The "Letter to the Editor:" In These Times Refused to Print

 I wrote a highly critical "Letter to the Editor" of the left newsmagazine In These Times on an article it published in its November 2024 issue, Shane Burley's "Jewish Institutions Are Purging Their Staffs of Anti-Zionists and Cease-Fire Activists," which can be found here:  https://inthesetimes.com/article/anti-zionist-israel-gaza-jewish-institutions.  In These Times refused to publish my "Letter," which is not surprising, since In These Times does not publish, it seems, anything critical of its magazine.

Here is my "Letter to the Editor":

To the Editor:

 

Shane Burley’s article in the November 2024 In These Times, “Jewish Institutions Are Purging Their Staffs of Anti-Zionists and Cease-Fire Activists,” elicits the following reaction as a longtime democratic socialist subscriber and contributor to ITT:

 

First, I think that these “pro-Palestine” former staffers at mainstream Jewish institutions are trying to have their proverbial cake and eat it too.  They want to work there as anti-Zionists and pro-Palestinian activists when much of the other staff, the leadership, and even much of the clientele of these mainstream Jewish institutions are going to see them as hostile pro-Hamas infiltrators into these very Jewish spaces, not as genuine, if critical, Jews.  I think a good example of this is the person Burley first documents in his article, Dan Fischer, who was fired for attending an “All Out for Palestine” rally on October11, 2023, a mere four days after Hamas’s violent killings, mutilations, rapes, and taking of hostages in Israel, and well before the Israeli government launched its campaign against Hamas in Gaza.  The leadership of the synagogue where Fischer worked rightly saw this participation as hostile and pro-Hamas, and said so openly to Fischer.  Also, Fischer stated at the rally he attended that he was “proud to be in solidarity with the people of Gaza and Palestine,” not even mentioning Hamas, and in fact, de facto conflating the civilian people of Gaza and Palestine with blood-stained Islamist Hamas!  Being “in solidarity with” the murderers, mutilators, and rapists of Jews is hardly a “Jewish value” that commends itself to employment in a Jewish synagogue!

 

Second, it’s the same with all these people who were fired, all of them, tellingly, after October 7, 2023, a “day in infamy” that ranks with Pearl Harbor and 9/11.  All of them will protest, no doubt, that they stand for “inclusiveness,” yet they deliberately “other” all those Jews and Israelis who were murdered, raped, or taken hostage, along with their families, friends, and those who cared deeply about people being victims of such atrocities—be they either Israelis or Jews of the Diaspora.

 

As for wearing the keffiyeh, it, too, changed its meaning after October 7, 2023, and became not just a symbol of solidarity with Palestine, but, since the Hamas butchers themselves wore the keffiyeh while committing their atrocities in Israel, it became as well as a symbol of support for Hamas.  But none of those fired have even one word to say against Hamas!  Not one!  No, they all implicitly conflate support for Palestinians with support for Hamas—and their silence on this very important issue speaks loudly and in volumes!  Keeping on staff those who cannot even condemn Hamas would indeed be difficult for any mainstream Jewish institution—it would be akin to employing someone who cannot condemn the Holocaust!

 

As for a ceasefire, I’m all for it; but it cannot be, as so many pro-Palestinian activists want it to be—a unilateral move on the Israeli side, with no reciprocity from Hamas.  While Netanyahu certainly deserves much blame for there not being a ceasefire, much more blame goes to Hamas, in my opinion.  Hamas’s intransigence in the face of every ceasefire offer proffered is what has prevented a ceasefire to date.  And when there was one, a brief ceasefire and hostage exchange in November 2023, Hamas unilaterally broke it.

 

Last, almost all states have Work at Will labor laws—in the absence of a labor contract, an employee can be fired for any reason, or no reason at all.  Similarly, many employers also have dress codes, which one is expected to conform to as part of employment.  A ban on wearing a keffiyeh would fall under such a code.  Same as, where I work, I was formerly banned from wearing jeans, and had to wear only a company shirt and either black or tan slacks.  One may not like such rules, but they’re there.  And no, wearing a Magen David, or Star of David, necklace around one’s neck is not “political clothing.”  It’s cultural clothing, indicating solely that one is proudly Jewish.  The Magen David existed long before the state of Israel, and was also used by the—Nazis—as a mandatory badge to be worn to mark oneself as Jewish!  If the Magen David means Zionism, then why doesn’t it also mean Nazism?

 

Those are some of my thoughts on Burley’s article from the vantage point of a socialist internationalist upholding the socialist values of secularism and humanism, opposing all right-wing religious fanaticism such as that which animates Hamas, and a democratic, as opposed to an authoritarian, socialist.

