Reluctant

I'm often reluctant to post here because I feel like I want to take the time to articulate something really well, or make some really compelling observations/reflections. Heads-up: that's not what you're about to get. In fact, what I personally often appreciate elsewhere on gopher/gemini, as much as well-crafted pieces, is the raw, 'smol' things too. This post is in that spirit - intended to jump-start my capsule back into activity after a good few months of absence.

Why the absence?

Mainly: I got swept into the world of workplace organising. A spate of job cuts at my workplace last Autumn/Winter gave rise to a big response from my workplace union to try and resist/reduce the redunancies and score a better deal for any outgoing workers. Myself - a Grade A introvert and the-most-quiet-dude-in-most-meetings - ended up getting elected as a union rep (I think colleagues could maybe tell I was a bit of a geeky rebel who had spent a fair whack of time in activist kind-of situations..) and soon enough I was helping chair meetings of 60+ union members, and working with other colleagues and union members in meetings late into the evening and wee hours to develop proposals, arguments and courses of action/negotiation to push back against the job losses and put our collective pressure on management. After a good couple of months we put up a good fight, and sure enough we both reduced redundancies *and* scored a much much much better deal for any outgoing staff. But of course we couldn't stop the job cuts completely, so we saw some of our colleagues go. This was tough going for a while there - and I think if we hadn't scored the small concessions that we did (including an additional 3-months pay for outgoing staff) I think my mental health would have likely taken a dip around the New Year.

So, since then, I'm now more involved in the day-to-day struggles of workplace support for other colleagues experiencing other challenges. This is tough going, and I'm reminded that workplace organising or 'activism' of a kind isn't so much about a moment of resistance, but more of an ongoing series of pushbacks and alternative pressures trying to force some kind of better situation against the grain (and in so doing, hopefully, to produce an alternative narrative of the world/social relations).

Other than that, the old year blended into the new relatively uneventfully, albeit wrapped up in UK lockdown of the ongoing C-19 pandemic. Last weekend I was able to see my folks for the first time in a few months; a 30-mile round trip bike ride out into the suburbs on a beautifully mild day. The day before I cleaned up my bike and oiled the chain, so the ride was a perfect glide there and back. I'm looking forward to more of this as the weather picks up.

That's it that's the post.

What I'm listening to:

Rinse FM - Butterside up mix: https://soundcloud.com/rinsefm/buttersideup060321

What I've been reading:

Fiction:

Kindred by Octavia E Butler

Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon (re-reading)

Non-fiction:

Cargill: the company feeding the world by helping destroy the planet:

https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2020-11-25/cargill-the-company-feeding-the-world-by-helping-destroy-the-planet

Online privacy advice from a sex worker: https://twitter.com/DeLaineInLA/status/1320952594542592000

How to Make Biomass Energy Sustainable Again: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/09/how-to-make-biomass-energy-sustainable-again.html

~ flow

Tags: #unionisation #union #workplaceorganising