-1888
Enslaved Africans, like those pictured here in Brazil in 1885, were used as a source of free labor throughout the Americas from the 1490s until 1888, when Brazil
A PAST ROOTED IN SLAVERY A straight line can be drawn through the history of work in Western societies, from the slavery of the Roman Empire (scholars estimate as much as 10% of the population of the empire was enslaved), to the feudalism of medieval Europe, to the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries. That line is ownership—the wealthy could buy and sell people, land, or labor to accrue more wealth, all at the expense of the poor. Whether one places the beginning of capitalism in the heart of industrializing England or in the merchant classes of the Renaissance, by the time Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote about the problems of capitalism in 1848, the economic system was rooted firmly in place across Europe and the Americas. “Marx’s point (one of many) was that slavery, feudalism, and capitalism have something very similar in common. In all of those systems, a very small number of people are in the catbird seat,” says Richard Wolff, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a visiting professor at the New School University in New York City. The initial promise of capitalism, Wolff contends, was that it would replace slavery and feudalism, which is what formed the
22
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
intellectual backdrop of the American and French revolutions. Many workers and even elites saw the end of these oppressive systems to be a step toward freedom. But deposing monarchies and freeing serfs often just resulted in the replacement of one overlord with another, as wealth transferred from the landed gentry to a new moneyed elite (who in some cases were the same people) and businesses were incentivized to keep their workers poor and powerless. “Capitalism is its own obstacle to achieving the very things capitalism promised in overthrowing feudalism and slavery,” Wolff says. Today, the workplace remains dehumanizing, even with more labor protections in place than in eras past. The 40-hour work week was itself a compromise. Enacted in U.S. law in 1940, it was intended not to prevent laborers from having to work 16 hours a day, six or seven days a week, but to reduce unemployment by preventing one person from holding what is now the equivalent of two or more full-time jobs. Even today, there are enough loopholes in federal law that many employees simply can’t clock out at 5 p.m. if they want to
1915 1908
Children and adults worked an average of 14 hours per day with few, if any, breaks. Pictured: Indiana Glass Works, 9 p.m., August, 1908.
remain employed. Pair this with a widespread societal notion that we must love our jobs, or find them “fulfilling,” and we’re set up with a disconnect, given that so many jobs are grinding, exhausting, demeaning and even dangerous. Or they serve no purpose other than to perpetuate work. But we do them because we need the money. As the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged our communities and upended the world economy, it became clear there was a demand for something new. Unregulated capitalism was shown to be broken: Supply chains shattered, workplaces became disease vectors, and relationships with families and friends were severed by death, chronic illness, and polarization. The unemployment rate peaked at nearly 15% in April 2020, the highest recorded level since 1948, according to the Congressional Research Service. Between January and April of that year, more than 22 million non-farm jobs were lost. Other people found themselves labeled “essential workers,” forced to continue working in person in order to keep the meatpacking plants PHOTOS: GETTY (LEFT), AND ALAMY
Starting in the 1860s, various industries began to adopt shorter work weeks, until Congress implemented a 40hour work week in 1940. Pictured: a government office in 1915, with hours prominently posted.
producing and the deliveries of food, toilet paper, and cleaning products dashing to the doors of middle-class people now working from the relative safety of their homes. “Frontline workers,” especially in health care, child care, education, and public safety—many of whom are women, people of color, or both—had to make significant adaptations to how they performed their jobs, and many health care workers experienced significantly higher levels of risk of infection, anxiety, depression, and burnout. Lacking government mandates, only some businesses offered hazard pay for those forced to work in close quarters, and even that meager benefit quickly expired. One notable effect of this radical societal reordering has come to be termed the “Great Resignation.” More than 47 million people in the U.S. voluntarily quit their jobs in 2021, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. And while many of those workers quit because they’re fed up with an unrewarding job, others are rethinking the overall role of work in their lives, or fighting to improve their working conditions by forming labor unions at companies like Amazon and Starbucks, or even staging walkouts at nonunionized workplaces. yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
23
...most workers who died from COVID in 2020, before vaccines became available, were in retail, service, or blue-collar jobs that offered no opportunities for remote work.
Supermarket cashiers were considered "essential" during Coronavirus Pandemic. Pictured: Miami Beach, Fla., Publix, May 27, 2020.
OVERCOMING THE GRIND CULTURE OF THE PRESENT The pandemic proved the tipping point. Many of the people who died during the early stages of the pandemic were the essential workers in the service, health care, and manufacturing sectors, says Angelica Geter, the chief strategy officer of the Black Women’s Health Imperative in Atlanta. “Those who kept the world moving while others had the privilege of staying home.” Geter, who also holds a doctorate of public health, says that this was mostly Black and Brown workers, and especially women. According to one 2022 study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, most workers who died from COVID in 2020, before vaccines became available, were in retail, service, or blue-collar jobs that offered no opportunities for remote work. Nearly 45% of non-White women in low-wage jobs worked in the service industry, and about 60% of men of any race in low-wage jobs worked in bluecollar professions. Another study documented the death rate of Black workers being higher than any other racial group and found that among essential workers, those higher rates were also because Black people are disproportionately represented among many jobs that expose them to higher risks of infection. The decision for many of those people was simple: go to work and risk illness, or stay at home with their families and risk impoverishment. The pandemic exposed the inequalities that
24
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
Triumph Foods pork processing plant in St. Joseph, Missouri, employees worked up to 10 hours a day, side by side. At the start of the pandemic, dozens of its 2,800 employees got sick.
we already knew about but seldom saw in such stark terms. “That’s exactly what COVID did,” Geter says. “It painted the whole picture and brought it forth.” The Black Women’s Health Imperative was founded in 1983 to target the most pressing issues facing Black women and girls in the U.S. Some of its long-running initiatives include programs in diabetes prevention, HIV prevention and care, a network among women students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and distributing menstrual products in Black communities. It was not a coincidence that years of frustration with discrimination, racism, and workplace toxicity, along with the cumulative negative health effects, boiled over when COVID exerted maximum pressure on the workplace and brought many people outside onto the streets in protest. “Enough was enough,” Geter says. “Most people don’t make the connection between being overworked and the impact on your health,” Geter adds. Recovery from burnout can take years, because it often has been compounded by the experience of discrimination. Even the expectation of discrimination or microaggressions in the workplace takes a mental and emotional toll, which can lead to precursors of heart disease, breast cancer, and other health conditions that disproportionately affect Black women. “When I go into an office of other people, I represent the entire Black community,” Geter says. “The stress of anticipation
...frustration with discrimination, racism, and workplace toxicity, along with the cumulative negative health effects, boiled over when COVID exerted maximum pressure on the workplace and brought many people outside onto the streets in protest.
Despite the risk of exposure to COVID-19, thousands of protestors spilled out onto the streets across the U.S. and abroad. Pictured: A #BlackLivesMatter protest in Cincinnati, Ohio, in May 2020.
of that—it just wears on you.” Many companies tried to rise to meet that need for their own workers, with enhanced benefits during the pandemic and new diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. “During 2020 we saw Fortune 500, Fortune 1,000 companies allocate billions of dollars to promote equity in their workplaces,” Geter says. “They needed tools and information and resources to know what to do with them.” But DEI programs alone aren’t enough to make sustainable changes. There are still too many barriers that keep people of color out of promotions, hiring opportunities, pay increases, and retention. Education is needed, but so is accountability, and the resources to pay for both. “If we don’t create change that empowers the people who have the least amount of privilege and experience discrimination the most, we will see the same issues over and over again,” Geter says. The Health Imperative’s answer to that was to develop a multipart initiative, including an employee-centered “wellness toolkit” for businesses that highlights workplace culture, training, hiring, and research that centers the voices of Black women—so that work is not an environment that damages their physical, mental, or emotional health. Tiffany Jana, a writer, speaker, and pleasure activist who has consulted with businesses for nearly 20 years to create more human-centered workplaces, also says it’s necessary that PHOTOS: GETTY (LEFT), ALAMY (CENTER), JULIAN WAN/UNSPLASH (RIGHT)
businesses recognize what their employees are going through in the present day, not just as employees, but as full human beings. “What I think is missing from the workplace is the acknowledgement and the honoring of, essentially, the sanctity of humanity,” Jana says. “Everyone who chooses to raise their hand and then come and work for your company, that’s a deeply sacred gift, that’s an incredibly special, beautiful thing that we have failed to honor appropriately.” Another consideration for businesses in creating a more people-centered workplace lies in their structure as profit-making enterprises. Jana has incorporated two of their three companies as B Corps that adhere to triple-bottom-line accounting: focusing as much on social and environmental concerns as profits. “Over the last, say, eight, nine years, the pressure has been coming up from the bottom. [People] within organizations and institutions are saying, ‘Wait a minute, you know, we really love the work, we really love the company, but we don’t feel like we’re being valued,’” Jana says. “And they’ve been demanding culturebased work to help create an environment that is more gracious and welcoming and human-centered.” A MORE COLLECTIVE, HUMAN FUTURE If the current trend in workplace evolution is toward a more human-centered environment, the question then becomes whether that evolution is possible in businesses whose only goal yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
25
is to maximize profits for their shareholders. Wolff, who has studied and written extensively about the history of capitalism and socialism, says it isn’t. But what can support a humancentered future is more worker-owned co-ops and democratic governance structures, and not just in small shops or artisan manufacturers. “I’m not sure that scaling is all that big a deal,” he says. “If making big units is going to cost us the ability to have a democratic system, we should at least question the size, and if that’s necessary.” The world already has seen how a smaller co-op can evolve into a larger but still democratic organization. Mondragón, a diversified corporation founded in 1956 in Spain’s Basque region, is the world’s largest worker-owned cooperative, with 80,000 employees, and incorporates democratic decision-making at all levels of the company. It is arguably one of Spain’s most successful companies, with branches in 31 countries. It incorporates 96 self-governing cooperatives in sectors as wide-ranging as industry, retail, finance, and education. Mondragón is only the largest example. About two-thirds of the 4.5 million people in the Italian region of Emilia Romagna, one of the wealthiest areas in the European Union, are co-op members, and they produce 30% of the region’s gross domestic product. It’s a society in which co-ops and top-down businesses coexist peacefully. “It’s a real laboratory for the question ‘How could a society be a mixed society?’” Wolff says. “They’ve normalized it.” In the U.S., examples of thriving co-ops include Sí Se Puede Women’s Cooperative, a house- and office-cleaning cooperative run largely by Hispanic immigrant women. Founded in Brooklyn, New York, in 2006, the organization is now one of several immigrant-run cleaning cooperatives in the city. The history of co-ops in the U.S. extends back to precolonization Indigenous communities, and practices created in the Black community after the Civil War, rooted in African traditions. Indigenous societies were and still are much more communitarian. Strong ties to families and tribes keep many Native Americans in close proximity to their communities. That makes for some difficult choices: If forced to choose between having a job or building a career in a distant city, or returning to a rural reservation to care for family and participate in their culture, many choose the latter. That also contributes to the level of unemployment in Indigenous societies, which is already the highest in the nation. In one study, in which several members of Native reservations were interviewed about their work lives, the lead researcher, Ahmed Al-Asfour, then a professor at Oglala Lakota College and now the director of the Center for Workforce Development at Southern Illinois University, found that strong community ties often took priority in decisions about work. “As one participant said, it is all about ‘we’ not ‘I’ and this
26
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
is a core belief for individuals living in collectivistic societies,” Al-Asfour wrote. That’s led to a mismatch between those ties and the expectations of the non-Native economy. “The discrimination highlighted in the interviews stresses the cultural tensions between Natives and non-Natives as the Natives’ culture, values, and traditions continue to be undermined and underscored by non-Natives,” Al-Asfour wrote. WE CAN GET THERE FROM HERE A wholesale evolution of capitalism into a more democratic system is possible, but it has to start with a shift in ideology, Wolff says. “Human beings have come to adapt to capitalism by thinking there is something necessary or logical or socially efficient by having the nature of work defined by and governed by profitability,” he says. In other words, we have bought into the idea that pay is equivalent to worth. But that ideology doesn’t measure all of the consequences of a human being who works: The effort of performing labor changes the body and mind of the worker, it changes people who interact with the worker, and it changes the natural environment. If work were to be truly fully compensated, “you’d have to do what hasn’t ever been done: Figure out all the effects,” Wolff says. In other words, structural change becomes as important as an ideological shift. If a business that makes a product loses its market, the business usually cuts workforce to preserve its profits. A democratically run co-op that prioritizes worker wellbeing might take a different action—change products being made, retrain workers, or cut hours of work so production meets the existing demand. “This kind of structural change—which is anathema in capitalism—this also would have to be in place. That would make this a much easier conversation,” Wolff says. Another key development would be a society that disassociates value from the workplace. Policies like universal health care or basic income would reduce the need for people to remain in dehumanizing jobs and allow them to pursue endeavors more in line with their value system. That’s something Tiffany Jana has tried to pursue in their own life, designing their work to be fulfilling and complementary to their life, and encouraging others to follow that example. “When I meet people, I don’t ask them ‘What do you do?’ or ‘Where do you work?’” Jana says. “I ask them ‘How do you spend your time?’ And it confuses the crap out of them.” “Each of us has a beautiful opportunity, in this season, to decide how we want to define ourselves, how we want to contribute to this new societal structure, this new way of being, and then work diligently towards creating that change,” Jana says. y Chris Winters is a senior editor at YES!, covering democracy and the economy. Twitter: @TheChrisWinters
UNDERGRADS FIGHT FOR THEIR RIGHT TO ORGANIZE Long-underpaid undergrad students who work on campus are increasingly seeing the value of their underpaid labor and are organizing unions.