 

George Fish,

ITT long-time

subscriber and

several times

published ITT

contributor,

Indianapolis, IN 

 

   

 

 

Yet Another Significant Event for Me This Year: My Well-Regarded August 2024 Leaflet to my Fellow Kroger Employees on Our Upcoming Contract Negotiations, May 2025

 Here's the text.  Two 8 1/2" X 11" pages.

To my fellow Central Indiana Kroger workers and union members

by George Fish, Produce Department Stocker, Kroger J-100, Indianapolis,

and proud member of UFCW Local 700

 

I’m writing you on my own initiative as a fellow Kroger worker and member of UFCW Local 700, a rank-and-file worker like you with some things on my mind concerning our upcoming contract renewal in May 2025. 

 

·     Back in 2000, a minimally “livable wage” was defined by the Indiana Economic Development Commission to be $10.00 an hour.  Today, because of the increase in the cost of living, especially the inflation we’ve experienced since COVID, that minimally “livable wage” would be $18.22 an hour—more than the top of the non-department-supervisor wage set in our last contract of $17.60 an hour!

 

·     In fact, our $17.60 an hour tops causes us to lose money—because the purchasing power of that $17.60 an hour is only $9.66, or as you can plainly see, noticeably less in purchasing power than $10.00 was in 2000! 

 

·     But more.  As union members, we certainly want more than a minimally “livable wage”:  we want, say, 30% over such a minimum, which would bring the wage we justly require to—$23.69 an hour!

 

·     Wages under the 2022 contract increased by only 10%, while inflation of prices reached 25%!  Yes, fellow workers, we’re losing money under our present contract, which is why we must demand much more of the union and Kroger in our upcoming 2025 contract!

 

·     As you can see, fellow workers, we can justifiably demand $24 an hour or even more, so that we’re not losing money at Kroger by working!

 

I’ve informally surveyed as many of my fellow union workers at the store I work at as I could, and they’re all in agreement:  in our next contract we definitely need more money!  Other things they (and I) agree we could use would be a COLA (annual cost-of-living-adjustment, so that our wages don’t fall behind increases in the cost of living), paid sick days (as you know, right now we have none, so that if we’re sick we’re SOL).  Other good suggestions from our fellow workers were Kroger matching 100% our 401(k) pension contributions, more time off and vacation time, speeding up the seniority requirements to get more leave time, part-time workers having the same benefits as full-time ones, so that Kroger can’t play part-timers off of full-timers, a defined path to full-time status for part-timers, an end to contract givebacks to Kroger, and a demand that really resonated with my African American fellow workers, Martin Luther King’s Birthday and Juneteenth as designated paid holidays!  All these things I personally think are good demands we should be insisting on in our next contract, and of course, there may be others.  So, I urge all of you, fellow workers, dialogue among yourselves on what you want to see in our upcoming May 2025 contract.  Remember, May 2025 is not all that far away.  And yes, maybe we should think about, and dialogue about, using the strike option if we must.

(OVER)

Last, I’d like to say, even insist, brothers and sisters, we are the union!  We, the rank-and-file are UFCW Local 700, and also, the whole of the International UFCW!  It’s not just our union reps, or the officers, or the shop stewards, it’s all of us.  And whatever we can gain, we can gain best by dialoguing among ourselves and determinedly standing together!  Yes, despite what it will say, Kroger can afford it, can afford to do much better.  After all, in its proposed merger with Albertson’s, it’s buying out Albertson’s with cash!  Also, Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen makes a whopping 502 times in pay alone what the average Kroger worker makes!  Kroger has done very well under the inflation, we ourselves feel it when we buy our groceries at Kroger,

even with employee discounts, so it can definitely do better by us, the backbone of the Kroger system—and its profitability! 

 

We should also change, I think, that provision in our union contracts that states that we, the union workers, will not interfere in the “ordinary business decisions” of Kroger—because so many of those “ordinary business decisions” affect us directly and adversely!  From obnoxious managers to massive shortages of workers in all our departments, to no provisions made when workers are off sick or on vacation so that the rest of us have to double up on the work, to using only part-timers when full-time workers are needed—these are “ordinary business decisions” that affect us vitally in our work at Kroger!  And yes, our say in such should be recognized in contract!  We aren’t just flunkies to be ordered around by the managers! 

