The history is that other blind people were seen as, and saw themselves as
clients of charitable agencies that set up sheltered workshops and were
exempted by law from the usual obligations of employers because they were
providing a service to their blind clients. The service was giving the clients
a place to come each day to work. The agencies had contracdts with commercial
companies and may very well have earned money by producing producdts for them,
but the blind employees were not considered to be employees. I suppose the
closest current parallel is all the prison labor that now produces products and
provides services for corporations as well as being fire fighters in
California. The blind clients have always felt just as powerless as the
prisoners are. Sixty years ago, the ones who rebelled, didn't work in the
workshops. They begged for money on subway trains and were despised for doing
so by their peers. But it wasn't easy to walk from car to car through a moving
noisey train and hold out a cup to where one heard people and wait for coins to
be dropped in from morning to night. One man, whom Fred told me about, earned
enough money that way to buy a house on Long Island for his family. The people
in the sheltered workshop worked for just as many months as they could to keep
their social security disability, and then they were laid off for the remainder
of the year. But the workshops were always kept filled with workers. That's how
they did it in 1962 at The Industrial Home For The Blind when I started working
there as a social worker.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey
(Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2020 9:53 PM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Visually impaired unionists fight layoffs, for
safety
I think it was a matter of being hired at one place and then organizing a
union. That is a lesson that other blind people need to learn.
___
Sam Harris
“Are you really surprised by the endurance of religion? What ideology is likely
to be more durable than one that conforms, at every turn, to our powers of
wishful thinking? Hope is easy; knowledge is hard. Science is the one domain in
which we human beings make a truly heroic effort to counter our innate biases
and wishful thinking. Science is the one endeavor in which we have developed a
refined methodology for separating what a person hopes is true from what he has
good reason to believe. The methodology isn't perfect, and the history of
science is riddled with abject failures of scientific objectivity. But that is
just the point-these have been failures of science, discovered and corrected
by-what, religion? No, by good science.”
― Sam Harris
On 11/14/2020 9:35 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
What amazes me about this article is that visually impaired workers are
unionized anywhere. Historically, they've been in sheltered workshops earning
way below minimum wages with no worker protection of any kind. How did a
whole group of them get hired at one facility and get union representation?
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey
(Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2020 9:28 PM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Visually impaired unionists fight layoffs,
for safety
Visually impaired unionists fight layoffs, for safety
https://themilitant.com/2020/11/14/visually-impaired-unionists-fight-l
ayoffs-for-safety/
BY MAGGIE TROWE
Vol. 84/No. 46
November 23, 2020
CINCINNATI — Teamsters-organized workers at the factory run by the Cincinnati
Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired here are fighting back
against layoffs, wage cuts and unsafe working conditions.
Two-thirds of these 65 workers, members of Teamsters Local 100, are blind or
visually impaired. They slit tape, produce exit signs and craft and exam
paper, and assemble kitchen gadgets. Management of the nonprofit outfit
imposed a COVID-related shutdown in April.
“We will recall laid-off employees as business needs warrant based first on
job function and then by seniority,” they wrote laid-off workers.
“Prior to recalling laid-off employees to regular job classifications,
additional temporary transfers may be made available based on business needs.”
“They wanted to retain people who were sighted, but those people are lower
seniority. The employees that were blind have the most seniority,”
Dorian Stone, a union representative for Teamsters Local 100, told the
Cincinnati Enquirer.
Management brought a few workers back later in April and more in August,
ignoring seniority, Dave Perry, a production worker at the factory, told the
Militant. “They cut some workers’ pay in half,” he said. “Managers engaged in
production work, a violation of our union contract. They also hired workers
from a temporary agency who are not blind and paid them less than the
unionized workers.”
During the shutdown management rearranged machines so there is no longer a
physical barrier to keep workers out of the danger zone where cranes move
huge tape rolls to slitting machines. They also recently told the blind
workers they wouldn’t help them cross the busy street in front of the plant,
claiming this will help blind workers live more independently.
“About 25 workers signed a petition against these violations and presented it
to management,” Perry said. Workers also filed grievances against management
doing production jobs and hiring temps, and for ending inadequate social
distancing because machines were set too close together. This resistance got
results.
All but 15 of the union workers are back now. The company is taking workers’
temperatures as they enter. They’re employing fewer from agencies.
“But we still have issues,” Perry said. “We want everyone back. Our union
steward is still on layoff and isn’t allowed on company property to represent
us. The company won’t let business agent Dorian Stone, or local President
Bill Davis, on company property either.”
Having a union is important to him. “I’ve heard workers here in the 1980s had
to fight like crazy to bring in the union,” Perry said, “and a lot of people
lost their jobs.”
“Only 30% of blind people are able to find work they can do,” Perry said. “We
want to be productive, earn a living and be treated with respect.”
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the picket lines until Nov. 13.… Primary care nurses strike across New
Zealand AUCKLAND, New Zealand — Over 100 primary care workers held a
lively picket here Nov. 9. It was part of a 24-hour strike and protest
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Commercial Workers Local 881 at ReConserve went on strike Nov. 2 for
better pay and conditions. The company takes food scraps and converts
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fight mark life in Arizona mining towns KEARNY, Ariz. — Like other
workers across the country, miners and others in Arizona’s “copper
triangle” are facing an unprecedented economic and social crisis. Over
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forward in Transcaucasus Also In This Issue U.S. gov’t to execute
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