https://foundsf.org/api.php?hidebots=1&days=7&limit=50&action=feedrecentchanges&feedformat=atomFoundSF - Recent changes [en]2024-03-19T06:43:45ZTrack the most recent changes to the wiki in this feed.MediaWiki 1.39.1https://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Esprit_de_Corpse&diff=36569&oldid=36568Esprit de Corpse2024-03-17T05:40:05Z<p></p>
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<td colspan="2" style="background-color: #fff; color: #202122; text-align: center;">← Older revision</td>
<td colspan="2" style="background-color: #fff; color: #202122; text-align: center;">Revision as of 22:40, 16 March 2024</td>
</tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-lineno" id="mw-diff-left-l17">Line 17:</td>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>The substance of fashion is in its perception. The designer sees the design refracted through the consumers' eyes. The world of fashion is also one of contradictions and illusion. Ordinary people doing ordinary things become extraordinary; advertisement and ideology become blurred. Dreams and dollars collide and scatter new fashions and forms in their wake.</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>The substance of fashion is in its perception. The designer sees the design refracted through the consumers' eyes. The world of fashion is also one of contradictions and illusion. Ordinary people doing ordinary things become extraordinary; advertisement and ideology become blurred. Dreams and dollars collide and scatter new fashions and forms in their wake.</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>A case in point is Esprit de Corp. It is a dream: of its owners—or perhaps the label "parents" better describes Doug and Susie Tompkins—its consumers and the fashion oracles. It practices what it preaches and it never never tells the truth.</div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>A case in point is <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">[[ESPRIT: Sweatshops Behind the Labels|</ins>Esprit de Corp<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">]]</ins>. It is a dream: of its owners—or perhaps the label "parents" better describes Doug and Susie Tompkins—its consumers and the fashion oracles. It practices what it preaches and it never never tells the truth.</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>Which came first: The current marital problems of the Esprit owners or the divergent views of the company's product? This is perhaps a conundrum on the order of the egg and the chicken, for the polarity of their relation has to all accounts been part and parcel of both success and failure.</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>Which came first: The current marital problems of the Esprit owners or the divergent views of the company's product? This is perhaps a conundrum on the order of the egg and the chicken, for the polarity of their relation has to all accounts been part and parcel of both success and failure.</div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-lineno" id="mw-diff-left-l55">Line 55:</td>
<td colspan="2" class="diff-lineno">Line 55:</td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>Yet Esprit is far more than bold architecture—it is a sort of corporate utopia. It boasts its own gourmet cafe, a greenhouse, a small park, even a lawn tennis court (the only one in Northern California). On its walls hangs perhaps the world's foremost collection of Amish quilts, as well as exhibits of photos from exotic lands. To keep all this impeccable and orderly, Esprit hires full-time landscapers, carpenters, even an architect or two. And moving gracefully through this stylish complex like bright colored tropical fish are the Esprit executives themselves: predominantly healthy lithe, nubile, young women, attired in bold, modern styles and chic Italian shoes (to keep them healthy, lithe and nubile Esprit employs a full-time fitness director).</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>Yet Esprit is far more than bold architecture—it is a sort of corporate utopia. It boasts its own gourmet cafe, a greenhouse, a small park, even a lawn tennis court (the only one in Northern California). On its walls hangs perhaps the world's foremost collection of Amish quilts, as well as exhibits of photos from exotic lands. To keep all this impeccable and orderly, Esprit hires full-time landscapers, carpenters, even an architect or two. And moving gracefully through this stylish complex like bright colored tropical fish are the Esprit executives themselves: predominantly healthy lithe, nubile, young women, attired in bold, modern styles and chic Italian shoes (to keep them healthy, lithe and nubile Esprit employs a full-time fitness director).