 

That’s what I have to say to all of you, brothers and sisters.  So, in ending, I urge you do not only dialogue with me, but with all our fellow Kroger workers and union members as well, dialogue among ourselves, and let’s get a decent contract this time around!  My fellow workers, feel free to e-mail me at georgefish666@yahoo.com.  Put “Union Contract” in the subject matter bar, so it won’t get lost in my Spam filter.  Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, my fellow union brothers and sisters!

   

 

 

Another Significant Event for Me This Year: My Interview as a Working-Class Poet by Real News Network, September 18, 2024

 Here's the link:

https://therealnews.com/when-work-inspires-art-labor-poet-george-fish

Please check it out, give it a listen!  I'm very proud of this interview.

The Most Significant Event for Me this Year: The 2024 Labor Notes Conference Showed that Left Labor Is No Longer Fringe

 

I attended the 2024 Labor Notes Conference Friday, April 19-Sunday, April 21 at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare in the village of Rosemont, Illinois, just outside Chicago near O’Hare Airport, and was exhilarated.  As was announced at the first Main Session that Friday evening, over 4,600 labor militants attended.  I saw the crowds throughout the Conference, and it was obvious those numbers were right.  Moreover, most of the attendees appeared to be 30 or under, though there was a good mixture of ages among all attendees—people between 30 and 40, as well as middle-aged and even older people, activists in their 40s, 50s, 60s and even older.  (I’m 77, and while I might have been the oldest attendee, I wasn’t sure, as I wasn’t the only hoary movement veteran there!)  Overwhelmingly, attendees wore T-shirts advertising their union or union caucus affiliation, with several unions and caucuses quite prevalent:  UAW and the rank-and-file caucus of that union, United Auto Workers for Democracy (UAWD); Teamsters and Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU); UFCW and Essential Workers for Democracy (EW4D); Machinists; UE and ILWU; National Nurses United; AFSCME; CWA; unions of academics and academic workers, professors, grad students, student employees; Starbucks United; and others.  There were also workers and unionists from outside the US present as well—activists from Hong Kong and Taiwan, Japan, Korea, New Zealand (I had a marvelous discussion at the Conference with a New Zealand activist), Canada, and elsewhere.  (A flight attendant from Thailand related at one of the workshops the successful struggle her union had waged and won—in Thai, ably translated by an interpreter.)  A real cross-section of the union membership.  There were also workshops galore, on a myriad of topics—something for everyone attending, and, from my experience, all the workshops were masterfully led and presented.  Certainly, all the workshops I attended were helpful in giving me the ideas and skills I need for my own workplace organizing.  It certainly was exciting to be there and see what could well be the future of the US labor movement—where the left wing of labor is no longer fringe, but is an integral part of the “mainstream”!

 

The Labor Notes staff did an excellent job of organizing the Conference and providing support for the Conference attendees, while the Hyatt Regency’s unionized staff’s service was marvelous throughout.  It’s quite a chore handling and event of thousands wanting service, meals, and drinks, and the staff more than rose to the occasion.  The staff was highly comprised of immigrants, mostly Hispanic, and I’m sure, a lot of them originally from Mexico—Trump’s “rapists,” “murderers,” and “not their best people”!  But tell that to us, who were so ably served!

 

While the Labor Notes staff encouraged people to wear masks due to Covid, it was voluntary, and many attendees were maskless, or only wore masks some of the time.  Labor Notes also admonished attendees to be civil toward each other, not to name call, etc., but that turned out to be superfluous, as attendees were civil and polite to one another throughout.   After all, more united than divided us, and disagreements with one another were addressed amicably.  A few attendees work keffiyehs to express their support of Palestine, and overwhelmingly, the attendees supported a Gazan ceasefire.  (Parenthetically, I should add here that, while I also support a ceasefire, I support only a ceasefire that is honored by both sides—Hamas as well as Israel, and pointedly note that the last ceasefire and hostage exchange was unilaterally broken by Hamas.  In some discussions on this, I was always addressed civilly and politely by those who disagreed with me, and always expressed my disagreement in a civil and polite way.  Yes, more indeed unites than divides us!)

 

Labor Notes was also present as a vendor, along with several others.  It has a wide variety of merchandise available, of course, including many helpful books for union organizers and activists.  Other vendors included many leading left-wing book publishers and booksellers,  and many leading left magazines, along with the Illinois Labor History Society, and the Labor Studies program at the University of  Massachusetts-Amherst.  The usual left groups and parties were tellingly absent, except for DSA, which had many of its members attending, and Leninist-Trotskyist Solidarity, which was there mostly to promote its magazine Against the Current.  Australian longshoreman/artist Sam Wallman had an exhibit of his labor art, and there was a wall display of left and labor buttons.  The left sectarians were decidedly not in attendance, although hawkers of a magazine called Bolshevik were, along with the Spartacist League, which is urging a vote in Chicago’s Mayoral race for the Party for Socialism and Liberation candidate.  Their presence was confined to the hotel entrance outside, and they were overwhelmingly ignored by Conference attendees.  However, a raucous Spartacist League-led disruption occurred at Friday’s Main Session.  More on that below.

