People Stand Up
A Sermon by Aaron McEmrys
Delivered to the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara, December 14, 2008
When I was in my very
early teens I was a Civil Air Patrol cadet, which is an auxiliary of the United
States Air Force. I had always dreamed
of a career in the military, and the Civil Air Patrol was great preparation for
making that dream come true.
We cadets wore Air
Force uniforms, learned how to drill, march, salute and even to fly gliders and
small aircraft. We were also often
called upon to support in search and rescue operations, like for missing planes
or hikers.
The summer camp
variation for CAP cadets in Wisconsin was a week at McCord Air Force Base,
where we would basically live like soldiers in a kind of boot camp-like
environment the whole time. Hard to
believe I chose to spend my free time that way, isn’t it? Long time ago.
We were all housed in
long metal framed barracks, hundreds of cadets from all over the Midwest,
formed into units and assigned commanding officers. Our commanding officer was the worst. He was an older boy, maybe seventeen or so, named Colonel
Schweissburger. No one knew what his
first name was, and to say he took his more or less imaginary rank of Colonel
seriously is to greatly understate matters.
A more pompous and overstuffed tyrant can scarcely be imagined – and he
seemed to like nothing more than to lord over and scare us.
Did I mention that I
chose to go to this camp?
Anyway, Schweissburger
used to wake us up every morning before dawn by smashing our barracks doors
open and pounding on a big stew pot with a huge steel ladle, bellowing insults
at us all the while like some kind of enraged bull. I think I can accurately state that there are very few less
appealing ways to wake up from a sound sleep.
One day we returned to
our barracks after marching around doing various soldierly things to find that
literally everything in our barracks, all our clothes, blankets, even
mattresses had been stripped from the barracks and strewn all over the road and
the muddy field outside. I can’t
describe the sense of violation and shame we felt as other units of cadets
marched by as we went around pulling our bed sheets out of mud puddles. And there was Schweissburger with a sneer on
his face and a gleam in his pig-like eyes.
This was our collective punishment for not having our boots shiny enough
or because quarters wouldn’t bounce on our beds.
Looking at
Schweissburger something in my started to boil over. Back in the barracks, I first persuaded my friend Leto and then
the rest of our unit to strike back.
Everyone was pretty demoralized and some of the younger boys were hiding
tears, clearly just wanting to go home.
But once they heard the plan, everyone started smiling.
That night we divided
into teams. The people who were best at
shining boots were on boot detail; the cadets best at making beds were on bed
detail. We also had bathroom detail;
floor detail and even watchers to make sure no one would come by and see what
we were up to. We were up by 3am,
working silently in dim glow of muted flashlights, and by 5am everything was
ready.
“He’s coming” one of
our watchers hissed, and we all jumped into place. Seconds later, the tyrant Schweissburger crashed through the
doors, turned on the lights, ladle raised for his customary banging – but his
hand never fell. He just stood there
dumbly like something very heavy had just fallen on his head.
And there we were, two
long rows of boys in full uniform, standing at attention next to our immaculate
beds in our immaculate shoes on our shining and immaculate floor. “Present arms”, I called and two long rows
of arms snapped into a salute. But it
was not a submissive salute, and Schweissburger could feel it. The balance was shifted – we were not afraid
of him anymore, we were all standing together, and he knew it. At that moment he ceased being a scary bully
in a blue uniform and was revealed as a seventeen-year-old blowhard in costume
– insecure, fearful and probably very lonely.
That was that. From that moment on, we had a great time at
camp. Schweissburger was still
nominally in charge, but our group of boys had become a team, a real team, and
we knew that as long as we stuck together, we’d be just fine.
That was the first
time in my life that I experienced what can happen when a bunch of ordinary
people, no matter how weak, decide to stand up together.
And boy is this a time
when people need to come together.
We are in the midst of
the worst economic crisis in living memory.
Hundreds of thousands of people are losing their jobs, losing their
homes and losing their hope. The New
York Times recently reported that over 600,000 people have just been dropped
from the unemployment rolls – not because they have found work, but because
they have given up even trying to find work.
These are tough times,
scary times, and so our government has embarked on the biggest series of
bailouts in American history, with hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars
providing life support to whole industries, industries that, like the auto and financial
industries, have mostly ended up in a freefall (and the rest of us with them)
of their own making, and fueled by their shortsightedness, greed and excess.
But still, as bitter
as I sometimes feel about bailing these folks out, I know that if we d not,
than many more innocent people will lose everything.
