Posts

Showing posts from August, 2015

the corner booth

Every union organizer has a ritual.  It might be where you stand near the gate where the cars drive up to the job site. It might be how you hold the clip board when you get ready to knock on a door. It might be how you sort and re-sort your list, going over names of workers, shifts and departments until you know them like they were permanently etched inside your skull. For me, in this case, it was a table, in a cafeteria, in a hospital.  I'd order a cup of coffee and sit in the same chair, facing the same direction with my materials carefully tucked away and my ball cap sitting on the chair beside me. And then I'd wait... It was a big city Children's Hospital serving kids from all over. If you live anywhere near me, you've seen it from the freeway, Life Flight helicopters occasionally touching down yards from traffic. I'd sit at a central table, facing the entrance, cashiers and serving stations to the right of me and salad bar at my back. I'd be there morning