Next month I’ll be going to Peru for a few weeks of vacation. It’s where my wife was born and raised, and where much of her family still lives.
The last time I was there, staying at the home of my in-laws, I woke up to a bustle of activity. Everyone was awake and busy making posters and banners in the kitchen. What’s going on? I asked. We are going to a rally, said my sisters-in-law.
What kind of rally? I asked, thinking it must be something big for all this activity, like corruption, or taxes, or something that would affect all of my wife’s family.
When I was told the rally was to support the bus drivers of Lima, who were going out on strike, I could not help but wonder. Why would these people, a family full of well-educated and well-paid doctors and teachers, care about a bunch of bus drivers?
I asked why, and my father-in-law stopped working on his poster, looked at me sadly, and said simply, “It’s the right thing to do.”
That really surprised me. I wasn’t used to hearing an answer like that from someone who was not what we would call a common working stiff.
Off to the rally we went, joining up with hundreds of people after walking a few blocks. Most held signs and banners in support of the bus drivers, who were striking for better pay and work rules. As I looked around at the crowd I could see people from all walks of life: men and women in suits, store owners, students, mothers with children, old people, young people, even priests and nuns.
As the noisy but orderly crowd marched through the streets of Lima, I saw a police officer looking at me. He asked if I was American. I told him I was.
“You must be very proud,” he said. “This is like what goes on in America.”
Suddenly a wave of shame came over me. This is not like America. We don’t shut down a huge city to show support for a bunch of nameless bus drivers.
Most people walk by and mutter, “Go back to work, don’t be so greedy. If I can’t have better pay and benefits, why should you?”
For the first time in my life, I was ashamed to be an American.
I smiled back at him and lied, yes, I was very proud. I didn’t want him to know that what is considered a Third World country cared more for its people than the greatest country on earth.
I started to wonder how we fell so far. One in three workers in the U.S. used to belong to a union; now we fall behind most other countries when it comes to the percentage of people with a union card. How did we become a country where big business is in control, and people can’t even make a decent working wage, or have benefits when we get sick?
Every year big business takes more and more from us and turns public opinion on the unions. Somehow we’re the bad guys.
Labor needs to step up and fight. That’s why the uprising in Wisconsin and throughout the Midwest this winter and spring was so inspirational. Public sector, private sector, union and non-union alike, workers stood up together and said an attack on one is an attack on all. They stood up to big business and their outrageous tax breaks. They told public leaders, if you don’t listen to the people, you will be out of office. They supported businesses that supported workers.
You can bring a little Lima (or Wisconsin) to your hometown. Next time you drive by a picket line, stop and walk the line for a few minutes. Let the people know you are behind them and support them, no matter who they are, construction workers, school teachers, telephone workers, or bus drivers. In the words of my father-in-law, Dr. Carlos Camargo: it’s the right thing to do.
Chuck Borchert is a business agent for Communications Workers Local 1298 in Connecticut.