</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>As if to cement my first impressions, my smiling Esprit coworkers happily informed me that all the rave media reviews (Newsweek , Us Magazine, and so forth) of Esprit are true. I was told that Esprit is a progressive company that cares about its workers; that it hires diverse, "international" people; that it believes in health and youthful vigor; and that it is a darn fun place to work where employees dress and act just as they wish (so long as they're stylish). And what's more 'exciting' —Esprit is on the verge of becoming a fashion empire like Levi-Strauss. In addition to some 2,000 San Francisco employees, Esprit has set up shop in over twenty foreign countries.</div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>As if to cement my first impressions, my smiling Esprit coworkers happily informed me that all the rave media reviews (<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">''</ins>Newsweek, Us Magazine<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">''</ins>, and so forth) of Esprit are true. I was told that Esprit is a progressive company that cares about its workers; that it hires diverse, "international" people; that it believes in health and youthful vigor; and that it is a darn fun place to work where employees dress and act just as they wish (so long as they're stylish). And what's more 'exciting' —Esprit is on the verge of becoming a fashion empire like <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">[[LEVI's, Too?!?|</ins>Levi-Strauss<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">]]</ins>. In addition to some 2,000 San Francisco employees, Esprit has set up shop in over twenty foreign countries.</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>But the more I saw, the more doubtful I became. Whisk aside the saccharine Esprit public relations and you find something quite unglamorous: an old fashioned, anti-union, anti-worker company run by a man who discriminates against the old and unattractive, who has no qualms about doing business in South Africa and Chile, and whose success is based on paying slave wages to foreign textile workers.</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>But the more I saw, the more doubtful I became. Whisk aside the saccharine Esprit public relations and you find something quite unglamorous: an old fashioned, anti-union, anti-worker company run by a man who discriminates against the old and unattractive, who has no qualms about doing business in South Africa and Chile, and whose success is based on paying slave wages to foreign textile workers.</div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-lineno" id="mw-diff-left-l81">Line 81:</td>
<td colspan="2" class="diff-lineno">Line 81:</td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>The best way to describe the brave new world at Esprit is, in fact, 'see no evil, hear no evil.' Whatever its shortcomings, Esprit continues to be inundated with resumes from credulous young grads who are attracted to the company's image. Esprit is even now planning to build a "campus-like Esprit City" for its deserving executives. And Esprit continues to present itself as a populist organization by using 'real people' in its ads (which greatly cuts down on modeling costs).</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>The best way to describe the brave new world at Esprit is, in fact, 'see no evil, hear no evil.' Whatever its shortcomings, Esprit continues to be inundated with resumes from credulous young grads who are attracted to the company's image. Esprit is even now planning to build a "campus-like Esprit City" for its deserving executives. And Esprit continues to present itself as a populist organization by using 'real people' in its ads (which greatly cuts down on modeling costs).</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>Such a real person is Ariel O'Donnell, a San Francisco waitress who had the good fortune of serving Doug and Susie one evening. Over the next several days she was ushered into the Esprit head quarters for a photography session and an interview. Her face appeared in Esprit ads in Mademoiselle, Glamour. Vanity Fair, Elle and Metropolitan Home. The caption in the ads reads: Ariel O'Donnell, San Francisco, California. Age 21. Waitress/Bartender. Non professional AIDS Educator. Cyclist. Art Restoration Student. Anglophile. Neo-Feminist. Clearly a model citizen of the Esprit utopia.