SOPHIA L. BURNS
T
he year 2022 shattered expectations for the labor movement, most prominently represented by the growing unionization efforts at more than a hundred Starbucks stores and at least one Amazon warehouse across the country. Young leaders, like 33-year-old Amazon Labor Union president Chris Smalls, are building a movement based on their refusal to give up their well-being for jobs that mistreat them. In step with these generational values, undergraduate students are starting to see themselves as an important part of labor’s rebirth, as evidenced by the historic momentum behind the undergraduate union movement at institutions like Grinnell College, which became the first campus-wide undergraduate union in the U.S. this April. Although access to higher education has expanded over the last two generations, the student debt crisis reveals that such access comes at a tremendous cost to those seeking the upward mobility promised by a degree. Paying one’s college tuition with a part-time job is no longer a viable option due to the cost of tuition alone. Still, today’s college students are working to both decrease their student loan burdens and afford food, housing, and other necessities. According to a 2018 study by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce, nearly 70% of college students are currently employed. Although the study does not distinguish between on-campus and off-campus work, it is well known that wages have not kept pace with the cost of living across the U.S. For those pursuing higher education, the challenge to make ends meet remains.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF WESLYAN UNION OF STUDENT EMPLOYEES
Undergraduate student workers from Iowa to Connecticut (like the Wesleyan University student pictured here) are turning to unions to combat low pay and poor working conditions.
yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
27
COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES STAFF IMPORTANT AREAS LIKE DINING HALLS, MAILROOMS, AND LIBRARIES WITH STUDENTS RECEIVING FINANCIAL AID, WHO RECEIVE LOW WAGES WHILE STILL PAYING TUITION AND LIVING EXPENSES.
In a related 2019 study, the CEW identified that between 1980 and 2019, the cost of a college education increased 169%, while wages for people between the ages of 22 and 27 have grown by just 19%. No matter how much students work while they study, they will most likely spend decades paying off student loans once they leave campus, with or without a degree in hand. For most students, financial aid and merit scholarships cannot completely eliminate the need for student loans. The Pell Grant, which is designated for “undergraduate students who display exceptional financial need,” falters as well, covering only about 30% of the average tuition at a public university, as per the 2018 Georgetown study. This is half of what it covered in 1980.
Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, labor scholar and associate professor of history at Loyola University Chicago, detailed the lineage of student debt in her 2021 book Indentured Students: How Government-Guaranteed Loans Left Generations Drowning in College Debt. She explains, “Because of the expense of college, students and parents have to not only borrow more, but work a lot more.” Colleges and universities staff important areas like dining halls, mailrooms, and libraries with students receiving financial aid, who receive low wages while still paying tuition and living expenses. Ultimately, institutions benefit from the financial pressures weighing on their students via their on-campus labor. The divide between who needs to work and who works to gain experience
Mailroom workers at Grinnell College rallied in Fall 2021 to demand an end to what they called a “toxic work environment.”
28
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
reminds students that college is not the grand equalizer, but yet another site of labor. Since the 1960s, graduate students have made headway in asserting their status as employees. There are currently more than 50 graduate employee unions in the U.S. Undergraduates, however, perform notably different labor from their graduate counterparts. Their jobs are less academic in nature and more serviceoriented. On many campuses, undergraduates are likely to be found shelving books or serving meals in the dining hall. Meanwhile, graduate students serve as teaching and research assistants, work that serves as a woefully underpaid introduction to academia. One difference, then, is that undergraduates’ on-campus
Members of the Union of Grinnell Student Dining Workers met with a campus administrator in November 2021 to share their concerns and demands about their working conditions.
UNLIKE A GRANT OR SCHOLARSHIP, WORK-STUDY FUNDS MUST BE EARNED THROUGH HOURLY WORK BY THE END OF A GIVEN SEMESTER. IF A STUDENT DOES NOT EARN THE REQUIRED MINIMUM, THEY WILL BE EXPECTED TO MAKE UP THE DIFFERENCE OUT OF POCKET. jobs rarely contribute to their career aspirations. This April, the Union of Grinnell Student Dining Workers became the country’s first campus-wide undergraduate union to win legal recognition. It is significant that the union grew out of the dining hall, where many workers receive financial aid. Aid recipients at Grinnell participate in work-study programs, meaning that students work toward a certain dollar amount that must be earned by the end of the semester. After federal work-study roles are filled, there are some positions left over for those not receiving federal aid. Unlike a grant or scholarship, work-study funds must be earned through hourly work by the end of a given semester. If a student does not earn the required minimum, they will be
Throughout the fall and spring semesters, students held ongoing rallies across campus in support of the union.
PHOTOS: COURTESY OF GRINNELL STUDENT UNION
expected to make up the difference out of pocket. “During the initial unionization in the dining hall, work-study students had to work more during the week to make [$1,100,] the amount set by the college,” says UGSDW organizer Isaiah Gutman. Union president Keir Hichens adds, “The $1,100 is by no means a meaningful chunk out of the tuition cost. … The college relies on this deferred payment.” By “deferred payment” Hichens means that the federal government pays the college for the student work at the end of the semester. Hichens recalls having to work 10 hours a week in order to earn the amount set by the work-study requirement. The disparity in working hours between students on financial aid and
those not receiving aid was a primary motivation for the creation of the union. Among the UGSDW’s demands is an increase in wages, which would give students back valuable time. According to the 2018 Georgetown study, students who work more than 15 hours per week tend to be more likely to perform poorly in college, putting them at a greater risk of abandoning their studies. They were also more likely to pay their tuition with credit cards than those who worked less than 15 hours. Workplace harassment and food insecurity further inspired Grinnell students to build a legally recognized pathway to secure their rights as student workers. The National Labor Relations Board has continuously blocked union efforts by undergrads, claiming that the
On April 26, Grinnell student organizers celebrated a successful vote, becoming the country's first campus-wide undergraduate union.
yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
29
The undergraduate student worker union movement that began at Grinnell has not only spread to other colleges, but also garnered support from established labor unions—like the Connecticut Building Trades Union, which rallied alongside members of the Wesleyan Union of Student Employees, pictured here on March 5, 2022.
relationship between undergraduate students and their colleges and universities is “educational,” not “economic,” in nature. The recent struggle to unionize at Grinnell for undergrad students’ labor rights shows that the two cannot be disaggregated. “Because of the way that college has evolved over the last 80 years, it is [perceived as] something you do between 18 and 22. It’s this sort of netherworld,” explains Shermer. Representations of students in popular culture show them as almost-adults, treading water before assuming real responsibilities. Labor policy’s exclusion of college students exacerbates students’ struggles for their labor rights to be recognized on campus. According to Shermer, this perceived incompatibility between undergraduate students and organized labor began during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency. “[The administration] cleaved off colleges and universities as a separate labor
30
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
market” in its policymaking, attempting to “get young people out of competition for jobs,” says Shermer. While many continue to walk the tenuous line dividing students and laborers, the lack of up-todate federal policy that encompasses this reality leaves many with great financial uncertainty. A central issue arising in the conversation around undergraduate unions—and now at Wesleyan University and Kenyon College—is the invisibility of student labor to society at large. “A lot of the labor students do is invisible,” explains Shermer. “A Starbucks barista is visible [to the public].” In contrast, she says, “the only people using a dining hall are students and some faculty.” Hichens adds that the invisibility of student labor also helped student workers recognize that they were being mistreated. “Students are realizing just how much institutions rely on our labor to function—not just tuition or financial
aid, but our labor.” Today, unions are challenging American youth’s indebtedness to institutions of higher education. They are breaking down the class divisions that attempt to separate “educated” professionals from “unskilled” labor. According to Hichens, “student workers are seeing themselves in a global community.” Instead of looking askew at Starbucks and Amazon employees—many of whom hold college degrees—many undergraduate organizers are drawing on a shared principle: that they, too, are upholding large institutions that refuse to acknowledge the value of their labor. As union members, Hichens noted that his peers have begun to “see themselves as more than individuals or families making their ways through capitalism. I think we’re at the very beginning.” y Sophia L. Burns is a creative nonfiction writer and community educator. Her work focuses on personal narratives about identity, (in)justice,
PHOTO: COURTESY OF WESLYAN UNION OF STUDENT EMPLOYEES
Can Unions Still Transform the Workplace? Young workers, women, and people of color are combining digital innovation with old-school face-to-face organizing to build a new labor movement. Sonali Kolhatkar Illustrations by Keith Henry Brown
Y
oung people, women, and people of color are at the forefront of a new wave of labor organizing in the United States. Beginning in 2020, figures like Amazon Labor
“...this new generation of female-heavy, peopleof-color-heavy trade unionists will succeed where we have been failing for a couple of generations.” —Jane McAlevey, Labor expert
Union President Chris Smalls and rank-and-file workers like Starbucks barista Michelle Eisen have been leading successful unionization efforts at some of the nation’s largest companies. These young organizers are innovatively combining old-school face-to-face organizing with digital communication tools, as employers scramble to respond. What is behind this new labor movement, and can it win significant power for workers? “It’s possible that this new generation of female-heavy, people-of-color-heavy trade unionists will succeed where we have been failing for a couple of generations,” says labor expert and author Jane McAlevey. While noting that victory isn’t inevitable, she recognizes that the people driving this movement “are fighting to form unions so that there is radical change and transformational change in their life.” POLITICS, PANDEMIC, AND THE PUBLIC The flurry of headlines about union victories at major U.S. companies is not a mirage. According to the National Labor Relations Board, “union election petitions increased by 57%” in the first half of fiscal year 2021-22. “I don’t think there’s a secret” to the success of these reemergent organizers, says labor expert Shaun Richman. “I think they’re just doing good organizing, which most unions have stopped doing.” Richman spent years as a frontline
“Workers are more ready to take action and less apt to buy into the boss’s bullshit in these captive audience meetings.” —Shaun Richman, Labor expert organizer with American Federation of Teachers and is the author of Tell the Bosses We’re Coming: A New Action Plan for Workers in the 21st Century. He thinks that today, “Workers are more ready to take action and less apt to buy into the boss’s bullshit in these captive audience meetings” where employers promote anti-union messaging. yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
31
The current political landscape has also been more favorable to organizing since the summer of 2021, when a pro-union majority on the NLRB began enforcing labor laws and increasingly sanctioning companies for violating workers’ rights. “Biden as president and his appointees to the NLRB have made the legal landscape finally fairer for workers,” says Richman. The shift toward greater worker power has been a long time coming. Organized labor in the United States has been in decline for years. In 2021, only about 10% of the workforce was unionized, down from 20% in the early 1980s. In the private sector, things look even worse, with a mere 6.1% of workers in unions. But the idea of unions is popular. More than 60% of Americans believe the decline in union membership is bad for working people, according to a 2022 Pew Research poll. Now, more than two years into a devastating pandemic, many workers who were deemed “essential” in 2020 are eager to flex their power in a tightening labor market. STARBUCKS SIREN SWITCHES SIDES Starbucks cafés, in particular, are choosing union representation at breathtaking speed, with 150 stores holding successful votes in the six months between December 8, 2021, and June 14, 2022. Meanwhile, workers at Amazon, Apple, Trader Joe’s, and other well-known American brands are also in various stages of union organizing. Michelle Eisen is an organizing member with Starbucks Workers United and a barista at a Starbucks café in Buffalo, New York, the first location in the iconic coffee chain to successfully vote for a union in more than two decades. Although she had no prior labor organizing experience, Eisen says she understands now just how much digital technology gave workers like her an advantage over traditional organizing methods. “When we went public [with the union], I created a group text with
32
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
“When Starbucks publishes an anti-union bulletin, younger workers will often have created a witty comeback or meme to post on social media within minutes.” —Michelle Eisen Starbucks union organizer everybody in my store, so anytime there was information that needed to come out, we were able to get that to people,” she says. This was particularly handy when Starbucks’ corporate executives began dropping by her store on Elmwood Avenue unannounced, claiming to give workers a helping hand by sweeping floors and taking out the trash. Workers say their real agenda was to intervene in pro-union discussions. “What corporate didn’t realize was that these conversations [about unions] weren’t happening on the floor,” says Eisen. They were happening via text and social media. Starbucks workers across Buffalo created a citywide account on the GroupMe app, which enabled them to track corporate executives as they moved from café to café—and alert one another to be prepared. “What you’re seeing is organizing evolving with the times,” Eisen says. At a broader level, Eisen says digital technology has also been helpful for garnering public support. SWU launched all
its social media accounts on the day the first union petition in Buffalo became public, and instantly gained followers consisting of fellow Starbucks baristas and other supporters. That visible digital encouragement “gave a boost” to the Elmwood café workers, Eisen explains. Months later, a majority voted to join the union. Soon after the successful union vote at her store, Eisen hopped on a Zoom call with workers at a Starbucks café in Mesa, Arizona, to share what she had learned with her counterparts on the other side of the nation. While digital avenues offer valuable information-sharing networks among organizers, many still rely on a key traditional approach: one-on-one connections with fellow workers. When she connected with colleagues unsure about unionizing, Eisen took them out to coffee at another location to address their concerns in-person. She even flew to Arizona to meet her Mesa counterparts, an experience she says was deeper than a Zoom call. As a self-described “geriatric millennial,” Eisen is older than most of her fellow organizers. When Starbucks publishes an anti-union bulletin, younger workers will often have created a witty comeback or meme to post on social media within minutes, Eisen says. While Starbucks has “endless amounts of resources” to fight union activity, “what we have is our ability to communicate with our fellow workers,” says Eisen. Building on Earlier Victories The current wave of labor organizing has been building slowly for years, says Bill Fletcher Jr., a labor analyst and author of “They’re Bankrupting Us!”: And 20 Other Myths About Unions. Fletcher points to “teacher wildcat strikes from 2018 that seemed to come out of nowhere” (wildcat strikes are walkouts that are not authorized by official union leadership). He notes that those strikes were in turn built on the excitement that the fast-food-worker-led “Fight for $15” campaign tapped into, beginning in 2012 in Chicago and New York.
