Threat of Transit Strike in NYC

There’s the possibility that a strike by New York City transit workers will take place Dec. 15. The Gotham Gazette provides some background on the situation here.

I wasn’t aware that a transit strike had occurred in New York City in 1980. For a city so dependent upon public transportation, it boggles my mind to imagine how people would move about without it. There are taxis and car services — though I heard a taxi driver say on public radio that he and other drivers would support the strike by refusing to make multiple pickups — but that would mean spending more money when I already have an MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) pass. And because I travel between Brooklyn to Manhattan, I’d be even more concerned about the cost of using private transportation.

I’ll refrain from making any judgments about the strike threat until I’ve learned more. In the meantime, you might want to check out the transit workers’ union’s Web site at http://twulocal100.org. The MTA does not seem to have released an official statement on the negotiations, but the agency’s Web site is http://www.mta.nyc.ny.us.

Well, my commute is only 5.5 miles. Maybe it’s time to break out ye olde running shoes.

The Politics of Clothing

THEN:

“A friend of mine who manufactures cloth once boasted to me that nowadays, on cheap clothing, New York ‘beats the world.’” … The bulk of the sweater’s [sub-contractor] work is done in the tenements, which the law that regulates the factory labor does not reach. … Ten hours is the legal work-day in the factories, and nine o’clock the closing hour at the latest. Forty-five minutes at least must be allowed for dinner, and children under sixteen must not be employed unless they can read and write English; none at all under fourteen. The very fact that such a law should stand on the statute book, shows how desperate the plight of these people. But the tenement has defeated its benevolent purpose. In it the child works unchallenged from the day he is old enough to pull a thread. There is no such thing as a dinner hour; men and women eat while they work, and the ‘day’ is lengthened at both ends far into the night. Factory hands take their work with them at the close of the lawful day to eke out their scanty earnings by working overtime at home.”

-Jacob Riis, “The Sweaters of Jewtown” from How the Other Half Lives

NOW:

“The economics of the garment industry, like the market forces that govern much American enterprise, work against decent wages at the bottom because competition is fierce, margins are razor thin, and many employers feel vulnerable. … [Joe Zabounian] and his wife together took $5,000 or $6,000 a month out of their small, eighth-floor sewing loft called Adrienne, where about fifteen employees (down from twenty-two in better days) used old machines to stitch the hems and seams of evening gowns and other apparel more elegant than any of them could ever afford. … That black strapless gown on the rack would ultimately sell for $200 or $300, Joe figured, and he charged just $20 to sew it together, which was about 15 to 20 percent more than it cost him to make.”

-David K. Shipler, The Working Poor: Invisible in America

On a slightly different note, in a Summer ’05 Bitch magazine article about the use of sex in American Apparel‘s ads, writer Erica Wetter notes, “A company that has sold many of its fans on social responsibility lets its ostensibly progressive politics stop short when it comes to objectifying women. Then again, Charney remarked in a 2004 Los Angeles Business Journal article that he’s ‘getting a little bored’ with the emphasis on his company’s labor practices anyway.”

The Value of Media Education

Someone circulated a link to a Mediabistro article, “If Your Journalism School Says It Knows What’s Best For You, Check It Out,” on my department’s mailing list. As someone who will be graduating from journalism school this year, I read the article with interest.

Article writer Greg Lindsay argues the following:

You [2005 j-school graduate] thought you were buying a set of skills, credentials, and quality time with the placement office. And you did. But your professors also sold you a mindset, a worldview, an ideology — one in which newspapers are God’s work, bloggers are pagans, and your career trajectory is a long, steep, but ultimately meritocratic climb to a heavenly desk at The New York Times or 60 Minutes. …

Because journalism as we know it and j-schools are themselves caught up in a larger struggle for relevance. … You are the only hope for the future they’ve got; they’re desperate to make believers out of you.

Lindsay concludes that j-school professors should acknowledge what they do and do not teach. Are they teaching students to accept Journalism or are they teaching them to be aware of opportunities?

This past school year, my department brought in many established journalists to speak to me and my classmates. The majority had not studied journalism in school. They had degrees, bachelor’s and advanced degrees, in areas like English and philosophy. They got involved in journalism because they liked to write, they knew how to get and how to tell a story, and they were persistent.

I decided to go to j-school — despite warnings from a few people about the usefulness of such a move — because I wanted to learn the nuts and bolts of journalism. I knew I wasn’t going to get that anywhere else, not at my age.

I think the days of internships or entry-level positions where one learned on the job are over. I thought I wouldn’t be able to get an internship without any journalism experience, and I think my difficulties in finding an internship, even now with j-school experience, attests to how competitive the field is.

So do I regret going to j-school? Maybe I’ll feel differently once I graduate and have to start paying off my loans.

At this point, there are certain aspects of school that I’m dissatisfied with. I agree with Lindsay that j-school sometimes struggles to be relevant. For example, there’s a magazine production class in the fall. The class that teaches students how to be entrepreneurs — how to conceive of and develop a new magazine — is only offered this summer when most students are gone.

At the same time, I’m treating j-school as an experience like any other. There were times when I wasn’t happy with my undergraduate experience, but I took out of it what I could. There were times when I wasn’t happy with where I used to work, but I took out of it what I could. As with the other institutions I’ve been a part of, I’ve treated j-school with a degree of skepticism. So what that I haven’t been entirely happy there? I’ve learned by now that I always have options.

A Year Later

A year ago Saddam Hussein was captured. It’s hard to believe that a year has gone by since then. I still remember waking up to the news on the radio, it was either a Saturday or Sunday. When I heard Saddam had been captured, I got out of bed and turned on the TV to CNN. They were showing footage of him with his mouth open, being examined by a doctor. It seemed significant then, and I still think his capture was important. I don’t have a journal entry from that day, but I wish I knew whether or not I thought the war would end soon after.

In other news, an NPR reporter interviewed a soldier who had been court-martialed and then dishonorably discharged for “using abandoned vehicles to accomplish a support mission in Kuwait in 2003.” It’s worth a listen, especially if you heard about Rumsfeld being questioned by a soldier about a lack of proper equipment.

I know those of us who work have probably experienced what it’s like to not get support from a supervisor while trying to do our jobs. It angers me that soldiers are risking their lives in Iraq, and the government cannot even provide them with the tools to lower somewhat the risks they have to take. Let’s not pretend that their lives are completely disposable.