The Manhattan User's Guide (MUG) is a great example of what the Web has done for us. MUG's daily pushes give those of us who live or work in New York tips about interesting things happening in the city. Their MUGWeekend edition always delivers some overlooked urban morsel.
So, imagine how surprised I was to see this photo headlining this morning's email. 
Yup, Eleanor Roosevelt. Today's edition is entitled, "On Pins and Needles" and here it is in its entirety:
The Eleanor Roosevelt statue at the 72nd Street entrance to Riverside Park is easily the most conversational sculpture in the city. Through posture and demeanor, artist Penelope Jencks evokes a warm, wise companion who invites confidences. Hillary Clinton was mocked for her talks with Mrs. R. but we find it impossible to pass by this marvelous statue without at least a brief telepathic chat.
When we saw her recently, it was Mrs. Roosevelt who had something to say, and so we listened. She began by reminding us of her longstanding ties to the Women’s Trade Union League and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, both of which did so much to improve labor conditions in this city and elsewhere.
Woven into this city's very fabric, she admonished us, is the fight for, and commitment to, the rights of workers. "Go back as far as the 1677 carters’ strike, remember the 1874 Tompkins Square Riot." (That was a workers rally in the park with over 10,000 participants calling for unemployment relief. It ended with a massacre by police.) "Recall that the first Labor Day parade in 1882, in which 30,000 workers marched, was held in New York. There was the uprising of the 20,000 female shirtwaist makers here in 1909 for better working conditions. Remember your heritage."
It is this heritage that troubled MUG so much about the arrival of Home Depot last year. That company has a sorry record of mistreating its workers, as well as its customers. And it’s why we are so aghast at the idea of Wal-Mart setting up shop here.
There's nothing wrong, in our view, with large retailers – this city, after all, gave rise to the department store. And it isn't that these behemoths are category killers, pushing out the mom and pops – which they are and which they do. Ultimately, we think the market should decide.
But Wal-Mart is a different matter. It is the antithesis of everything for which New York has stood and for which it should stand. Consider:
Low wages force many Wal-Mart employees to turn to the government for food, housing and other assistance. The company offers health insurance for fewer than half its employees. In Georgia, for example, over 10,000 of Wal-Mart’s employees were on Medicaid – fourteen times the number of people of the next highest employer. In Florida, more than 12,300 Wal-Mart employees are eligible for Medicaid. Wal-Mart is facing lawsuits alleging exploitation of illegal immigrants. Child labor law violations. Unfair pay and unequal promotion for women prompting a gender discrimination class action suit. Outsourcing to China (Tom Friedman’s enthusiasm for outsourcing in his book The World is Flat notwithstanding). Anti-union intimidation. Racial discrimination.
Supporters say Wal-Mart offers a choice for consumers, who appreciate the low prices – and nobody loves a bargain more than New Yorkers. There’s no doubt that Wal-Mart's prices are low; the issue is how they got that way and at what human cost. That’s where Mrs. Roosevelt would have a problem, that’s where Wal-Mart can not pass the smell test. Mrs. R. would have us, sometimes, vote our principles over our pocketbook.
In the last few months, Vornado Realty Trust dropped plans to include the city’s first Wal-Mart in a Rego Park development. But the retailer is still looking to bully its way into the five boroughs and they will, if they're not stopped. To learn more or get involved, go to Wal-Mart Free NYC and Walmart Watch. Tell them Mrs. Roosevelt sent you.
I've heard a lot of anti-Wal*Mart pleas before, but this one struck a very personal chord.
That's because my mother was a life-long member of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU.) My mother made coats in small factories. The people who worked in those factories were the ones the union was formed to protect. They worked very hard. My mom worked in one of these factories, Eagle Sportswear in the Bronx, for about 20 years. I worked there myself one sweaty summer, just before embarking for southwestern Ohio.
Eagle Sportswear's conditions were neither pleasant, nor awful; dusty, noisy and hot in summer and winter, as the presses pumped steam into the air ten, twelve hours a day. Like my mother, the people who worked there were almost all immigrants, mostly Italians or Russian or German Jews. They worked hard and earned a living that allowed them to live mid-century middle-class lives, which included sending their children off to college in states none of them had ever seen.
Their work was magnificent. They made beautiful cashmere coats none of them could afford to wear (unless Eagle's owner, Leo, chose to give them a deep employee discount, like he did for my mother, who cherished hers.) There was no labor strife; these were people happy to work for a boss happy to have them. In that regard, they were all fortunate.
Labor unions are out of fashion today. Ask most non-union affiliated Americans their opinions of unions and they'll probably shake their heads a bit, frown and, if old enough, conjure up unsavory images. Union membership is at record lows.
American manufacturing is also out of fashion today. Ask any economist, who'll tell you that the global flow of capital is agnostic concerning "nations." Capital seeks high rates of return, driven predominantly by low cost. Ask Wal*Mart's executives, who'll explain that "the market" is unsentimentally bargain-focused.
So, in America, both sides of the historic battle between union and management are disappearing. Some manufacturing remains, but its global competitiveness is constantly under pressure; it's as if we've outgrown making things, like kids who've outgrown Legos. We, literally, can't afford the time it takes to make things, since an American's time, the time we waste so much of, is so valuable.
But, I can't help getting a gnawing feeling when I read something like the MUG piece. Don't we all shake our heads and lament these awful changes and then head to Wal*Mart for cheap anti-freeze?
I keep having this gnawing feeling that our reactions to Wal*Mart are projections of something we feel about ourselves; maybe our anger at ourselves for losing so much while chasing the dreams we've sold one another; for ignoring the economic, social and ecological consequences of our actions; for simply being too lazy to do anything else.
Which got me thinking about...
A person or group that is made to bear blame for others. According to the Old Testament, on the Day of Atonement, a priest would confess all the sins of the Israelites over the head of a goat and then drive it into the wilderness, symbolically bearing their sins away.
Eleanor, what the hell ever became of black and white?
Update: I'm reading Daniel Pink's book A Whole New Mind, and came upon this quote from Fast Company:
The United States Spends more on trash bags than ninety other countries spend on everything. In other words, the receptacles of our waste cost more than all of the goods consumed by nearly half of the world's nations.
Although they're clearly enablers, it's hard to blame Wal*Mart for a problem of this magnitude.
As you know, I look out over Eleanor's likeness from my apartment. After being out of the city for a year or so, I returned one spring day to lean out a window and hear Hillary Clinton dedicating the statute, as a noisey crowd packed the area. And I surveyed the feminist wonder out my window and said, "This is good. This is very good. This is New York."
I joined a union, SAG, after leaving corporate and it was thrilling. I finally felt as if I were doing an honest day's work.
Posted by: Connie Sartain | April 27, 2005 at 10:12 AM