Both organizing drives were centered in industries where women and people of color are well represented. Before that, California’s immigrant-led organizing in the 1990s resulted in the powerful Justice for Janitors campaign and, prior to that, Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta led the farmworkers grape boycotts in California. While the executive leadership of organized labor groups has been historically dominated by White men, people of color and women have led on-the-ground labor efforts for well over a century. In the 1930s, “the rise of the CIO [Congress of Industrial Organizations] simply would not have been possible were it not for the active organizing carried out by African American, Chicano, and Asian workers,” says Fletcher. He cites the historic Black-led wildcat strikes that spread throughout the South from 1866 to 1868.
“Workers of color have always been involved, post–Civil War, in organizing. Either in their own unions or labor organizations, or in mixed organizations.”
—Bill Fletcher, Jr. Labor Analyst & author
“Workers of color have always been involved, post–Civil War, in organizing,” Fletcher explains. “Either in their own unions or labor organizations, or in mixed organizations.” Fast-forward to the recent wave of labor organizing, spurred on in large part by poor working conditions that became more apparent during the pandemic. Corporations “really showed their true colors,” says Eisen. During the lockdowns, low-wage workers were required to continue working and were rebranded “essential workers” with little added reward for risking their health in service of community. But the erosion of workers’ rights long predates the pandemic. Maeg Yosef, an employee at a Trader Joe’s in Hadley, Massachusetts, says the company began “chipping away” at employee benefits roughly 10 years ago. Then, during the pandemic, it escalated its anti-worker efforts. “Our wages are really stagnant right now,” explains Yosef. “They’re not keeping up with inflation.” In fact, inflation has been outpacing wages for most U.S. workers since the Great Recession in 2007. Additionally, Trader Joe’s in January 2022 cut retirement benefits for those employees who have been at the company for less than a decade. In June, Yosef’s branch became the first store in the national chain to vote for a union. “Seeing other workers organize made us feel that it was possible” to do the same, says Yosef, who is now an organizer with Trader Joe’s United, a union effort similar to SWU.
Organizing for Power It’s not just the pandemic that spurred this new chapter in labor organizing, says Fletcher. “You’ve had, for several years, so-called implant organizers, people who go to work to organize from inside.” Among them are members of groups like Democratic Socialists of America, which has partnered with a global training program called Organizing for Power, or O4P.
“Seeing other workers organize made us feel that it was possible.” —Maeg Josef Trader Joe's employee (Massachusetts)
Developed by McAlevey, O4P’s training sessions turn workers into organizers, teaching them effective unionizing tactics, such as how to identify leaders in the workplace who can influence others to join them, and how to use the right language to convince fellow workers who are fearful of unions. The recurring trainings, which are offered to trade unionists around the world, were first conceived in 2019 during a discussion with McAlevey about her book No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age at the headquarters of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Germany. A year later, McAlevey helped to build a global training team for an O4P session called Strike School. The trainers were mostly of women of color, because “that’s the new movement, that’s who’s winning,” explains McAlevey. Seven thousand people attended that eightweek course. Today, individuals are not allowed to sign up for O4P sessions unless they bring a team of workers with them; as McAlevey says, “Organizing is not an individual sport.” Her trainings seem to have had a ripple effect across the U.S., arming organizers with proven tactics to ensure union organizing victories. yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
33
BREAKING THE AMAZON BARRIER In October 2021, WNYC host Brian Lehrer interviewed McAlevey along with Chris Smalls, a former Amazon warehouse supervisor who was fired in 2020 after he spoke out about his employer’s lack of safety protocols in the early days of the pandemic. Smalls explained how he became a labor leader, saying, “Me and several members of my union, we took the courses and we followed suit with some of [McAlevey’s] work and it’s been beneficial and helpful for us.” Today, Smalls is president of the Amazon Labor Union and has become the face of one of the most exciting chapters of the new labor movement. Amazon is the U.S.’s second-largest private employer and, like Starbucks, has endless resources available to fight unions. After Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama, voted twice against unionizing in 2021 and 2022, their counterparts at JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island, New York, made history by voting to join ALU in April 2022. It was the first successful union effort in the company’s history. The victory was all the more remarkable because JFK8 workers chose to join an independent, newly formed union. The unsuccessful Bessemer effort, by contrast, was led by an established organization: the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. Two years before the JFK8 vote, Smalls saw the writing on the wall. “This pandemic exposed a lot about these major corporations,” he told Rising Up With Sonali in April 2020. At the start of the pandemic, he said, “My former employees, my colleagues around me, they began to fall ill, some of them had dizziness, fatigue, they couldn’t finish their 10-hour work shifts.” The pandemic lockdowns spurred a massive increase in online shopping, and as Amazon’s profits skyrocketed, Smalls said workers physically bore the costs: “We had no cleaning supplies, we had no PPE provided, no facial masks, no gloves. So, for me, it was a scary situation and I wanted to be proactive instead of reactive.”
34
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
“I think the employees should have the right to choose what type of leadership and democracy they want to have.” —Chris Smalls President, Amazon Labor Union
Smalls made his concerns known, and soon after, the company fired him. But he refused to walk away; he began organizing JFK8 workers. A leaked memo written by Amazon General Counsel David Zapolsky revealed the company’s racist attitude toward Smalls and its plan to counteract him: “He’s not smart, or articulate, and to the extent the press wants to focus on us versus him, we will be in a much stronger PR position than simply explaining for the umpteenth time how we’re trying to protect workers.” Those words came back to haunt Amazon. Over the next two years, Smalls and his colleagues painstakingly organized workers, meeting them one-onone as they waited for the bus, bringing them food, and using digital tools like TikTok videos to spread their pro-union message. Like SWU, the ALU used an effective combination of traditional and digital labor organizing methods. “I’m speaking up for the voices that are unheard. The voices of the people that can’t speak,” said Smalls in 2020.
A NEW MODEL: WORKERS AS LEADERS One of the most prevalent themes emerging from the new wave of labor organizing is how workers are taking the lead in union organizing. “I think the employees should have the right to choose what type of leadership and democracy they want to have,” Smalls said in 2020, before he formed the ALU, whether it’s a “rank-and-file committee controlled by the employees… [or] a union that is trustworthy on taking care of their employees’ demands.” In pointing out that a union must earn the trust of the workers it represents, Smalls hinted that the reputations of traditional unions have eroded in recent years. Unlike at Amazon, the Starbucks effort began with the support of an established union. In summer 2020, an East Coast–based coffee chain called Spot Coffee successfully unionized with the help of the independent SEIU affiliate Workers United, becoming the largest unionized coffee chain at that time in the U.S. This prompted a Buffalo-based Starbucks worker to contact Workers United about the idea of unionizing the nation’s largest coffee chain. Diverging from the traditional labor playbook, Workers United allowed Starbucks workers to take the lead on organizing, while helping behind the scenes with necessary financial resources. This sort of worker-led organizing appears to have been a critical element to SWU’s success, as employees were far more receptive to a pro-union message from a trusted colleague than from an outside paid union employee. The independence from strict union protocols also enabled workers to invent the organizing playbook as they went along instead of sticking to a traditional script. It made them nimble and savvy in the face of well-funded corporate tactics. “It’s become a really great partnership between Starbucks workers and Workers United,” says Eisen. Yosef, who hopes her Massachusettsbased Trader Joe’s union organizing inspires other branches to start doing the same, echoes a desire for worker leadership. “What’s happening now is
Dear Reader, Imagine if all work promoted dignity and well-being. Imagine if everyone had ample time for leisure, satisfaction, and joy— and no fear of poverty. If, rather than extracting value from the many for the benefit of a few, most jobs served the greater good and the needs of the most vulnerable in our communities. Some might say that’s pie-in-the-sky. But we have to imagine that world if we’re going to create it. Without a vision, we can’t bring new paradigms into being. And as this issue of YES! makes clear, bold experiments are showing us that new ways of working are indeed possible. From the growing movement to abolish work as the only way to fulfill our basic needs to the café where all workers are owners and all customers pay what they can, we examine promising initiatives that might have seemed all but impossible just a few years ago. We hope you’re invigorated by this issue and that it opens up new avenues in your own thinking. We rely on reader support to publish all our solutions-focused stories. If you’re inspired by these visions of what’s possible, please support us by making a donation now. Go to www.yesmagazine.org/donate or use the envelope in this issue. Thank you!
Journalism for people building a better world yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
35
The Café That’s Upending Capitalism Cafe Euphoria isn’t just another co-op. Its trans and gender-nonconforming owners are pursuing a vision of radical equality. Mike DeSocio
36
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
“We’re trying to create an alternative economic system that goes against the traditional ways of doing things, [one that’s] based on principles of equity, inclusion, all of that.” Atsushi Akera (far left) meets with the member-owners of Cafe Euphoria to discuss co-op governance, principles, and objectives.
F
rom the outside, Cafe Euphoria might seem like any other coffee shop in downtown Troy, New York—an upstate city of 50,000 that has a café on practically every block. But inside this brick storefront, something much more radical is brewing: a business model that could upend the traditional capitalistic business structure. “We are anti-capitalist in our composition to the core,” says Atsushi Akera, general manager of Cafe Euphoria, whose business also includes a coworking space and curated thrift shop. “We’re trying to create an alternative economic system that goes against the traditional ways of doing things, [one that’s] based on principles of equity, inclusion, all of that.” Cafe Euphoria has a radical and unique approach: The business is a worker-owned cooperative run by a group of eight transgender and gendernonconforming folks who are all paid the same wage—$18 an hour, with a goal to raise the wage over time until it reaches $32 an hour. The model is meant to lift employees out of poverty; according to a recent study by UCLA, almost a third of trans adults in the U.S. were living in poverty in 2019. The aim is to ensure the café breaks
PHOTOS: COURTESY OF CAFÉ EUPHORIA
even, with income covering all expenses. Akera says the café currently makes between $200 and $400 a day during the week, and up to $4,000 on a busy weekend. She estimates the café will break even after about 14 months and be able to increase wages after two or three years. “There’s no investors, so there’s no profit. We push everything out in wages. So the idea is to balance things out,” Akera says. The desire for better wages and more sustainable work-life balance has become a focus of worker concerns in the U.S. throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Workers have also been seeking alternatives to the top-down corporate model that disempowers them. The “Great Resignation,” as well as a number of high-profile unionization drives, show that workers—baristas included—have had enough. Starbucks shops nationwide are voting to unionize, and independent coffee shops are trying out even more progressive policies. Co-ops have increasingly been hiring people “who have really been excluded from decent work,” says Micha Josephy, executive director of the Cooperative Fund of the Northeast. “That could be for a lot of reasons: They haven’t been
able to access decent education, there’s discrimination by people doing hiring that exclude them from the workforce. It could be that there are jobs in their sector, but that those jobs are dangerous or they’re just structured in a way that’s not worker-centric. Worker co-ops are a way to center workers in how you structure the work.” At Cafe Euphoria, the worker-centered economic model was not initially the main goal, but has quickly become a defining feature of the business. The idea for the café emerged from a virtual support group during the pandemic focused on trans and gender-nonconforming folks. While the community was strong at first, it frayed as in-person activities restarted and virtual spaces lost their luster. That’s when Akera posed a question to the group: What if we create a transgender café? “The main thing is that we were driven more by the social mission than by the idea of a worker-owned cooperative. So it was ‘We’re creating a safe space for the trans and the gender-nonconforming community,’” Akera explains. “And then we said, ‘And we are a cooperative, so everybody gets paid the same.’” Josephy says this is a very common path into the co-op world: A business will
yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
37
Besides selling tasty treats, the café also includes a co-working space and thrift shop. Everything is sold on a sliding scale according to need, no questions asked.
