MIDWESTERN MARX
  • Home
  • Online Articles
    • Articles >
      • All
      • News
      • Politics
      • Theory
      • Book Reviews
      • Chinese Philosophy Dialogues
    • American Socialism Travels
    • Youth League
  • Dr. Riggins' Book Series
    • Eurocommunism and the State
    • Debunking Russiagate
    • The Weather Makers
    • Essays on Bertrand Russell and Marxism
    • The Truth Behind Polls
    • Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century
    • Lenin's Materialism & Empirio-Criticism
    • Mao's Life
    • Lenin's State and Rev
    • Lenin's LWC Series
    • Anti-Dühring Series
  • Store
    • Books
    • Merchandise
  • YouTube
  • Journal of American Socialist Studies (JASS)
  • Contact
    • Article Submissions
    • The Marks of Capital
  • Online Library
  • Staff

11/9/2022

How Solidarity Helps Workers Through Life’s Struggles By: Tom Conway

0 Comments

Read Now
 
Picture
 Navigating washed-out roads and piles of debris, Mayra Rivera quickly began checking on coworkers and neighbors after Hurricane Fiona battered Puerto Rico in September.

Rivera, president of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 8198, realized she’d spend months if not years helping the island navigate a daunting cleanup and recovery process. But her immediate goal was ensuring community members had the basics:

Safe food. Clean drinking water. And, just as important, a shoulder for survivors to lean on as they began picking up the pieces of their shattered lives.

While labor unions continue their traditional fights for decent wages, affordable health care, and safe working conditions, they’re also stepping up to help workers manage stress and the threats to mental health that they encounter on and off the job.

Rivera, whose local represents municipal workers in the southern coastal city of Ponce, collaborated with the USW’s Tony Mazzocchi Center for Health, Safety and Environmental Education in recent years to deliver disaster and mental resilience training to island communities pummeled by a string of hurricanes and earthquakes.

The training includes techniques for helping families prepare physically and psychologically for disasters, such as assembling “go bags” to sustain them in case of extended evacuations. The program, adapted from resources and materials developed by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Worker Training Program, also helps to boost residents’ safety and confidence by demonstrating how to guard against contaminants, downed power lines, and other hazards that hurricanes leave in their wake.

And the training showcases strategies—like providing social support, as Rivera offered in Fiona’s aftermath—to help survivors maintain the resilience essential to persevering after tragedy strikes. Rivera knows that the same solidarity that lifts up workers on the job also can help disaster survivors get through their darkest days.

“They start talking and talking and talking. They need to talk. People need to be heard,” said Rivera, recalling how eagerly residents related their experiences to her after Fiona knocked out power to the entire island, destroyed infrastructure, and flattened entire communities.

Providing this kind of outlet is especially critical, she noted, to maintain hope among people who were still trying to bounce back from five-year-old Hurricane Maria when Fiona walloped them again.

Tarps still covered thousands of homes that lost their roofs during Maria. Fiona destroyed some of the same infrastructure all over again. The wave of disasters created a looming mental health crisis that Rivera says her union is well suited to help address.

“We are a family,” said Rivera, who lost her own farm during Maria and can relate on a personal level with coworkers, neighbors, and others impacted by disaster. “It’s easier for them to open up to us.”

Studies document the therapeutic power of social connections.

Researchers from Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey, tracked about 2,200 Hurricane Sandy survivors between the ages of 54 and 80 over a period of years. They found lower rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms among those who experienced higher levels of social cohesion after the storm, which struck Puerto Rico and parts of the United States, along with several other countries, in 2012.

Similarly, a Harvard study found that strong social connections mattered more than material resources, such as food and shelter, in helping elderly survivors cope with the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Social interaction even helped to stave off the cognitive decline many survivors experienced after the tragedy.

Disasters exacerbate threats to mental health and give unions special opportunities to help workers and communities endure. But unions also help members combat corrosive, everyday stressors that chip away at their families’ well-being.

Unions bargain strong contracts, for example, with paid sick days, bereavement leave, assistance programs, and other resources to help workers juggle job and family pressures—then zealously enforce those contracts to ensure members actually derive the intended benefits.

USW Local 8599’s contract with the Fontana (California) Unified School District provides leave that workers may use to spend time with dying relatives. When a supervisor tried to block one worker from using the leave, Local President Dawn Dooley immediately intervened with school officials, securing the union member both the time off and peace of mind.

