We stand together or fall alone - CWA Local 1180

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Gary schoichet Gary schoichet Gary schoichet 2 J u l y /Au g u s t ’11 C o m m u n i q u e roving reporter Asks... I just gave you $1million. What are you going to do with it? Arlene White Health and Hospitals Corporation, Coney Island Hospital, Coordinating Manager. First I’d bank it and help my kids so they don’t keep coming to me. I’d give money to charities because I know other people need help. If I have it, I can give it and help people with AIDS, with diabetes, with autism. And I’d do a week’s worth of soaking in the bath and full body massages. Ava George Department of Environmental Protection, Principal Administrative Associate. With my million dollars I’m going back to my islands, St. Vincents and the Grenadines, and being the mother of a child with autism, I would build a residence and school for children with autism. People in the islands are not trained to deal with children with disabilities. I’d want to make the kids independent and self-sufficient. I will, however, need more than $1 million. Maybe once I get started people will help. Natasha Lee NYS Unified Court System, Administrative Services Clerk. I’d build a youth center so that teenagers in trouble can have a place to go. There would be counseling, recreation facilities, scholarships for college, and whatever else was needed. And I would travel to Egypt to see the pyramids along the Nile; and to Peru to see its indigenous populations and Machu Picchu, which is a pre-Columbian Inca site built in the mountains more than a mile above sea level. Gary Schoichet is the Roving Reporter By Gary Schoichet Carmen Carter Principal Administrative Associate, Department of Citywide Administrative Services “ Even though when I looked into the heart of that water I was afraid, I was determined, I knew that I was going in and learning how to swim,” said Carmen Carter, steward at the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS), Division of Real Estate Services. She grew up in inner-city, inner Brooklyn far from the ocean and even city pools. “We played street games, tag, scully, hopscotch, street shuffleboard (I really Gary schoichet Civil Service in her bones loved that game), and other kinds of running activities,” she said. “So now I’m 50 plus and I see the Y near my house and I go in and I have to be friendly with the water. I will do it until I get it right.” She is learning to swim because the exercise will help stimulate the poor circulation in her legs, legs she needs to stand on for hours at rallies or subway stations giving out leaflets to her fellow citizens; legs she needs to walk around her shop and talk to the members about their issues. “Walking and rallying Walking and rallying is good for my legs. Sometimes it hurts, but I keep doing it. is good for my legs. Sometimes it hurts but I keep doing it.” It is that same determination to walk, to swim, to overcome, that motivates her as a shop steward. “We have to build our shop. Some people are real low-key about being union members. They want to be approached. I like to talk with union proud people one-on-one, confidentially, building trust,” Carter said. “We have people who are victims of domestic violence. Why don’t we Carmen Carter handing out “Myths about City Workers” flyers at the Bowling Green subway station. have a domestic violence committee to help our members? It’s something that interests me and I’m ready to do something about it.” Child care is another issue affecting members in her shop. Single parents can’t always find the time to do union work outside their regular work hours. “Why can’t we do something about that?” she asked. “Find a solution.” Carter was a single parent raising a son in a Brooklyn project. He is currently a correction officer. “I thank God every day that he ended up on the right side of the prison gates.” She has encouraged him to be active in his union. He reads his contract, knows his rights. “Maybe one day he’ll be president of his union,” she said. Her family was and is civil service: Mom was with MABSTOA (Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority) and then with the Department of Employment; a sister is a 911 operator; a niece is a school teacher. “I was in a banking job for 15 years and took a job with the City because I needed more money. When I came into the City in 1991 David Dinkins was mayor and there were massive layoffs. I then realized I wanted to take tests. Until then I didn’t know about provisional titles. I learned,” she said. Her first union was Local 1549 at District Council 37. “I asked a lot of questions at 1549.” She became active and her mantra was, is, “before you say the union doesn’t do anything, get involved.” That’s what she did and she thinks it was a very good choice.