 

TDU held a reception that Friday night, and I attended, getting the chance to hear Teamster President Shaun O’Brien give a rousing speech.  Flight Attendant union leader and militant Sara Nelson was also in attendance, although she did not speak.  (She was present for a workshop.  O’Brien also spoke at a workshop, as did the UAW’s Shawn Fain, all of them as relevant “ordinary” contributors, not as union celebrities).  Friday was a momentous day for the labor movement, and the news was widely shared that night.  The UAW won the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee by a 3-1 margin, Starbucks finally agreed to negotiate with its union, and Trader Joes in certain locations agreed to recognize the independent union organized by its employees.  (Tellingly, these workers had first approached my union, the UFCW, about organizing Trader Joes, but the UFCW told them it wasn’t interested.  A good reason why my union needs EW4D!)

 

At Sunday’s Main Session I heard another rousing speech from labor’s other Shawn, Shawn Fain of the UAW.  Also at the Main Sessions, activists and leaders from unions in Canada, Italy, and Mexico spoke, and all the Main Sessions provided entertainment as part of the program.  Integral to the presentation at the Conference was the Great Labor Arts Exchange, which sponsored workshops on using the arts and writing for building the movement, presented concerts, films, arts contests, and open mics over the length of the Conference—showing that the arts are also integral to the labor movement.  Labor Notes magazine editor Alexandra (Al) Bradbury was awarded the Joe Hill Award by the Great Labor Arts Exchange for her role in encouraging the arts’ presence.  When Labor Notes resumed its every-two-year Conferences following Covid, in 2022, the hotel in Washington D.C. it wanted wasn’t available, as it was booked by the Exchange.  So, Bradbury contacted the Great Labor Arts Exchange and asked it to be part of the Conference.  2024 marks the second time the Great Labor Arts Exchange has had a presence at the Labor Notes Conference, and it will be an enduring presence.  At the Exchanges’ Open Mic, and the next day, Saturday, at an Exchange workshop on poetry, I had opportunities to read two of my pro-labor poems.  I am a published poet and writer as well as an Essential Worker grocery store worker, and so, it is indeed nice to be able to be both a worker and an artist at the same time!

 

At the TDU reception it was announced that TDU, founded in 1975, is now forty-nine years old.  Labor Notes was founded in 1979, forty-five years ago.  It has taken a long time for both to build momentum and to realize results, but those positive results are what we are seeing now.  Consider that Shawn Fain, for example, is now the new face of the national labor leader, so decidedly not the face of the old-style George Meany, Lane Kirkland labor leader!  The Conference was also addressed by the Mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, who himself came out of the Chicago Teachers Union and defeated “Mr. 1%,” Rahm Emmanuel, in the Democratic primary to then become Mayor.  Whatever one might think of the Democratic Party (and there is much about it to still look askance at), a Chicago Democratic Party with a Brandon Johnson at the helm is a far cry form the older Democratic party of Rahm Emmanuel, Jane Byrne, Richie Daley, and his infamous father, Richard Daley.  As Bob Dylan sang, “The times, they are a-changin’.”

                                                                                                                                          

The Conference was overwhelmingly peaceful, except for, as noted above, a raucous “pro-Palestinian” demonstration outside Friday’s Main Session when Mayor Johnson spoke.  Security ably prevented the demonstrators from entering, except for two of the Spartacist League organizers, who were allowed in to display their signs.  The demonstration petered out after Mayor Johnson spoke.  Earlier in the day four people had been detained and arrested by the Rosemont police for allegedly blocking a fire lane, in which there was a gathering of demonstrators; but they were all released without charges later that evening, to the roaring cheers of the Main Session crowd.

 

To end with a little philosophical musing, perhaps all this shows that reality is more “Bukharinist” than “Trotskyist,” i.e., meaningful change, much to the chagrin of our left “revolutionary impatience,” proceeds more “at a snail’s pace” rather than as “permanent revolution.”  In any case, snail’s pace or not, the 2024 Labor Notes Conference showed most  well that positive change is definitely happening.

 

The Conference ended appropriately with the singing of “Solidarity Forever.”  Indeed.