I do, however, think
it is worth looking at whom, exactly is getting bailed out and who is not. For the most part it is large corporations
holding out their hands in Congress, corporations whose CEOs continue to rake
in more than 821 times as much as the millions of good people who are
struggling to get by day by day in their minimum wage jobs.[1] Most of these CEOs are not being fired and
not being ordered to return any of their ill-gotten gains. They just hold out their hands and say,
“please sir, may I have some more?” Meanwhile somewhere around 1.5 million
families are expected to lose their homes this year.[2] But even as many in Congress still oppose
providing aid to these families because they don’t want to reward the bad
decisions overextended homeowners made in buying houses they couldn’t afford, a
prominent Wall Street tycoon who has been charged with stealing over 50 BILLION
dollars from investors, faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in jail and a
paltry 5 million dollar fine! [3] I guess crime does pay.
My friends, if there
has ever been a time for standing up – that time is now.
Which brings me to why
I put my other sermon on hold for a while and am preaching this one instead.
You see something
happened to me this Tuesday that made it impossible for me to preach any sermon
but this one, even though I had already put in quite a few hours on the other
one. This Tuesday I was in Chicago,
that strange place where they send their Senators to the White House and their
Governors to jail, I was praying with the heroes.
Yesterday, in Chicago,
Illinois, that strange place where they send their Senators to the White House
and their Governors to jail – I got to pray with the heroes.
I was in Chicago for
my first meeting as a member of Interfaith Worker Justice’s board of directors.
IWJ is a network of people of faith from many different traditions that works
to educate, organize and mobilize religious communities around issues and campaigns that will improve wages,
benefits, and conditions for workers, and give voice to workers, especially
workers in low-wage jobs.
We were doing all the
usual things that happen at Board meetings – reviewing programs, talking about
funding (or the lack thereof) and charting the course ahead – when we heard
that the workers at Republic Windows and Doors had asked us to come down to
their plant to pray with them.
I can understand why
those folks might be in a praying mood.
About a week ago the
owners of their company announced that they were closing their doors for good,
saying that orders for doors and windows had dropped off. They gave their two hundred and fifty
employees just three days notice - even though the law requires sixty. They
also withheld the pay the workers had already earned, over a million dollars
worth.
The company claimed
they couldn’t pay the workers because their bank, Bank of America, refused to
extend them any more credit. Talk about
adding insult to injury - this is the very same Bank of America that had just
been given 25 billion dollars of taxpayer bailout money! The company, meanwhile, had quietly
purchased a new factory in Iowa, where they could get away with paying their
employees as much as two thirds less than what they had to pay in Chicago.[4]
Enough was enough.
The workers occupied
the plant. Following the example of the
famous autoworker strike of 1936, the workers of Republic Windows and Doors
simply sat down and refused to move!
They’d already been
there for five days by the time we went to pray with them. They “work” in eight hour shifts, and are
very well-organized, with cleaning crews, food crews and everything else they
need to stay in there indefinitely.
Nobody gets in or out except them - and, on this occasion – us.
We arrived at the
plant and stepped out into a very cold grey rain that got even colder after
you’d been standing in it for a while.
There were already lots of folks gathered there: union members, people
of faith and other well-wishers who’d been standing in the rain and would keep
on standing in the rain for as long as necessary.
Republic’s production
floor is a big one any day, but with all the machines shut down it seemed even
bigger, emptier and more cavernous. But
it was warm and bright after the relentless chill outside – at least nobody had
cut the power on them yet.
We all went our own
ways, shaking hands and talking with the workers, many of whom didn’t have a
ton of English but held out hands warmly and said, God bless you…God bless
you…God bless you.” I speak plenty of
English, but those were pretty much the only words I could find too.
In movies heroes are
always portrayed as being special somehow – brilliant, powerful, beautiful,
fearless, larger than life – but that’s not how life really is. The heroes I have been fortunate enough to
meet in my life are never like that – they are always so normal. So ordinary. Just…people, like anyone else.
And those are exactly
the kind of heroes I met on Republic’s factory floor. Just ordinary folks. And
they were far from fearless, in their eyes and in their hands I could feel
anxiety and fear as well as hope – and it was the hope that kept them going in
spite of everything. Courageous people
are not those who feel no fear (those people are fools), but those who keep on
in spite of their fear – and those are the people I met inside Republic – truly
courageous people.
And they weren’t just
doing it for themselves, just to get what they are owed, these ordinary people,
mostly from Mexico, Central America and Chicago’s South side. It was so clear, visiting with them, that
they understand themselves to be taking a stand for everybody! They are standing up for everybody who gets
treated like dirt, whose wages are stolen and whose rights are denied. They are standing up against a system that
bails out millionaires while families lose their homes and children go to bed
hungry.