Dooley continually reminds members that they’re never up against management alone. “You have the right to representation,” she says, “even if the conflict occurs at a potluck dinner.”

As more and more Americans report problems with stress, unions seek new ways to leverage the power of solidarity and equip workers in the fight for mental health.

When the communications company TELUS began harassing workers for taking restroom breaks, USW Local 1944 used the grievance process to safeguard members’ rights and safety. But the local, which represents thousands of workers at company call centers across Canada, also launched a broader campaign to protect members from the burnout they risked because of their stressful jobs.

Among other steps, the local’s Women of Steel committee published a series of user-friendly guides on how to address fatigue, anxiety, and depression. The guides explain that burnout is “the consequence of a high-performance culture,” not a personal failure, and emphasize the importance of sharing frustrations with coworkers and union leaders.

“We lift them up and give them a safe space so they can have a conversation,” Local President Donna Hokiro explained. “People feel empowered.”

“We fight for you,” she added of the union, “but we also teach you how to fight for yourself.”

Author

​​​​Tom Conway is the international president of the United Steelworkers Union (USW).


This article was produced by the Independent Media Institute.

Archives

November 2022
October 2022
September 2022
August 2022
July 2022
June 2022
May 2022
April 2022
March 2022
February 2022
January 2022
December 2021
November 2021
October 2021
September 2021
August 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020

Share

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

Details

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020

    Categories

    All
    Aesthetics
    Afghanistan
    Althusser
    American Civil War
    American Socialism
    American Socialism Travels
    Anti Imperialism
    Anti-Imperialism
    Art
    August Willich
    Berlin Wall
    Bolivia
    Book Review
    Brazil
    Capitalism
    Censorship
    Chile
    China
    Chinese Philosophy Dialogue
    Christianity
    CIA
    Class
    Climate Change
    COINTELPRO
    Communism
    Confucius
    Cuba
    Debunking Russiagate
    Democracy
    Democrats
    DPRK
    Eco Socialism
    Ecuador
    Egypt
    Elections
    Engels
    Eurocommunism
    Feminism
    Frederick Douglass
    Germany
    Ghandi
    Global Capitalism
    Gramsci
    History
    Hunger
    Immigration
    Imperialism
    Incarceration
    Interview
    Joe Biden
    Labor
    Labour
    Lenin
    Liberalism
    Lincoln
    Linke
    Literature
    Lula Da Silva
    Malcolm X
    Mao
    Marx
    Marxism
    May Day
    Media
    Medicare For All
    Mencius
    Militarism
    MKULTRA
    Mozi
    National Affairs
    Nelson Mandela
    Neoliberalism
    New Left
    News
    Nina Turner
    Novel
    Palestine
    Pandemic
    Paris Commune
    Pentagon
    Peru Libre
    Phillip-bonosky
    Philosophy
    Political-economy
    Politics
    Pol Pot
    Proletarian
    Putin
    Race
    Religion
    Russia
    Settlercolonialism
    Slavery
    Slavoj-zizek
    Social-democracy
    Socialism
    South-africa
    Soviet-union
    Summer-2020-protests
    Syria
    Theory
    The-weather-makers
    Trump
    Venezuela
    War-on-drugs
    Whatistobedone...now...likenow-now
    Wilfrid-sellers
    Worker-cooperatives
    Xunzi

All ORIGINAL Midwestern Marx content is under Creative Commons
(CC BY-ND 4.0) which means you can republish our work only if it is attributed properly (link the original publication to the republication) and not modified. 
Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Online Articles
    • Articles >
      • All
      • News
      • Politics
      • Theory
      • Book Reviews
      • Chinese Philosophy Dialogues
    • American Socialism Travels
    • Youth League
  • Dr. Riggins' Book Series
    • Eurocommunism and the State
    • Debunking Russiagate
    • The Weather Makers
    • Essays on Bertrand Russell and Marxism
    • The Truth Behind Polls
    • Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century
    • Lenin's Materialism & Empirio-Criticism
    • Mao's Life
    • Lenin's State and Rev
    • Lenin's LWC Series
    • Anti-Dühring Series
  • Store
    • Books
    • Merchandise
  • YouTube
  • Journal of American Socialist Studies (JASS)
  • Contact
    • Article Submissions
    • The Marks of Capital
  • Online Library
  • Staff