Does our lack of organizing hold us back as a people in the United States?
For most of my life, I've profited from the good work of unions and other organized agencies. I have enjoyed many conditions of good living thanks to the advocacy of many organized groups over time.
The good I've enjoyed by way of multiple laws and policies that protect my health, safety and freedom to live a good life perhaps made me somewhat complacent because I didn't readily become active in any advocacy group, but as an educator, I did belong to the teachers' union.
Throughout the first two-thirds of my teaching career, I paid my dues, but was not active in the state or national union though I did play a role in the local union. During that time the work we mostly protected individuals and supported fair working conditions and salaries. There was not a lot of conflict since administrators and the public at the time were mostly supportive of quality schools, good working conditions, fair treatment and fair salaries.
During the last third of my teaching career, the last 10 years, change seeped in. People, in and around schools, became less supportive and change was more difficult to promote. In part, this was due to the growing complexity of home/school life as well as increasing numbers in the school system where I worked. Time was compromised more. In the early years, educators had more freedom as to how they used their time, but in later years the time was much more scripted and also much more unreasonable. There was less good time to work for and serve children altogether too since there was a great shift from a community where most children had at least one parent at home and most teachers did not have at-home childcare responsibilities to a community where most children did not have a parent at home during the day and most teachers had at-home childcare responsibilities. The combination of less time, less freedom with that time and greater expectations led to greater oppression in schools.
When people don't have time and when there is not an open attitude with regard to collaboration or needed change, there is a greater need for organization--working together to make needed change. The need to make good change and the fact that the union had some open minded, welcoming leadership led me to get more active in union events. The leadership at the time was making it easy for me to be involved, and they were responding to the needs of teachers like me by advocating for what we needed to do the good jobs we wanted to do in reasonable, respectful ways. That was empowering.
Yet, my involvement was compromised by the unreasonable work expectations at school and the tremendous at-home childcare responsibilities I had as a parent. I could only stretch myself so thin and I always put my children at home and children at school first. The time/responsibility factors diluted what I could do with and for the teachers' union as well as with other organizing groups working to secure laws, policies and other endeavor to support better living.
Now retired from my teaching career and a parent of young adult children, I have more time to read about and analyze the greater society. This vantage point makes me realize how too-much responsibility and too-little time truly suffocates voice, advocacy and organizing in American society. Most people are simply trying to keep their heads above water and survive. Yet when most people don't have the time to organize and advocate, that leaves room for some who don't work for the collective good to move in and take advantage, and we can't let that happen.
How can we support apt organizing and good collective work more? How can we enlist the voices of more people to make good change in the United States, the kind of change that empowers all of us and enriches all of our lives?
Time
A friend pointed out that one reason the Black Lives Matter marches may have been so successful is that so many people were at home due to COVID. People had more time than ever before which gave them the time to get out and peacefully march for change. I remember hearing a young boy in my class speak proudly of marching with his family. He would not have been able to do that if students were not home because of COVID. The rushed lives of many, the unrealistic work expectations and unfair pay cuts away at people's time, the kind of time that allows them to read, study and think about their world and the kind of time they need to advocate for good change and development.
Information
In this info-heavy age, it's very difficult to know truth from fiction. It's difficult to discern the facts and see the priorities, and it's challenging to make time for what matters most since there's the opportunity to engage in all kinds of info-related searches, explorations and involvement. Information related to the hard work we need to do to make change has to be simple, to the point and easy to find and navigate. If the information is too complex, hard to find and impossible to navigate, people will quickly give up and lose interest. I want to do some research myself and create a few documents to make essential information easier to find, understand and utilize for good advocacy.
Trust
It is also difficult to know who to trust during these times of great responsiblity, lots of work and information everywhere. Corrupt politicans and industry leaders take advantage of that. For example, Donald Trump sticks to a few lines of propaganda and misinformation that some people easily gravitate to in order to gain allegiance and increase his funding. Many people don't make the time to research information to find out if it is true or not, sadly they simply believe what feels good to them.
The bottom line is that if we want to continue to live in a good country that evolves in ways that enrich lives, we have to organize, and to organize we have to do the following:
- Identify the groups that support the kind of country/world you want for yourself and for future generations.
- Figure out how to get involved with those groups in ways that promote the greater good.
- Encourage the leadership in those groups to be reasonable with their requests of people's time, energy and resources.
- Make sure that the groups you join are ethical--figure out how they use the money they collect and what they have to show for their advocacy work.
- Work against bogus groups that work in corrupt ways by inciting violence, spreading propaganda and lies, misuing funds and enriching the lives of only a few rather than many.