Too long between posts by Greg

Sorry I haven’t posted in so long. There are about 20 to 25 hits a day here in spite of no posts in some time. Thank you for your loyalty!

I have not been posting for a couple of reasons. First is that working has taken its toll in time and energy. Second is that I think of this as a travel blog and we haven’t traveled in a couple of months.

Since my last post we have been busy though. Jimmy’s celebration of life was held in Reedsport and somewhere close to a hundred people traveled from all over to get there. It was great to see so many of his old friends. He had many. I don’t know that I ever mentioned that Jimmy was a fine musician who wrote and performed his own songs. He was the driving force behind all the bands he played with and many many of the people who showed up were fellow musicians. That night at Kim’s house they got their instruments out and played and played. Great stuff.

Working again has been more difficult than I had expected I’m afraid. My stamina is just not there to put in 50 or 60 hours a week and the work is taxing mentally.

I was hired to assist as the field organizer for the ongoing Marion County contract campaign but was asked to work with the Department of Revenue as time permitted. That has been very little time and they are a pretty self-sufficient group. They, however, were not happy about having me as their organizer even for the relatively little bit I had done with them. Which amounted to assisting with counting the votes in the recent election of new officers and following up with Lea Spencer to get the paperwork filed for credentialing.

That was too much and I guess they thought I was either biased or incompetent since a group of them met with Executive Director Leslie Frane to demand that I not work with them.

(Robert, please don’t broadcast this on your email lists. They will find this if they seek it, I don’t need to advertise.)

I bring this up to talk about a broader issue though. It should be noted that I am working with Marion County after their leadership also refused to work with a particular individual.

I guess I just don’t get it. In the case of the DOR, they brought in a printed copy of the blog posting I did regarding Joe D. They apparently think they are incapable of working with anyone they disagree with over an important issue. That sucks. We none of us agree on everything. I can name a dozen things off the top of my head such as Hillary v Obama, Novick v the other guy. On and on. But the work of the union, improving the working conditions of working people, should be separate from that. I do not take the attack on my integrity lightly. I spent a career with the state handling complaints from consumers about their treatment at the hands of the insurance industry and was almost daily accused of being in the pocket of the industry. I shook it off as nonsense and I feel the same way about this incident.

However, it is imperative that we respect each other’s differences and work through them. In the scheme of things some of us are better at certain things than others. I think I am competent at the work I have been asked to do. Maybe not the best at it but certainly at a certain minimum standard. I hope better than that but if not changing the individual in the slot is not likely to really make much difference in getting the work done.

I guess I am sounding like Rodney “can’t we just get along” King. But really, can’t we put our differences aside and work together on the things we agree on? Can we not call each other names (Robert?) It is possible to disagree and be polite to each other. To respect each other. It is not good karma to bait others, to attack others, to engage in scheudenfraud (damned if know the spelling of that.) I have been guilty of all these things at one time or another as we all have. But let us try to avoid these things. Let us grow as individuals through difficult times. Let us fight the battle for worker’s rights together.

Yesterday during a PERU/SEIU503 (PERU is the union of the SEIU staff) bargaining session I took a vacant seat that happened to be between Kathie Best and Ron Wiggins. Sitting at the table a few feet away was Bruce Nobles. It dawned on me that this was 3/4ths of the slate I ran for statewide president with ten long years ago. I think I will post that story later. It is ancient history but the repercussions from that year are still with us.

Later, Greg