start out with a social mission and realize that a worker co-op is an effective means of achieving it. “One of the things that democratic workplaces can do is allow people to bring in aims that are not merely economic aims,” says Joe Marraffino, a loan and outreach officer at the Cooperative Fund of the Northeast who has been advising Akera as the café gets off the ground. Cafe Euphoria is still smoothing out the kinks, but here’s how its co-op model works: The wage for all positions starts at $18 an hour, which comprises $13.20 in actual wages and $4.80 in member equity. Consistent with the principles of a worker co-op, all employees are offered an ownership stake of the café after working their first 50 hours. That means that, as member-owners, all of the workers have an equal say in the direction of the business and own a real asset in the form of member equity. Depending on how the co-op is structured, that equity can be accessed over time or when a worker exits the business. When wages do reach $32 an hour, the increase will also apply retroactively, Akera says, meaning workers will be paid the difference for all previous hours worked at the lower wage. There’s no set time frame for the increases, because that will depend on revenue growth. “We’re still learning what that number
38
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
needs to be,” Akera says. “Historically, food service is an industry that underpays their workers, so this will be a challenge for us. But we’re looking for ways to beat the curve; our tips, so far, have been close to 25% because of the tremendous support out there for our community.” The commitment to equity, however, goes beyond the café’s workers. Everything at Cafe Euphoria—from the coffee and muffins to the thrifted clothing—is priced on a 3-to-1 sliding scale. Customers whose self-reported income is above $62,000 are asked to pay the highest price—say, $18 for a lunch. Anyone who makes less than that is welcome to pay the middle price, which might go down to $12. Then, the lowest “solidarity” price—say, $6—is intended “primarily for members of the trans and gendernonconforming community who cannot pay the middle price,” Akera says. “It is all self-declared, you don’t have to explain a thing. You just tell us what discount to apply, and we will apply the discount,” she explains. The sliding scale makes Cafe Euphoria somewhat of an outlier, even in the socially progressive world of co-ops, Marraffino says. “They’re asking their customers to have an experience of solidarity and not just to maximize their individual gain,” he explains. “They’re putting their social aims and their beliefs on their sleeve and
hoping that the people reciprocate.” So far, they have. Akera says 94% of customers are opting for the top of the sliding scale. It’s a reflection of growing consumer appetite for equitable business practices. “If their model is radical, their timing is right,” says Marraffino. Often, he’ll point out that they are diverging from traditional work co-op practices, but it doesn’t seem to bother them much. “This is a different type of organization that is trying to break boundaries,” he says. While Cafe Euphoria’s plans are ambitious, the staff’s experience so far also underlines some essential truths: The café has already been forced to make compromises and has hit more than a few road bumps trying to operate within its model. Take one relatively simple piece of most businesses: running meetings. Without a traditional hierarchy in place, the Cafe Euphoria staff at first struggled to hold discussions that allowed everyone to contribute without the discussion descending into chaos. “That is one of our challenges, because people can understand [a co-op] in principle, but to understand it in practice is very hard,” Akera says. After a few iterations, they’ve found something that works: Each meeting starts with a brief general manager’s PHOTOS: COURTESY OF CAFÉ EUPHORIA
report, and then everyone suggests agenda items that are voted on and ranked, setting the course for the remainder of the meeting. Cafe Euphoria, like many worker coops, also invests heavily in worker training. In trying to solve a labor problem— hiring and paying a historically excluded community, in the historically underpaid service industry—the café has a much different labor pool than its peers. “We’re picking good people, but we don’t necessarily have all the skills,” says Akera. That applies to her as well: Akera has had a long career as an academic, and for the café’s early months continued to work full time as a professor in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where she says she earned more than enough money to live a comfortable life. She retired from her academic post on June 30 to focus on the café full time, where her compensation will take the form of member equity instead of a wage, at least until the café is on stronger financial footing. “I’m a professor, I’ve never created a restaurant before. I’ve
never managed a business before. So there’s a lot of figuring out that goes on.” But overcoming these hurdles can allow entire communities and industries to reimagine their relationship with work. Josephy and Marraffino say a lot of service-sector workers in particular are now seeking out worker co-ops as a way to continue doing what they love, while seeking economic empowerment. And it’s not just new businesses that are using this model: Josephy and Marraffino are also seeing a lot of conversions, especially as an older generation of business owners retires and looks for a way to sustain their enterprise. One recent example is White Electric Coffee Co-op, a café in Providence, Rhode Island, that was purchased by its own employees and converted into a worker co-op. Chloe Chassaing, a worker-owner at White Electric, says the conversion to a co-op came from a desire to increase transparency and improve labor practices at the café. A year after the conversion, the shop’s 13 workers have hammered out a model that works for them. The
In 2021, employees of White Electric Coffee purchased the coffee shop from the former owners and converted it to a cooperative business model.
PHOTOS: COURTESY OF STEVE AHLQUIST / WHITE ELECTRIC COFFEE
formerly haphazard pay and raise structure has been flattened out, with a higher base wage and a plan to give 4% annual raises to everyone. All of the workers, many of whom are Black, Indigenous, people of color, women, queer, working class, or first-generation or children of immigrants, are offered an ownership stake in the business after their first six months of employment; the equity buyin is $100, with the option to contribute more in each paycheck, and workers get the money back if they decide to leave. “No one is looking to get rich off of this, we just want decent jobs and to be able to have a say in them,” Chassaing says. The model can also allow historically marginalized communities—such as formerly incarcerated people, or immigrants, or transgender folks—to access jobs and wealth that otherwise might never be available to them, according to Marraffino. “What better way to transcend workplace discrimination than to own the workplace?” Marraffino says. y
The new worker-owners of White Electric Coffee.
yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
39
A STORY IN DATA
Tracy Matsue Loeffelholz
The Great Resignation Is Actually a Great Reimagining by Workers And it’s not over.
2 Both blue-collar and whitecollar workers are looking for something better. Industries with highest average attrition rate, April through September 2021: Apparel retail Management consulting Internet Enterprise software
1 Yes, people are quitting their jobs, but not just to stop working. More than 47 million people voluntarily quit jobs in 2021—an annual record. And estimates put currently employed people looking for a new job at 44%–65%.
3.0
53%
2.6
U.S. Quits Rate
2.2
1.8
1.4
1.0
2012
2014
2016
2018
2020
2022
Note: Job quits are voluntary separations by employees (not including retirements). The Quits Rate is computed by dividing the number of quits by employment and multiplying by 100.
40
19%
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
16% 14% 13%
Fast food
11%
Specialty retail
11%
Research hospitals
11%
Hotels and leisure
11%
Switched their occupation or field of work.
3
7
It's about more than just higher pay.
It’s paying off.
5
Top 5 predictors of quitting and their importance relative to pay:
Quitting isn’t the only way workers are saying “no.”
Toxic work culture —10.4 times more likely to cause quitting than pay
182 Starbucks stores unionized, and workers at 306 more filed to unionize.
10.4x Job insecurity and reorganization
3.5x Demands of highly innovative companies
Apple workers in Atlanta, New York, and Maryland are trying to unionize.
3.2x Failure to recognize employee performance
2.9x Poor response to COVID-19
A New York warehouse became first to unionize.
1.8x
Among workers who changed jobs in the past year:
53% Have more opportunities for advancement.
56% Earn more money.
1 in 3 work stoppages in 2021 were by nonunionized workers.
4 Workers are reprioritizing where jobs fit in their lives.
47% Are more likely to put family and personal life over work than they were before the pandemic.
53% Are more likely to prioritize their health and well being over work than before the pandemic.
6 Workers are empowered by a record labor shortage. For every 1 unemployed worker ...
53% there are 2 job openings.
Have an easier time balancing work and family.
50% Have more flexible schedules.
Sources: 1. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, June 2022; Bureau of Labor Statistics; Willis Towers Watson’s 2022 Global Benefits Attitudes Survey; PwC US Pulse Survey; Pew Research Center. 2. MIT Sloan Management Review. 3. MIT Sloan Management Review. 4. Work Trend Index 2022. 5. More Perfect Union Action (as of July 1, 2022); Business Insider; Cornell University ILR School Labor Tracker. 6. Bureau of Labor Statistics, March 2022. 7. Pew Research Center.
yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
41
Labor and Climate Form a More Perfect Union Environmental and labor activists have found success collaborating at the local and state level. Now they have their eyes on federal policy. Kate Schimel
42
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
D
uring an unusual dry spell in the last days of 2021, the plains north of Denver caught fire. By January 1, the Marshall Fire had destroyed more than 1,000 homes that would ordinarily be safely covered in snow. The fire also closed the Starbucks where Len Harris worked. She and her co-workers, some of them displaced by the fire, had been arguing with management for months for more staffing, training, and protection from customer abuse. Now, the crisis was giving them an unexpected break. “We all took a big breath,” she remembers. With the space of a week off, she and others came to a conclusion: “What we put up with is awful. This is ridiculous. We don’t need to work this much.” In the wake of their fiery reprieve, Harris began to talk to her co-workers about forming a union. By spring, they had officially voted to form one,
ILLUSTRATION: CK NOSUN
becoming the first Starbucks shop in Colorado to do so. Harris saw the vote as a moment of triumph both for worker protection and for climate action. To Harris, climate and labor advocates are concerned with the same sources of injustice. “These working conditions are because [corporate leaders] want to make more money off of less people, because they want to make more money for shareholders because they want to expand,” she says. She sees that push to expand, to make consumption easy and inexpensive, as the root of humancaused climate change. “So many capitalistic luxuries that are just cheap [and] faster produced have absolutely a terrible effect on the environment.” That’s the connection some climate organizers have been trying to draw for years, searching for a bridge between the labor and climate movements. The challenge, though, has been finding policies
and approaches that satisfy both worker interests and climate’s urgency. That’s beginning to change. As the pressures of climate change and income equality mount, organizers like Harris are drawing the connections between them. In state legislatures, as well as Congress, environmental organizations and labor unions have found powerful allies in each other. Environmental organizations are finding ways to work with unions, from Service Employees International Union to United Steelworkers. “It’s been a history of peaks and valleys,” says Jason Walsh, executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of labor unions and environmental organizations. He worked with labor and environmental groups in the 1990s to fight NAFTA and later saw environmental activists join labor activists on the streets in 1999 World Trade Organization protests known as the Battle of Seattle. But those alliances didn’t last.
yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
43
In the past decade, labor unions and environmental organizations have started to find common ground again. Many of the country’s biggest labor unions have expressed support for climate action, and they’ve backed at least portions of policy proposals like the Green New Deal. “We’re in a moment that we might not have again for quite some time—where we have a Democratic Congress and a Democratic president and the ability to pass legislation that can really move the dial,” says Walsh. He believes it’s a time for climate organizers to double their efforts to reach out to workers and organized labor, to push for policies that benefit both movements. So far, many of the successes have remained at the state level. In California, SEIU California, the BlueGreen Alliance, and the Asian Pacific Environmental Network collaborated on a report on social solutions for climate resilience, including the importance of home care workers as first responders and as a vital source of societal resilience to climate change. Care workers provide life-saving care and help evacuate vulnerable people during fires, hurricanes, and floods. In part as a result of that collaboration, a pilot program, backed by SEIU Local 2015 and funded in part by the state, aims to train those workers on aspects of first response, like emergency planning and disaster recovery. APEN, BlueGreen Alliance, and labor unions also successfully advocated for the state to put $100 million toward climate resilience centers in places like public libraries and community centers, an idea they first put forward in that collaborative report. “We are trying to somewhat blur that line or division that’s constructed a lot. Our communities are also workers,” says Amee Raval, APEN policy and research director. She says APEN’s collaboration stemmed from a basic observation: In a lot of fights, climate and labor organizations were on the same side. For example, after a 2012 fire at a refinery in Richmond, California, APEN members joined labor unions on the picket line to
44
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
demand better safety practices. But fractures between the movements persist. Environmental groups and labor unions have struggled to find a shared vision for moving away from fossil fuels, and when it comes to fights over infrastructure like new pipelines or facilities, there’s little to agree on. “I think it is fair to say that we have always been strongest and most unified when we have legislation that we can work on together,” says Walsh. “I understand the power of [fighting pipelines] from an organizing and movement-building standpoint. I don’t think it’s worth the cost from a political standpoint, and what it does to relations between labor unions and environmental groups, and what it does to the political landscape in particular places.” Raval says organizations like APEN that are focused on environmental justice often have an easier go of it. “I think there’s more pathways for environmental justice and labor to align, especially when we’re talking about working-class communities of color,” she says. There, the same people impacted by pollution and environmental degradation are those often working in difficult conditions. From her standpoint as a worker, Harris sees another barrier: the hustle of trying to survive in a society where overwhelming economic pressure prevents people from being able to engage on environmental issues. After all, it took a catastrophic, climate-change-fueled fire to give her and the other Starbucks workers the space to begin to organize. “You don’t have time to reflect, you don’t have time to think about the environment” when working long hours at low wages, she says. “You only have time to think about you, the people that you love that need your help, and your bills.” When she talks to her colleagues, she usually just focuses on their work concerns, rather than pushing them to talk about unionizing. “I’m not trying to drag people along this sort of epic journey of mine without them wanting to come with me,” she says. But she’s found they are receptive to ideas about
CHILD CARE: INVALUABLE AND UNDERVALUED Direct payments to home-based child care providers can sustain them and the essential work they do to care for the children of working Americans. Anne Vilen Photos by Jimena Peck
Izabella Lozano, three months old, is the youngest baby that Olivia Hernandez babysits during the weekdays. Izabella has been going to Olivia’s house since she was 40 days of age because that’s when her mom went back to work.
yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
45
Carmela Enriquez poses in her home’s living room, which serves as a daycare during the weekdays. She has been doing this job for over 10 years, and has been caring for some of the children since they were infants.