The workers moved
together, into the center of the circle formed by we clergy. We laid our hands upon them and prayed. Some of the prayer was spontaneous and aloud
– and much of it was silent.
I will always remember
the texture of the fleece and t-shirts under my hands, and the human warmth
beneath that. I will always remember
the prayers – of courage, hope, love and healing - I will always remember the
sound of breathing and the taste of tears.
Words cannot possibly describe what happened in that little circle, but
I will never forget what that inexpressible something felt like. We were together
in that moment – and our circle was so much bigger than we were – somehow
expanding to include all those who stood outside in the rain… and even farther
than that…the circle stretched even farther than that…. and with such warmth
and love and connectedness flowing through my body I opened my eyes and,
through my own tears, saw that almost every face was wet.
As we finished our
prayers, an old African American man who has worked at Republic for decades,
took my hand and, holding it just like this said, smiling through his tears, “I
don’t know what what’s gonna happen now, but there are blessings all around
us.”
This, I thought, yes,
this what is possible for us! This is
what union looks like. These are my sisters and brothers, every single one of
them, just as all of you are my sisters and brothers - and in that moment it
was impossible to imagine letting harm come to them, to these good, brave –
ordinary heroes!
Finally, on December
11, 2008, the members of local 1110 of the United Electrical Workers Union
called an end to their strike after six long days in their factory. Collapsing under massive public pressure
Bank of America has agreed to pay the workers the 1.75 million dollars they are
owed, and the workers are now trying to find a way to buy Republic Windows and
Doors themselves so they can keep the doors open.[5]
In one of history’s
little twists, Wal-Mart, at almost exactly the same time Bank of America gave
in, agreed to pay their current and former employees more than 54 million
dollars that it had stolen from them.[6]
This, my sisters and
brothers, is what is possible when people stand up.
But we can’t stop
here. As far as I am concerned, any
bailout that does not also help families stay in their homes, have enough food
to eat and make sure people can go to the doctor when they are sick is unconscionable,
intolerable and downright sinful!
Any system that
shovels hundreds of billions of dollars to the rich in the hopes that some of
it will trickle down to the people whose futures are vanishing before their
very eyes is both misguided and cruel. We
Unitarian Universalists must insist on lifting up the inherent worth and
dignity of all people, and we must challenge any power that seeks to do
otherwise.
We must work to pass
the Employee Free Choice Act into law, which will protect workers who stand up
for themselves from coercion and retaliation.
We must work to replace the minimum wage with a living wage, so
everybody who works full time can live lives of health, security and dignity. We must work to make Universal Healthcare a
reality, so that everyone can get the care they need and deserve.
This is what inherent
worth and dignity looks like. This is
what it looks like to heed the ancient Hebrew Psalmist who called us to "Give justice to the weak and the orphan;
maintain the rights of the lowly and the destitute. Rescue the weak
and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked."[7]
And we can do it.
Just as a bunch of gangly teenage boys stood up in the face of a petty
tyrant; just as the workers of Republic Windows and Doors stood up in the face
of a bailout that bailed out everyone but them – so to can we stand up
together. We can make a difference, we
can live our values – we just have to stand up.
So let’s do it, folks
– let’s stand up.
Amen.
[1] Lawrence Mishel, “CEO pay-to
Minimum Wage Soars”, A report by the Economic Policy Institute, June 27, 2006.
http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_20060627
[2] Bob Ivory “Home
Foreclosures May Hit 1.5 Million in Housing Bust”, Bloomberg News, December 12,
2008 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ahwzaBwuNaII&refer=home
[3] Diana Henriques and Zachary Kouwe, “Prominent Trader Accused of Defrauding Clients” New York Times, December 11, 2008 Timeshttp://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/business/12scheme.html?scp=1&sq=50%20billion%20dollar%20scam&st=cse
[4] David Moberg, “Republic’s Battle Cry”, in In These Times, December 10, 2008 http://www.inthesetimes.com/mobile/article/republics_battle_cry/
[5] Micheal Luo, “Sit-In at
Factory Ends With Two Loan Agreements.” New York Times, December 11, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/11/us/11factory.html?scp=3&sq=republic%20windows&st=cse
[6] Steve Alexander, Minneapolis Star Tribune, “Wal Mart to Pay 54 Million to Settle Suit Over Unpaid Work” December 9, 2008 http://www.startribune.com/business/35819094.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aU7EaDiaMDCiUZ
[7] Psalm 82:3-4 (NRSV)