By Lorraine Gamble-Lofton In 2008 when it became clear those who understood what they had done to those who did not look like them; and that Barack Hussein Obama was going to be the 44th president of the United States of America, for real, they started to shake in their boots. Clearly, his winning was a fluke of some sort; there is no way that a black boy, even if his mother is white, is supposed to become the one you call “Mr. President.” Obama was supposed to run, yes, but just because he speaks well and unlike some presidents past knows how to spell potato, does not mean that he is suppose to win. Oh hell no! As the reality that life, as they had lived it until now, could be deeply impacted (and not in a good way) started to settle into their minds, they began to scramble, rubbing their eyes, trying to wake up from this nightmare, so that they could figure out just how they could rectify this egregious fault in our system of government that would allow a male of the Negro persuasion to have the ultimate dominion over their lives as president. It’s called disrespect Fear will pull people together, quickly, and galvanize them for the purpose of defeating the ghost they fear. A black man being president was the ghost, and to their minds, the formulation of the Tea Party and the louder, stupider, but less insidious, birthers was the answer to defeating their fears. According to Wikipedia, a birther is a believer in one or more of the conspiracy theories holding that President Barack Obama is not a “natural-born” citizen of the United States, and therefore ineligible for the presidency. Donald Trump is the poster boy for the birthers and after-birthers. After-birthers are the ones who, like Donald, and Sarah Palin, just will not let it go no matter how many birth certificates he presents, short or long, because finding out the truth is not their mission. As regards Trump, entertainer John Legend said, “He needs to stop saying that racist bullshit birther shit. Quote me, please. He should be ashamed of himself.” Trump’s birther shuffle on the morning news-show circuit caused celebrities like Bill Cosby to tell Trump to “run or shut up.” As most of us know, after all of the salt he kicked about the president, Donald Trump, decided not to run. There is another point to make in how they disrespect the President that I want to bring up; the way that they continue to go after his credentials. “I heard he was a terrible student, terrible. How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard?” Trump said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I’m thinking about it, I’m certainly looking into it. Let him show his records.” My response to Dumb Donald is, a terrible student doesn’t, and you should know that. After all, Obama was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review; Trump wants to act as though the president is working on his GED. Also, not for nothing, but aren’t the president’s credentials checked and verified before he gets in office? C o m m u n i q u e President Barack Hussein Obama Not quite their cup of tea pat arNow The thing that really ticks me off about how the President is treated is that they, his detractors, seem to think that because the President is a black man, he is inherently stupid and that they do not have to respect him. They must. How else could anyone with even a whisper As a black man, just like with women, he has to be 10 times as good to be considered even half as good. of intelligence possibly think that he would take a chance on lying about who he is when, if caught, he might become “strange fruit.” Just the thought that someone could think that he could be that stupid is disrespectful. After all, we all know that as a black man, just like with women, he has to be 10 times as good to be considered even half as good. I am far closer to 60 than I am to 16 and I have never, ever, heard of any presidential candidate’s citizenship, education, religion, and character questioned. They feel as though they can say what they feel like saying. On September 9, 2009, President Obama delivered a speech in which he addressed health reform and undocumented immigrants. In the speech he says, “There are also those who claim that our reform efforts would J u l y /Au g u s t ’11 3 insure illegal immigrants. This too is false—the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.” “You lie,” jumps out of the mouth of Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C., 2nd District). Wilson is an ardent social and fiscal conservative, and a strong supporter of the military. He is a member of the Republican Study Committee and now a card-carrying member of the Tea Party. In 2003, Wilson voted for the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act, including its Section 1011 authorizing $250,000 annually of taxpayer money to reimburse hospitals for treatment of illegal immigrants. In 2009, Wilson changed to his current position opposing public funds for healthcare of illegal immigrants. He is the president When I read about this incident what popped in my mind was, ‘the nerve of some people’s children!’ What gives him the audacity to call the President of the United States of America a liar? Is it because he considers that Obama is a black boy and the president and that he, Joe, is a white man and is not the president? Hmmm? I mean, I’m just sayin.’ Regardless of what some may feel about there even being a first Black President of the United States, at the end of the day the reality is that he does exist, and that his name is Barack Hussein Obama, and he is the President. Now run, tell that! Question. What do they call a black man with a Ph.D.? NaMi walk Every year the 1180 People With Disabilities Committee takes part in the National Alliance for Mental Illness’ walk over the Brooklyn Bridge and back to raise awareness and money for research and treatment of mental illness.
Page 1: Communique July/August 2011 A union
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Page 9 and 10: Let’s reclaim our country “ We
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We stand together or fall alone - CWA Local 1180

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