Carmela Enriquez cares for five children in her
home-based child care program in Greeley, Colorado. Her first “client,” a baby, arrives at 5 a.m., blanket clutched tight in his fist. She lets him sleep a while longer while she prepares the day’s activities and snacks. By 7:20 a.m., the toddlers arrive. Later in the day, she may have older children who come after elementary school. Their parents will pick them up at dinner time, which is nearly 6:30 p.m. on most days. Enriquez works multiple 13-hour days a week, without sick leave, health insurance, or a retirement fund. She’s been caring for the kids of family, friends, and neighbors for 17 years. And she loves her work. But she also believes she deserves what other workers have: a bit of security and stability for herself and her family. Enriquez is one of more than 5 million nanas, aunties, abuelitas, and neighbors who, according to the National Survey of Early Care and Education, care for more than 12 million children ages 0 to 13 in home-based child care businesses. More than half of these children are under age 5. These providers comprise both the largest and the lowest-paid sector of the child care workforce, often earning less than half of what their peers in child care centers make. The median income of paid providers is just $18,399 a year, which Enriquez says is far more than she’s ever earned even after decades in the business. Often Enriquez charges lowincome parents a little bit less, which means her daily income is sometimes just over $50. Home-based child care enables working parents to fulfill their commitments to both work and care. Parents of color,
46
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
Enriquez and the children she cares for try to get the most out of Colorado’s sunny days. They often do activities outside given that the indoor space is small and can get hot during the day.
single parents, low-income parents, and others whose child care choices are limited by income or circumstance choose homebased care because it is accessible, available during nontraditional hours, and culturally relevant—home-based care givers often speak the same home language, celebrate the same traditions and holidays, provide culturally familiar foods, and have culturally affirming child care philosophies vis-à-vis the families they serve. Yet the workers, who are predominantly women and disproportionately women of color, often can’t afford to go to the doctor or take a vacation.
What’s Good for Child Care Workers Is Also Good for Working Parents New research on the relationship between home-based child care workers and the parents enrolled in their programs suggests that child care providers play a key role in the well-being of parents who work outside the home. Laura Jimenez, a graduate student at the University of Maryland, conducted interviews with dozens of parents and home-based caregivers and found that parents often see their child care providers as mentors and even therapists—someone who can talk them back from the edge when their own working-parent stress is too much to manage. According to Jimenez, home-based caregivers go above and beyond typical center-based practices to help parents with daily
Izabella is three months old and is the youngest baby that Olivia Hernandez babysits during the weekdays. Izabella has been going to Olivia’s house since she was 40 days of age because that’s when her mom went back to work.
Olivia Hernandez rocks a baby while three children paint with watercolors in the basement daycare Hernandez runs in her home. The space has been remodeled and has air conditioning to help the basement stay cool during the hot Colorado summers.
Olivia Hernandez, another provider in Greeley, Colo-
cash payments to caregivers, including license-exempt homebased providers like Enriquez and Hernandez. The organization has already raised more than $1 million to support its implementation in multiple states. It has partnered with local organizations to raise additional funds to supplement the income of home-based child care workers (who have largely been excluded from federal and state pandemic relief packages) with direct cash payments. The Thriving Providers Project’s direct payments are made regularly, for as long as 18 months, and counter the meager compensation home-based providers typically receive. Just as importantly, these payments bolster providers’ confidence and sense of legitimacy. “There’s robust evidence that direct cash transfers reduce poverty by stabilizing households, reducing inequality, and enabling economic mobility,” says Jourdan McGinn, a program consultant for Impact Charitable who is overseeing the Thriving Providers Project launch in Colorado. Adopting and scaling this solution in child care could be a game changer for millions of workers, giving child care providers the room to fully dedicate themselves to their work and assuring families that they can go to work without worrying about who’s taking care of the kids. State and local partnering organizations (both private and public) in different communities will set the parameters for how funds are distributed and to whom. But Home Grown Executive Director Natalie Renew is optimistic that Colorado’s leadership will set the pace for programs across the country, including partnerships already established in Nashville, Tennessee; Los Angeles County, California; and King County, Washington.
rado, notes that in her eight years of caring for children, she’s only taken one sick day. “Caregivers sometimes pay for extra food or medicine for the children of low-income families they serve,” she says. “But we don’t hold back [any care from the families we serve] to take care of ourselves.” Now Home Grown, a national nonprofit that channels funders’ dollars to initiatives that increase access to and the quality of home-based child care, is launching a bold initiative called the Thriving Providers Project to provide no-strings-attached
routines (like picking kids up from school or bedtime reading for a child whose parent works nights), help them problem-solve financial challenges, provide instrumental parenting information, and offer emotional and social support during family crises. Because families often stay with the same caregiver for many years, says Jimenez, parents report having strong and lasting connections that reduce their own stress and increase well-being. “There’s a significant correlation between the quality of the relationship parents have with their child care provider and parents’ own stress.” The better the relationship, the less stressed parents feel, says Jimenez.
yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
47
In Colorado, partner organizations will give direct cash payments—between $300 and $1,250 a month—to more than 70 family, friend, and neighbor child care providers, including those who are currently not paid at all but who meet the state’s regulations for license-exempt child care. “These are the women who have shown up over and over again for the broadest group of low-wage workers in this country, families who do essential jobs, work nonstandard or unpredictable hours, or live in areas underserved by the formal child care sector,” says Renew. So far, Colorado’s project is unique in including licenseexempt providers like Hernandez and Enriquez, both of whom sit on the project’s advisory committee. Partly in response to their guidance, eligibility will prioritize providers who want to stay in the child care field long term. Enriquez points out that child care providers often have outof-pocket costs that lower their take-home pay. For example, it typically costs about $90 to renew her CPR certification. “That is about what I make for taking care of one child for a whole week. So this extra money will really make a difference in my ability to maintain my training and purchase materials for my program.” “We believe that if caregivers are not having to worry about if they can pay their rent or afford food or find another job, they will also be able to improve the quality of interactions they have with the kids in their care, and they will invest time and energy in professional growth,” says McGinn. “We did over a dozen focus groups; every provider we talked to said that if they could just go beyond worrying about their financial survival, they would leap on those opportunities.” She sees the program as “an investment not just in creating a more stable supply of child care for workers, but also in [improving] the professionalism, well-being, and dignity of the child care workforce.” Elsewhere in the country, states including Ohio and Wisconsin have compensated child care providers with “hero pay” to supplement low and sometimes unpredictable wages as the COVID-19 pandemic drags on. In Washington, D.C., the city council has stepped up to pay licensed child care workers across the district a one-time $10,000 bonus. Cynthia Davis, who runs the home-based Kings & Queens Childcare Center in Washington, D.C., has advocated strongly for direct payments. “The truth is,” she says, “when a lot of centers shut down during COVID, we family child care providers are the ones who kept the economy afloat. We reached into our own pockets and worked crazy hours. You can’t ask me to give so much of myself that I can’t provide for my own family. These payments are a way of showing that we are equal, that we are being counted, and we are being seen.” “Direct cash payments are good for everyone in the child care ecosystem, including employers,” echoes Renew. “But for us at Home Grown, the bigger goal is to influence the policy for child care subsidy and payment systems across the board by demonstrating that when we compensate caregivers equitably and adequately, everyone wins.” y Anne Vilen writes about child care, education, and mental health from
48
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
The Job Is Not My Our profit-driven health care system pushes workers to the breaking point. What would it look like to take back our power? Sarah Klienschmidt
I
n an emergency room, there is always work to be done. A toddler requires toys and numbing medicine before I can stitch her forehead, taking care to close the muscles and skin to minimize scarring. Next door, a stubborn grandfather insists that he be discharged home. I hold his hand and tell him that I respect his wishes and am also truly worried that the blood thinners will turn his next fall into a catastrophic event. I’m interrupted by an ambulance bringing a patient in respiratory distress. She nods yes when I ask if she want us to place a breathing tube. We quickly bring family to see their mother awake for what might be the last time. In between, the hallways are lined with patients—moaning, vomiting, crying, or just silently waiting to receive care. This is work that I cherish. As an EMT, then a nurse, and now an emergency physician, I’m satisfied after each shift that I helped relieve some suffering, whether through medicine, a procedure, an explanation, or simply being present for a patient and their family.
Work
But my job is a different matter from my work. I quickly walk past my patients to get back to a computer. I must document that I examined at least eight organ systems so that we can bill for a specific reimbursement code. The antibiotics must be ordered within the next 10 minutes or the hospital will be financially punished by Medicare. The pharmacy is calling because the prenatal vitamins I ordered aren’t covered by the patient’s insurance. My computer brings a constant flood of emails and pop-up boxes. Follow the protocols. Document everything. Bill as much as possible. Work faster, always faster. Caring for others is sacred work, but our health care system is profane, deeply broken, and driven by capitalist fear and greed. This system relies on workers with good intentions and deep investment in our work, even if our actual jobs are dehumanizing and frequently traumatizing. We are asked to ignore patients and our own basic needs in favor of efficiency, bureaucracy, and sometimes profit. The coronavirus pandemic emphasized this contrast between our work and our jobs, as patients flooded into hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes. Precautions against spreading the airborne virus became yet another set of tasks squeezed into a hectic day. The computer gained a new set of pop-up boxes. Hospitals canceled sick leave, retirement contributions, and other benefits. And yet, the work has gained new depth of meaning. I counsel parents about how to simultaneously care for their infectious children and their immunocompromised elders. I hold iPhones and hands before starting yet another ventilator. I stay present and apologize when we find an advanced cancer or a heart attack that was missed amid the chaos of the pandemic. It’s no surprise that workers are leaving health care in record numbers. About one in five left their jobs in the first year and a half of the pandemic, according to a report by Morning Consult. Even before that, there was a crisis of exhaustion among demoralized health workers nationwide, according to the
U.S. Surgeon General’s recent advisory, Addressing Health Worker Burnout. On overnight shifts and in hospital staff breakrooms, there’s constant conversation about this dilemma. To leave would mean reclaiming personal autonomy and dignity, but it would also stymie our deep desire to relieve suffering. “I can’t go on like this,” we say, “but I can’t just abandon my patients either.” I believe we can regain power by learning to separate our work from our jobs and by engaging critically with the institutions that employ us. I now speed through emails about relative value units and new billing initiatives. The new weekly committee to review pharmaceutical policies is a job task and I can decline. Saying no to the bureaucratic demands of the job can free us to invest more fully in our work by giving our full attention to the patient, family, or coworker in front of us. At times, we may notice direct conflicts between our job and our work. How frequently am I pulled away from human connection and toward the computer? Are protocols forcing me to provide the wrong care? Does this institution have policies that conflict with my values? Moral injury—the participation in unethical actions—is increasingly cited by health workers as a strong contributor to burnout. If it destroys us to see our good intentions subsumed into an immoral system, then what would it look like to protect ourselves and our work? Our health care system dehumanizes our patients and our communities as well as its workers. Fixing it will require brave actions and visionary thinking. How could we bring together healers and patients in solidarity? How could we structure our time, our spaces, our tasks? I still have a job. I punch in, click boxes, respond to emails, and nod during meetings. But I’m clear now that my work is my own. It won’t appear on a spreadsheet or be rewarded with praise from the company, but it has its own rewards for me and the people who need care. y Sarah Kleinschmidt lives in western Massachusetts, where she writes, climbs rocks, runs trails, yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
49
To Transform Work, We Must Rest
If we ever hope to escape capitalistic grind culture, we must remember how to rest. Tricia Hersey
50
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
ILLUSTRATION: MICHAEL LUONG
During these moments of freedom dreaming, I envision every single descendant of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade retired from all work, while supported by an endless well of funds and resources provided by reparations.
R
est must be central to our reimagining of everything in our daily existence, including our work. The rest we need—the rest that we deserve—will come in many forms. I find power in proclaiming daydreaming to be a form of rest. To sky-gaze, stare off, or sit in the silence of your own mind is a radical act of resistance in a culture that wants you working and accomplishing tasks 24/7. My daily rest practice includes at least 30 minutes of daydreaming, and it usually begins with me staring out of my bedroom window as I focus on the sky. During these moments, I go into a DreamSpace—a space of invention and imagination, free from White supremacy and capitalism. A place to work things out that can’t be accessed in an awake state, a place to tap into the wisdom our bodies and Spirits want to desperately share. For years, my daydreaming practice has floated my thoughts to a central question: What would it feel, taste, and smell like to not have to work to eat, exist, and survive? During these moments of freedom dreaming, I envision every single descendant of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade retired from all work, while supported by an endless well of funds and resources provided by reparations. The debt owed to us. I breathe wide and feel tingly in my hands as I close my eyes and open my heart to the portal that daydreaming and resting provide. This begins to feel like a reality. The daydream continues on. During this retirement from labor, Black folks begin to experiment with leisure, pleasure, experimentation, community care, and naps. There are nap times every day. City parks all over the country
are filled with Black folks napping on the grass around lunch time. Rest becomes the foundation for our every movement. Rest becomes a North Star guiding us to the next dimension of liberation—and this begins my reimagination of work in a capitalistic society. I don’t want to work so much that there is no space to have leisure and to just be. I don’t want to grind on at an unsustainable, machine-level pace. I don’t want to place my entire worth as a divine being at the feet of capitalism, begging to be truly seen for who I am: a perfect, brilliant human being and citizen, worthy of rest simply because I am alive. As I start to come out of this dreaming session, I feel hopeful and expansive. I feel rest. To daydream and imagine what may seem impossible is a spiritual practice. It is rooted in the rich history of pushing back against the powers that be. It is refusal. It is a protest. It is resistance. As Octavia Butler teaches us, “What we don’t see, we assume can’t be. What a destructive assumption.” The Nap Ministry is an organization that believes rest is a form of resistance and reparations. Since 2016, we have curated sacred spaces for communities to rest via collective nap experiences, art installations, workshops, and social media. The first tenet of The Nap Ministry is that rest disrupts and pushes back against White supremacy and capitalism. During my work guiding The Nap Ministry, I have learned without a doubt that we will never, ever be able to gather the inventive and imaginative ideas necessary to reimagine work within grind culture from an exhausted state. It simply cannot and will not happen if we are disembodied, exhausted, and aligning ourselves with toxic systems by overworking and
ignoring our bodies’ right to slow down, connect, and rest. Nearly everyone on the planet has been trained under the global plague that is White supremacy, and because of this, the work of disruption, healing, and uplifting rest as community care falls to all of us. We must build the world we deserve. And if this world is to include a cultural reimagining of work to include equality, dignity, invention, and wellness, our DreamSpace must be visited intentionally and often. We must rest! Resting is the only way, and must be the foundation for any radical change in our culture. I realize it feels counterintuitive to pause, stop, and rest when we wake up daily to another tragedy or inhumane policy that deserves our attention and labor. But to continue aligning ourselves with the ways of grind culture under the guise of helping is creating more harm. It is killing us physically and spiritually and tricking us all to participate in the violence of grind culture. We will not make it without rest, and I need us all to make it. Rest can’t be an afterthought or a reaction to centuries of worker exploitation, hyperproductivity, and trauma. We cannot wait on toxic systems to give us permission or offer a blueprint for our goals and ideas. We must lean on revolutionary rest, supported by community care, to create space for invention and for what we can’t see. We need rest and we need a DreamSpace to carry us into our new worlds. Let us always remember there is another way. May we work less. May we rest more. May we dream now. y Tricia Hersey is a Chicago-based multidisciplinary artist, writer, theologian, and community organizer. She is founder of The Nap Ministry, and author of the forthcoming book Rest
yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
51
THE FUTURE NO WORK Activists have long suggested that oppressive institutions should be abolished rather than reformed. The same could be said about labor.
W
Nicole Froio
hat if we abolished the institution of work? If we were not required to work to pay for basic rights such as food, shelter, and water, could we embrace radical solutions to change the current state of our society? As the post-pandemic struggle about work and working conditions rages on, workers are quitting jobs that make them miserable, while unions seek recognition and avenues for negotiations, all within our current capitalistic system that declares each individual’s worth to be inherently tied to their productivity. But what if society was not organized around wage labor, but something else? And what would that something else be? Millions of workers left jobs in 2021 at such a scale it’s been deemed the “Great Resignation.” Recent attempts to understand their dissatisfaction have explored what the “future of work” looks like and how work overall could become more bearable. How about a four-day work week? Or higher pay? Better working conditions? Flexible hours? But 32-hour weeks (or whatever good policy is
52
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
on offer) are adaptations to a dehumanizing system—they don’t address that system as a whole, nor do they get to the core of the workers’ discontent with the inhumane machinations of capitalism. Online, the rejection of the idea of work itself is a growing trend across social media platforms. On TikTok, confessional-style videos about how the poster doesn’t like to work, no matter what job, often go viral. One TikToker’s message—“Fuck this, I don’t want to work for the rest of my life :(”—received thousands of likes and comments in agreement. On Twitter, where the constant barrage of negative news is constantly dissected and commented on, posters point out how capitalism keeps marching on despite the unconscionable tragedies we’ve all had to digest in the past two and a half years. The pandemic, the Ukraine war, school shootings where children are massacred, continued police killings of Black people—none of these is enough to bring our exploitative system to a halt; workers are supposed to muddle through and keep the world turning with our labor. On Reddit, the “anti-work” community (the r/antiwork subreddit) has 2 million subscribers who can easily access an online library about the abolition of work and exchange
OF WORK IS experiences with each other about the jobs they don’t want to do. The motto of this subreddit, whose members call themselves “idlers,” is “Unemployment for all, not just the rich!” Despite the online hype, the idea of refusing the tyranny of labor rather than reforming it isn’t new. In 1985, postleftist anarchist Bob Black wrote and published the essay “The Abolition of Work,” where he argues that work “is the source of nearly all the misery in the world. ... In order to stop suffering, we have to stop working.” For Black, working to earn a living is at the heart of capitalism’s coercive forces, and he argues that society should be organized around play instead of wage labor. “I think that what I wrote is still true and only slightly exaggerated,” Black says. “As I define the word, ‘work’ is forced labor—compulsory production. It is inherently coercive, like the state.” Black says having to pay for housing, food, water, health care, and whatever else is needed for survival is what keeps workers under the control of wage labor, regardless of what ideology is elected into government. “The most important function of work—as I have always maintained—is social control,” Black explains. And yet, as Black writes in his essay as well as in his book, also titled The Abolition of Work,
a disproportionate amount of what constitutes “work” has little connection to human survival. Compiling work reports, filing meaningless corporate documentation, and inventing cryptocurrency are just a few examples of “work” that do not aid the practical survival of humans. Abolishing work would free us to do what we really love and reorient human efforts toward care and the simple act of living. “Society would be simpler [and] radically decentralized, yet people would be more diverse, more individualized, and so their social relations would be richer, more complex,” Black says. “Life would be safer, although maybe less orderly. But where order is necessary, it would be the order of custom, not the rule of law. There would be opportunities, beginning in childhood, for people to try out many different things and discover what things they can do that they like best. Maybe there will be some people who like doing the same thing all the time—in other words, doing a ‘job.’ These unfortunates, too, should be free to do what they want to do. This is a society that has no center.” THE ANTI-WORK RESPONSE TO THE GIRLBOSS One example often used in support of anti-work arguments online is the
alleged death of the “girlboss.” The girlboss can be exemplified by Kim Kardashian, who models aspirational femininity and independent entrepreneurship that supposedly liberates women from gender oppression, even as she ends up reinforcing and repeating the same abuses she supposedly sought to eliminate. A combination of pandemic burnout, growing social awareness, and the emptiness of women “having it all” in a broken economy has revealed the impact of the girlboss to be less than revolutionary. As Amanda Mull wrote in The Atlantic: “The push to move beyond the girlboss is an acknowledgment that a slight expansion of collegeeducated
ON REDDIT, THE “ANTI-WORK” COMMUNITY HAS 2 MILLION SUBSCRIBERS WHO CAN EASILY ACCESS AN ONLINE LIBRARY ABOUT THE ABOLITION OF WORK AND EXCHANGE EXPERIENCES WITH EACH OTHER ABOUT THE JOBS THEY DON’T WANT TO DO. yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
53
“WE NEED TO TRANSFORM EVERYTHING,” BLACK SAYS. “IN MY UTOPIA THERE WOULD BE LITTLE COERCION, AND NO INSTITUTIONALIZED COERCION SUCH AS GOVERNMENT AND WORK. women’s access to venture capital or mentoring opportunities was never a meaningful change to begin with, or an avenue via which meaningful change might be achieved. Being belittled, harassed, or denied fair pay by a woman doesn’t make the experience instructive instead of traumatic.” In short, some overworked women are discovering that a seat at the table isn’t a path toward liberation—rather, it’s a path toward becoming an overworked cog in the machine. The anti-girlboss sentiment is often articulated through memes that challenge the message that women should be doing it all. Instead, these memes argue for “girlresting, girlsleeping, girllayingdown, etc.” For Angie Barbosa, an anarcho-feminist travesti (a transfemme, nonbinary identity specific to Latin America) scholar who studies feminist, queer, and anarchist literature and activism, these memes are a countercurrent to the violence of feminized “hustle” culture. “Not only do women and femmes have to deal with violence, exploitation, overworking, and constant impairments against our autonomy, now we’re also supposed to struggle within a value system that asks us to be healthy, happy, confident, self-sufficient, self-caring, boundaryaware, independent consumers,” Barbosa says. “We are working endlessly, tirelessly to produce a performance of successful femininity that denies the soul-wrecking gendered reality of violence. We are overworked, exhausted, angry, frustrated, violenced, deprived of many of our basic rights, and somehow still expected to feel like a boss.” Adding to the burden of women and femmes is the unpaid labor of domestic work, which is still largely invisible and unaddressed by policies that attempt to make waged work more comfortable.
54
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
Even with a flexible work schedule, domestic work is still low-paying and distributed along gendered lines. “The reality of care and work can be terribly exhausting for femmes, but the good news is that the more people, groups, and communities are caring for each other in balanced, consent- and autonomybased structures, the less everyone has to work, and it just becomes easier to live,” Barbosa says. Small feminist structures of care and radical solidarity are the counterpoint to the solitary and herculean work of the girlboss—and as such, the abolition of work must also reckon with the racialized and gendered distribution of domestic and care work. “I believe that whether this future of femme freedom includes work or not depends of our reading of what ‘work’ means,” Barbosa says. A GREAT TRANSFORMATION Underlying the taboo around the abolition of work is the fear that the world won’t sustain itself if people are not coerced into performing tasks to ensure humanity’s survival. How would we eat if workers were not forced to grow food for themselves and sell to others for their own sustenance? How would we keep public spaces clean and usable without street sweepers and maintenance workers who need a paycheck to support themselves? How would we survive without the care work and domestic labor that the racialized working classes are compelled to provide below cost? Black believes that if the structure of work is abolished, people will be able to sustain themselves and take care of each other, but without coercion. For practical thinkers, this reorganization sounds easier said than done. We have been manipulated into maintaining capitalism—and correlating this
maintenance with our own survival—for so long that the idea of people working to help each other survive sounds improbable and impossible. What would we get in exchange for our selfless efforts to maintain each other’s existence? What would be the trade-off, if not money? Self-sustaining societies—such as the Zapatistas in Mexico, who have organized their own cooperative economy; developed autonomous justice, education, and health care systems; and created a bottom-up political decision-making process—are proof we can lasso the abolition of work to the possibilities of reality. “We need to transform everything,” Black says. “In my utopia there would be little coercion, and no institutionalized coercion such as government and work. Some activities, including some of what used to be ‘work,’ are likely to be done in relatively permanent organizations—and there is some risk in that. Work like that, when it is not individual craft work, can be organized by worker self-management.” For Barbosa, the abolition of work and redistribution of domestic work is an invitation to rethink what we value in our lives. “If the meaning of our lives was no longer to work, it could be a genuine and deep connection to each other, our bodies, and our environment,” she says. “It’s interesting that removing work from the equation makes a lot of our current definitions of success and happiness quite meaningless. It could be very powerful to imagine what happiness could be if it’s not just survival, success, capital. If we didn’t have to fight for the basics, I really have no idea what we should or could do instead, but I would love to find out.” y Nicole Froio is a reporter, researcher, and translator based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
ABOUT YES! MEDIA
Fall 2022, No. 103
SUBSCRIPTIONS COVER LESS THAN
HALF THE COST OF
YES! Media Board of Directors Co-chairs
Tanya Dawkins
Eli Feghali Vice Chair
Berit Anderson
Secretary
Elizabeth Sanders
Treasurer
Alisa Gravitz
THIS MAGAZINE
Manolia Charlotin Shalini Nataraj
Donations YES! Media is a nonprofit,
Subscriptions and newsstand
independent publisher of solutions journalism. Through rigorous
Foundations
reporting on the positive ways communities are responding to social problems and insightful commentary that sparks constructive discourse, YES! inspires people to build a just, sustainable, and
2020 audited financials
We rely on donations from readers like you to help keep YES! Magazine ad-free and affordable for all.
compassionate world.
TAKE A MOMENT TO SUPPORT YES! Member
Visit yesmagazine.org/donate Or use the envelope in this magazine. Or call 800-937-4451.
4/4 Rating September 2020 yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
55
ABOUT YES! MEDIA
LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Christine Hanna
Our Work After Roe
! YES ers’ d
n FouCircle
Dear Reader, I’m writing to you the day the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. I am gutted and grieving for this country. I wander my house, distracted and short with my family. My youngest attempted to console me, “But Mommy, don’t worry, you can’t get pregnant now so you’re OK.” Through tears, I did my best to explain that this court decision could affect every person he knows, and every person they know, and on and on. I let him know that the very reason he is alive today is because I could choose when to have children and with whom, and without that, my life would have been completely different. I might never have moved to Seattle or met his dad. I explained that this ruling affects his own choices about if and when to have a family. It strips every girl he knows now and those he’ll know in the future— and all of their partners—of a basic right. It affects siblings, and grandparents, and of course the children born to parents who are then denied the resources, stability, and systemic support that can help families thrive. Forcing a person to bear a pregnancy they don’t want is immoral. It cuts at the heart of a fundamental human need for self-determination. How can we attempt to be whole people without this basic right to choose? But you know all of this. To be honest, I’m not yet in a place of “what now?” I’m grieving and angry. I feel alone, and yet I know my grief-fueled rage is shared by millions of people across the country—regardless of whether they can or want to get pregnant. I’m grieving and angry for my nieces and cousins and the young people I know, the ones I play sports with, and the girls at my kids’ school. And I am especially grieving and angry for all those who will be most affected by this: Black, Brown, Indigenous, immigrant, and poor people who will be left to deal with unplanned pregnancies without support, money, and options. This grieving and anger build my resolve. So the “what now?” will come, because it must. It may take decades, but I know this ruling won’t stand, because it can’t stand. Together, we will be called to support the existing networks that help people access the health care they need; we will be called to elect representatives, policymakers, and judges who will assert and defend our basic rights. Because our right to bodily autonomy is innate and fundamental— regardless of what a politically motivated Supreme Court majority decrees. In solidarity,
56
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
YES! Founders’ Circle members make every YES! story possible with gifts of $500 or more a year. This is our allimportant Spring Fund Drive. We need 50 new Founders’ Circle members to ensure we can publish all our stories. Will you be one of them?
To join the Founders’ Circle, use the form in this issue, or sign up now at yesmagazine.org /donate, or call Shelly Hunter at 206-842-0216 Ext. 203.
WHAT WILL YOUR LEGACY BE?
Throughout your life you’ve worked to make this world better —a world in which all people live in dignity and the health of our planet is protected. That work will be ongoing. Who will carry your efforts forward?
One way to make sure your work continues is to include YES! in your estate plan. By making a legacy gift, you’ll help ensure that YES! is here, inspiring people long into the future.
We invite you to visit freewill.com/yesmedia where in just 20 minutes you can create a legally valid will for free. yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
57
ABOUT YES! MEDIA
Why I Support YES! L o u i s e M i ll e r Yuba City, California
sustainable civilization look like?” our school’s theme for the year. Each class is engaged in a year-long project that investigates an aspect of this question, from planting native plants and protecting endangered species to examining how Californians can be environmentally sustainable in the face of drought and climate change.
PHOTO BY RADU SAVA
How does YES! support your values and your work to build a better world?
Louise is principal/superintendent of Yuba Environmental Science Charter Academy, a free, public, K-8 charter school in Yuba County, California.
What are your passions? My passion is the natural world. I love the beauty of native plants and am fascinated by their adaptations and how they support the web of life in a habitat. I love making short environmental films to share that passion and encourage viewers to live sustainably in nature. I’m also a Wildland Fire Mitigation Advisor in our wildfire prone region of California, and I volunteer for Yuba Sutter Race Dialogues, where I facilitate discussions and participate in weekly unity walks.
You’ve made YES! a centerpiece of your school curriculum. Yes! The entire issue on What An Ecological Civilization Looks Like moved me. I gave a copy to my staff and made the question, “What does an environmentally
58
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
YES! is at the intersection of the issues that are most important to me—environmental justice and social justice. When I read YES!, I learn. I feel connected. And I feel empowered to act, knowing that I’m part of a community that can create change. While reading each new issue of YES! I experience a paradigm shift. I learn how people are working in community to create a socially just and environmentally sustainable world. Following their examples, I am finding my communities and engaging in social and environmental work to build the world I want my students, children, and grandchildren to inherit. YES! offers solutions to the world’s most pressing problems in a way that individuals and groups can use to take effective action. Please join me in supporting this important work!
Please join me in supporting YES! Your gift of $5 a month or more will help inspire millions of people to join us in building a more just, compassionate, and sustainable world. And your YES! subscription will be free! Just go to yesmagazine.org/donate. Or call 800-937-4451.
“I am only able to give a small amount to YES! per month, and I am rewarded as if I gave millions.” B. Gresham, Lewiston, NY
The best way to get your YES! Magazine is to become a monthly supporter.
Get all the benefits:
Founders’ Circle
$5/month
$10/month
$20/month
$42/month
Free print+digital subscription
Free print+digital subscription
Free print+digital subscription
Free print+digital subscription
Full access to digital archives
Full access to digital archives
Full access to digital archives
Full access to digital archives
Quarterly newsletter
Quarterly newsletter
Quarterly newsletter
Founders’ Circle quarterly letter
1 gift q $10 subscription
3 gift q $20 subscriptions
10 gift subscriptions Extra copies of YES!
Sign up today at yesmagazine.org/donate or use the form in this issue, or call 800-937-4451.
Invitations to events yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
59
Give the Gift of YES! Only
$15 We all know someone who could use some hope and inspiration right now. We’re asking every reader to think of two people who would benefit from YES! in their lives. Use this form and the envelope in the magazine to send them a year of YES! for just $15 each.
ORDER YES! GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS Print + Digital GIFT #1
GIFT #2
_________________________________________________________________ Name
_________________________________________________________________ Name
_________________________________________________________________ Address (U.S. only. For international orders, go to yesmagazine.org/gifts)
_________________________________________________________________ Address (U.S. only. For international orders, go to yesmagazine.org/gifts)
_________________________________________________________________ City/State/Zip
_________________________________________________________________ City/State/Zip
_________________________________________________________________ Email (Required for digital access. We never share email addresses.)
_________________________________________________________________ Email (Required for digital access. We never share email addresses.) 103 You can continue your list on a separate sheet.
Quicker and easier: Go to yesmagazine.org/gifts and order today. 60
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
GET OUR DAILY NEWSLETTER
Start Each Day With a Better World You’ll join more than 80,000 readers who are supporting their communities, connecting to powerful movements, and seeking solutions for a more equitable, sustainable, and compassionate world. Go to yesmagazine.org/signup
yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
61
CULTURE SHIFT Powerful Ideas Emerging Books + Films + Audio When the Climate Crisis Hits Home | 63 On Becoming a Somatic Abolitionist | 66 Degrowth Gains Ground | 69 Inspiration Ava DuVernay | 65 Reflection | 71 Crossword | 72
62
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
BOOKS+FILMS+AUDIO
Illustrations by Frances Murphy
When the Climate Crisis Hits Home Lornet Turnbull
HOME. The thought of it conjures up a tangle of images, of safeness and permanence and comfortable refuge. Home is also tenuous shelter under a busy overpass, in a neighborhood park, or on a friend’s living room couch. Now, increasingly, rapid changes in the world’s climate are forcing us all to reevaluate the way we think about home. In her new book, At Home on an Unruly Planet: Finding Refuge on a Changed Earth, Madeline Ostrander explores the calamitous consequences of a warming planet through the experiences of those on the front lines of climate change. She reflects on its symptoms—drought, floods, hurricanes, changing rain and snow patterns, melting glaciers, thawing permafrost, rising sea levels, warming oceans—that have left no corner of the world untouched. “In an era of climate crisis,” she writes, “we will have to reckon with new complexities in our relationships to home, and even more people will experience the shock of being uprooted. In the long run, if we fail to address the crisis that is disrupting our planetary home, there will be hardly any safe refuge left.” In 2019, she points out, 24.9 million people across the world were forced from their homes because of the impact of climate change and other natural disasters—1.5 million of them in the Americas. She writes about communities in the Pacific Northwest ravaged by wildfires, and about the scientists, firefighters, and community leaders working to understand how to better prepare for and manage them. We learn about how collapsing permafrost in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region of Alaska created America’s first climate refugees, most of them Alaskan Natives struggling to establish a new home on higher ground; about how farming and sustainable agriculture efforts in the Northern California town of Richmond emerged from within the shadows of a refinery explosion; and about hurricanes and flooding in Florida and one preservationist’s effort to save the historic city of St. Augustine. yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
63
CULTURE SHIFT
They are stories not about tragedy or trauma but about resiliency and hope, and about how we persevere even when faced with the most unimaginable of circumstances. Reading Ostrander’s book got me thinking of my childhood home, a chain of islands of over 30,000 people in the Eastern Caribbean. Growing up in the British Virgin Islands, or BVI, we seldom talked about the weather because there wasn’t much to say about it—80-plus degrees, blue skies, pretty much summer all year round. Of course, in the middle of that long summer was hurricane season. As a kid, I didn’t mind hurricanes. They always seemed to come at night, and I loved the pattering of the rains on our galvanized roof and the howling of the winds outside. I felt secure inside even as Mother Nature raged outside. Usually, it also meant time home from school, and as kids we’d spend hours playing in the rivers of water the hurricanes deposited on our street, using long, broad grass leaves to make little sail boats that we’d race down the streams. Back then I thought hurricanes were fun. Of course, nobody thinks that anymore. While I left the BVI long ago, I still refer to it as home. And in the years since, hurricanes have gotten more powerful and destructive, fueled by increasingly warming oceans. Yet, even as the world was learning more about how a hotter planet was disrupting the way we all live, people continued to see hurricanes as everyfew-years outbursts of nature they had to endure—the price for the privilege of living where they did. They never truly made the connection to the climate crisis threatening our world. September 2017, then, was a wake-up call when Irma—a Category 5 hurricane with wind speeds that at times reached 185 miles per hour—slammed directly into the islands. It was one of the most powerful Atlantic Ocean hurricanes on record and it left a trail of loss and despair in its wake. My first understanding of how
64
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
At Home on an Unruly Planet: Finding Refuge on a Changed Earth Madeline Ostrander Henry Holt and Co., 2022
dreadful things were at home was a video of a young man on the street in the capital: “Everything is mashed up,” he was saying. The roads were eroded, the hillsides were bare of trees; a majority of houses, typically built to withstand Category 3 hurricanes, were either damaged or destroyed. Businesses, government offices, and schools were wiped out. He was desperately asking the world for help. Watching it over and over, I cried. Maria, another Category 5 hurricane, followed two weeks later, only grazing the already traumatized Virgin Islands but devastating nearby Puerto Rico, which had become a recovery staging ground for its Irma-ravaged neighbors. The damage Irma caused was so severe, its impact so complete, I couldn’t comprehend how or if my home could ever recover. And in the days and weeks that followed, as the extent of the devastation unfolded, I had the sense of having lost something indescribable. Some of Ostrander’s subjects describe this same feeling of loss when flood waters overwhelm their cities or fires destroy their homes. In the last several years, she writes, “a whole field of study has emerged to quantify the intangible losses associated with climate change. Losses related to culture, identity, heritage, emotional well-being, and the sacredness or spirituality of people’s relationship to a place or a community—not to mention experiences like the joy, love, beauty, or
inspiration found in a cherished landscape—are nearly impossible to quantify in economic terms.” Angela Burnett Penn, the BVI’s environmental officer, had written the BVI’s first policy on climate change and pioneered its Climate Change Trust Fund. Before Irma, and with nearly a decade in the field, she talked frequently and extensively across the territory about the islands’ vulnerability to stronger, more deadly hurricanes. Still, Irma shocked even her. “There is a real possibility,” she writes in The Irma Diaries: Compelling Survivor Stories From the Virgin Islands, “that a hostile climate could eventually make the islands I have always called and cherished as home uninhabitable.” On my first trip home after the hurricane, I parked on a mountain road overlooking downtown, once a stunning and favorite view, and marveled at the carnage laid bare before me. Looking down onto the neighborhood directly below, it was like a bomb had gone off. I could see into the kitchens and living rooms of many of the homes; glancing farther out, I could see the bare walls and shattered classrooms of my old high school. When I talked recently to Burnett about the state of the islands five years on, she told me people are still trying to rebuild. As is often the case in places facing such disasters, many people were uninsured or underinsured and lacked the resources to rebuild their homes. On top of that, in a country this small, everything is shipped in, so supply lines were strained, lengthening the time it took to get work done. Additionally, the sheer urgency and an influx of labor to address that urgency meant that not everyone who rebuilt did so with climate resiliency in mind, she says. That worries her. And it worries me too. But as Ostrander writes, no one can yet claim a clear narrative of either triumph or tragedy when it comes to climate change. Solutions invariably “involve often enormous community efforts to plan for threats in the present and future, to reengineer a place, to reshape the
INSPIRATION
Illustration by Dania Wright
have big dreams. “ I don’t I just want to be here in five years, b r e a t h i n g
and doing what I love to do. I just need to be
free
to tell my stories from my spirit, my heart unrestricted. Life is fleeting. If we could be here doing what we love to do, that is success.
”
—Ava Duvernay Filmmaker, producer, and film publicist
yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
65
CULTURE SHIFT
On Becoming a Somatic Abolitionist Ruth Terry
I STARTED SOMATIC EXPERIENCING—an alternative therapy that remediates trauma through bodywork—at the recommendation of a friend who, like me, is a Black woman. Meds and talk therapy effectively treated my depression but did little to ease my increasingly frequent and severe anxiety symptoms of chest tightness, dissociation, and panic attacks. My new therapist guided me in embodying trauma and anxiety by helping me ascertain where I felt it in my body, expand the sensation in a controlled manner, and then, using visualization and movement, to release it. A year later, I can down-regulate my emotions before I spiral into panic through tapping, self-massage, and grounding through my feet. We are still working on embodying positive emo-
66
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
tions to resource them later. Evolution gave humans a negativity bias to keep us from danger, and mine is exceptionally strong. Based on my experience of somatics, I was intrigued by psychotherapist and author Resmaa Menakem’s new book, The Quaking of America: An Embodied Guide to Navigating Our Nation’s Upheaval and Racial Reckoning. The project is a manifesto and manual for “Somatic
Abolitionism,” which the author defines as “an individual and communal effort to free our bodies—and our country—from their long enslavement to white body supremacy and racialized trauma.” Menakem, who authored 2017’s My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, intersperses political commentary and predictions about American democracy with explanations of how racialized trauma presents in our bodies and body-focused exercises to deal with it. I thought I’d be great at Somatic Abolitionism, given my familiarity and success with somatic therapy. Oh, how wrong I was. This is not a book to binge. There ILLUSTRATION BY FRANCES MURPHY/YES! MAGAZINE
In an individual, decontextualized trauma can start to look like personality; in a family, like family traits; and in a people, like culture. is a lot of new vocabulary. Each of the book’s 50 chapters ends with at least one body practice to try. Body practices are one kind of “rep,” anti-racist actions and behaviors we need to repeat continually to “develop the essential grit of Somatic Abolitionism.” Reps help reduce White fragility around race and condition “bodies of culture”—a term the author prefers to “people of color”—to cope with “white body supremacy,” or WBS. Menakem prescribes doing reps constantly and, ideally, following them with “soul scribing,” a sort of journaling practice to track your progress. Over time, these combined efforts will condition our bodies to remain “settled” and respond calmly to emerging threats—the most immediate of which is the civil war Menakem predicts is going to pop off sometime between now and 2025. The Quaking of America is a lot to metabolize. Still, there are moments of genius in the book. Menakem structured Quaking to resemble the “social and political double helix” of racial reckoning and potential civil war. Despite this complexity, he writes with real clarity of thought, always coming back to his initial thesis that Somatic Abolitionism is vital to dismantling White supremacy in America. While his visceral descriptions of predicted street-level warfare felt inflammatory to me when I started the book in April, they seem eerily prophetic in the wake of multiple mass shootings since then. The section on how bodies of culture can arm and protect themselves may fall flat amid the current conversation on gun control, but his recounting of gun control’s racist past is illuminating. I also found Menakem’s thoughts on
how individual trauma can morph into collective experience and even national identity particularly revelatory. “The longer that trauma goes unacknowledged and its energies go unmetabolized, the more likely it is for its origins to be forgotten,” he writes. “Over months, years, or generations, trauma tends to become decontextualized from its precipitating event or events. In an individual, decontextualized trauma can start to look like personality; in a family, like family traits; and in a people, like culture.” Menakem’s insights into Republican strategy are spot on—if they aren’t, well, I truly hope no Republican ever reads this book and picks up ideas — and he has the Democrats pegged. In fact, everything he writes about White progressives resonated to my core. To Democrats: “Stop your feckless handwringing. End your calls for cordiality and bipartisanship. They are no substitutes for justice and liberation.” The way he admonishes White progressives for performing woke résumés made me belly laugh. “If you have a white body and say to a body of culture, ‘Hi! I’m your ally and a Somatic Abolitionist,’ they will immediately know that you are neither. And they will be right.” He also wisely tells them straight-up not to put “Somatic Abolitionist” on sweatshirts or bumper stickers. I most appreciated later sections of the book that united body practices, such as grounding and orienting (the latter includes visiting public spaces and looking for exits), with applicable wartime tips. Buy a burner phone (and keep it charged!); memorize in-case-ofemergency numbers; bring bug spray; consider wearing a body cam that
The Quaking of America: An Embodied Guide to Navigating Our Nation’s Upheaval and Racial Reckoning Resmaa Menakem Central Recovery Press, 2022
uploads to the cloud to prevent violence and document it when it occurs. Ironically, I didn’t get as much from the somatic experiencing parts of the book. The early chapters’ charged descriptions of the seemingly inevitable path from right-wing rhetoric to hyperlocal violence triggered a panic attack for me—and I don’t even live in the U.S. anymore. I felt somewhat manipulated that Menakem whipped up my anxiety just so he could tell me to “pause”—that word, italicized, peppers the book—and then curl in and out of the fetal position to deal with the aftershock. (By the way, if you have a large body or mobility issues, many of the body practices may be hard to do.) And there’s no way I’m opening yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
67
CULTURE SHIFT
myself up to the titular experience of “quaking,” which sounds like a glorified panic attack, without the presence of my therapist. Limiting my exposure to violent images, particularly of the WBS variety, is actually part of my own somatics practice, so I won’t be taking Menakem up on rewatching January 6 footage either. When Menakem gave me permission to skip body practices that didn’t work for me, I basically skipped them all. I don’t understand why Menakem waited until the second half of the book to explain the body as “resource”— which my therapist covered in our first session—and offer practices to help readers more fully embody positive emotions. For me, Chapter 47’s body practice, recalling times when I was “particularly strong, resilient, or resourceful—or all three” and reminding myself that “strength, resilience, and/or resourcefulness” remain in my body would have been a way better opener. By the time we finally got there, I had already moved from overwhelm to resentment to resignation that I will never be a Somatic Abolitionist. I’m OK with it. I also would have liked to see a bit more discussion of the cognitive role in anxiety, particularly what traditional and social media do to our brains. Menakem hardly mentions social media’s undue influence on Americans’ political identities, or how online communities and messaging platforms played prominent roles in the 2016 election, the January 6 riot, and mass shootings. I’m not convinced that, even in the best of times, a critical mass of Americans would have the will, the time, and the emotional bandwidth to take on Somatic Abolitionism for the nine generations Menakem estimates it will take to truly dismantle racism in America. It seems all but impossible in the era of deep fakes, disinformation, and mainstreamed conspiracy thinking. Ultimately, I ended my read with respect and admiration for the author, and agreement on the fundamental importance of using our bodies as a
68
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
resource to deal with past trauma and future challenges. “Cultivating resource isn’t just an emergency measure— something to turn to when life becomes stressful and painful,” Menakem writes. “The practice of cultivating resource
can benefit you at all times—not just when the chips are down. Whatever your situation, it can add meaning, wisdom, compassion, insight, and stability to your life.” y
ILLUSTRATION BY FRANCES MURPHY/YES! MAGAZINE
Degrowth Gains Ground Jared Spears
IF YOU HAD THE OPTION OF A FOUR-DAY WORK WEEK, would you use some of your newly freed time to pitch in at a community food garden in exchange for a share of the produce? How about putting your tools in a common shed for sharing if you could occasionally borrow your neighbors’ appliances? Would you forego summer destination flights if you knew that more public pools and nature parks would open in your region? You might describe such lifestyle choices as climate-conscious or anticonsumerist. Maybe you already practice some of them yourself—but what will it take to make such shifts, and the values that inform them, widely accepted in a country like the United States? That’s the vital concern running through The Future Is Degrowth: A Guide to a World Beyond Capitalism. Since the book’s first edition was published in Germany in 2019, the world has been reeling from continuous shocks: a global pandemic, social upheavals, heatwaves, wildfires, and war, compounded by costof-living crises, supply chain delays, and food shortages. As Matthias Schmelzer, Andrea Vetter, and Aaron Vansintjan explain in this new and expanded English-language edition, people are increasingly drawn to degrowth because they’re seeking answers about “how we got in this mess in the first place, and how we can get out.” According to the authors, the term “degrowth” is a critique of the dominant ideology of growth in capitalist societies and includes proposals for a radical reorganization of economic life in order to dramatically reduce advanced economies’ use of energy and resources. The writers assert that such a transformation is not only possible and desirable for the
world’s richer countries but is necessary to tackle climate change through a global, just transition from fossil fuels. The idea of an abrupt “jump off the growth treadmill” runs against the grain of standard Econ 101 courses and corporate news. Prevailing explanations for the economy in the Global North still hold that growth and a climbing GDP are unequivocally good. But degrowth positions have recently worked their way into discussion from the World Economic Forum and the latest report from the International Panel on Climate Change. The 2007-08 economic crisis, the advancing effects of global warming, and the jolt of pandemic shutdowns have been steadily undermining ideological illusions about economic growth. There’s increasing acknowledgment that billionaires’ wealth doesn’t simply trickle down, that a great deal of modern work is superfluous to social necessity, and that ever-accelerating busyness isn’t getting us closer to a good life for all. On the contrary, as The Future Is Degrowth details, studies on satisfaction in various countries show that “the relationship between GDP and quality of life is only stable up to a certain level of prosperity,” after which the relationship between the two unravels. Consider that the average American’s yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
69
CULTURE SHIFT
What’s ultimately at stake in a degrowth transition is not simply greener lifestyle choices but complex structural questions concerning millions of lives and livelihoods.
A Guide to a World Beyond Capitalism Matthias Schmelzer, Andrea Vetter, and Aaron Vansintjan Verso Books, 2022
annual material consumption is 23.7 metric tons—52% more than the European average and nearly three times the 8 metric tons sustainability scholars cite as a fair, sustainable global average. Alarms about the excesses of the frequent-flyer McMansion lifestyle are nothing new; still, a degrowth view helpfully foregrounds not only the harmful carbon footprint of this “imperial mode of living” but also its unjust reliance on cheap overseas resources and labor. Skepticism of capitalism’s growth-focused notion of progress allows us to see that a mode of living presented as “normal” was never just or sustainable. The book suggests that even climate activists and progressive politicians need a reality check. Proponents of degrowth are wary of “green growth,” which hails techno-solutions and vague net-zero
70
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
goals to suggest that, once a proverbial green energy switch is flipped, the Global North can continue hustling and consuming more or less as before. This single-minded focus on renewables, exemplified by the current posture of the Biden administration, ignores the fact that the supply of rare earth minerals needed for a renewable transition is finite and concentrated in the Global South. The authors do advocate a Green New Deal ramp-up of production, but one tempered by degrowth: “The transformation needed in industrialized countries—if they are to reduce their emissions and environmental impacts fast enough to leave space for the Global South to develop—will also lead to reducing the size of Global North economies.” The Future Is Degrowth invites us to envision a much deeper societal transition than simply swapping energy sources to maintain the status quo. By recognizing the time and material wasted in capitalist competition, degrowth theory maintains that that systems of care and sufficiency can improve our quality of life, offering immaterial gains such as “time prosperity” and “conviviality.” So how do we actually ditch the capitalist rat race, restructure our lives, and settle into a slower groove? The Future Is Degrowth doesn’t offer shortcuts, but it contains more than a few thought-provoking ideas and examples. The “dual power” strategy the authors advance pairs radical policies of wealth redistribution and selective downscaling of unhelpful industries with the elevation and expansion of “nowtopias.” Self-organized and small-scale initiatives like CSAs, urban gardens, community
solar projects, and worker co-ops all have a part to play, showing that the “good life” can be secured without the material waste and alienation endemic to capitalism. What’s ultimately at stake in a degrowth transition is not simply greener lifestyle choices but complex structural questions concerning millions of lives and livelihoods. What would make oil and gas workers feel good about foreclosing their industries? What conditions might empower a pilots’ union to refuse to fly private jets? What would it take to build majority consensus for a maximum salary or an eco-tax on harmful consumption? Simply imposing such measures from the top down is a likely recipe for resentment and right-wing outrage. The authors’ most radical remedy is the insistence on degrowth decisionmaking to expand and deepen democratic practices. If you want people to endorse your eco-revolution, they’ll need a seat at the table. Regional councils and citizen’s assemblies could offer a forum for informed deliberation on economic transition, breaking down partisan bubbles and exercising the agency stifled by the current market-state paradigm. Self-determination and participation, the book compellingly argues, are key to society pulling through climate-induced transition without pulling apart. Beyond our current “climate versus the economy” paralysis, the promise of degrowth beckons. y Jared Spears is a writer whose essays on have appeared in Jacobin, It’s Freezing in L.A.!, and elsewhere. He works as director of communications and resources for the Schumacher Center for a New Economics in Massachusetts. Twitter: @ThusSpokeJared
REFLECTION
yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
71
THE YES! CROSSWORD
Patrick Blindauer
72
yes! fall 2022 :: yesmagazine.org
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
Answers at yesmagazine.org/crossword103
“In trying times, it is easy to fall into a pattern of cynicism, despair, and bitterness. YES! is a practical antidote to defeatism and a catalyst for healing.” Leah Penniman Farmer, author, and food sovereignty activist
Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-Supported.
yesmagazine.org :: yes! fall 2022
73
WE WANT TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE That’s why we’re leaving a legacy gift to YES!
We are concerned about where our world and planet are headed. We want to make a difference and that’s why we’re leaving a gift for YES! in our estate. YES! is so aligned with our values. It offers us viewpoints and information that might otherwise never come to our attention—and inspires us in the process!
As society struggles through the greatest challenges we and the planet have ever faced, YES! guides us to take actions informed by love and interdependence rather than separation. This important work needs to continue even when we’re no longer here!
—Peter and Melinda Lucas, YES! readers and supporters
To learn more, please visit yesmagazine.org/planned-giving