</div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>Such a real person is Ariel O'Donnell, a San Francisco waitress who had the good fortune of serving Doug and Susie one evening. Over the next several days she was ushered into the Esprit head quarters for a photography session and an interview. Her face appeared in Esprit ads in <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">''</ins>Mademoiselle, Glamour. Vanity Fair, Elle<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">'' </ins>and <ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">''</ins>Metropolitan Home<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">''</ins>. The caption in the ads reads: Ariel O'Donnell, San Francisco, California. Age 21. Waitress/Bartender. Non professional AIDS Educator. Cyclist. Art Restoration Student. Anglophile. Neo-Feminist. Clearly a model citizen of the Esprit utopia.</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>In fact, however, a 1987 issue of Image magazine reported O'Donnell's true biography like this: "Waitress, bartender and cyclist are factual descriptions. Non-professional AIDS educator and neo-feminist, O'Donnell assumes, were extrapolations from her interview remark. 'No longer can we be sexually free. We have to be safe. So if I were sleeping with someone new, I'd insist he use a condom.' An interest in art restoration became ·an art restoration student.</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>In fact, however, a 1987 issue of Image magazine reported O'Donnell's true biography like this: "Waitress, bartender and cyclist are factual descriptions. Non-professional AIDS educator and neo-feminist, O'Donnell assumes, were extrapolations from her interview remark. 'No longer can we be sexually free. We have to be safe. So if I were sleeping with someone new, I'd insist he use a condom.' An interest in art restoration became ·an art restoration student.</div></td></tr>
</table>Ccarlssonhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Esprit_de_Corpse&diff=36568&oldid=0Esprit de Corpse2024-03-17T05:34:03Z<p>Created page with "'''<font face = Papyrus> <font color = maroon> <font size = 4>"I was there..."</font></font> </font>''' :''"Foundsf.org is republishing a series of "Tales of Toil" that appeared in <a href="/index.php?title=Processed_World:_A_Political_History" title="Processed World: A Political History">''Processed World magazine''</a> between 1981 and 2004. As first-hand accounts of what it was like working at various jobs during those years, these accounts provide a unique view into an aspect of labor history rarely archived, or shared.'' ''—from Pro..."</p>
<p><b>New page</b></p><div>'''<font face = Papyrus> <font color = maroon> <font size = 4>"I was there..."</font></font> </font>'''<br />
<br />
:''"Foundsf.org is republishing a series of "Tales of Toil" that appeared in [[Processed World: A Political History|''Processed World magazine'']] between 1981 and 2004. As first-hand accounts of what it was like working at various jobs during those years, these accounts provide a unique view into an aspect of labor history rarely archived, or shared.''<br />
<br />
''—from Processed World #23, published in Winter, 1988.''<br />
<br />
[[Image:Esprit-title-processedworld23.jpg]]<br />
<br />
''Introduction by Primitivo Morales''<br />
<br />
::"It's like if I see a fat, ugly girl walking down the street in an Esprit sweatshirt. I don't want that kind of advertising."<br />
:::—Doug Tompkins, co-owner of Esprit<br />
<br />
::"These are not clothes for people who sit behind desks every day and hate their jobs."<br />
:::—Tom Direnzo, Esprit outlet manager<br />
<br />
The substance of fashion is in its perception. The designer sees the design refracted through the consumers' eyes. The world of fashion is also one of contradictions and illusion. Ordinary people doing ordinary things become extraordinary; advertisement and ideology become blurred. Dreams and dollars collide and scatter new fashions and forms in their wake.<br />
<br />
A case in point is Esprit de Corp. It is a dream: of its owners—or perhaps the label "parents" better describes Doug and Susie Tompkins—its consumers and the fashion oracles. It practices what it preaches and it never never tells the truth.<br />
<br />
Which came first: The current marital problems of the Esprit owners or the divergent views of the company's product? This is perhaps a conundrum on the order of the egg and the chicken, for the polarity of their relation has to all accounts been part and parcel of both success and failure.<br />
<br />
The company is virulently anti-union, a feeling dating back to the Tompkins' creation of the Great Chinese American Sewing Co. in San Francisco. Following an ILGWU attempt at organizing, the Tompkins fired a worker who signed a union card, and then closed the plant entirely. The union won a lawsuit (after 10 years) and collected $1.25 million in back wages. Since then, Esprit has relocated its production to offshore trade zones. Apparently the workers who actually produce the clothes are excluded from the mandate of former Senior Vice President Thomas Moncho: "It's a sin here not to develop your potential."<br />
<br />
Esprit retail clerks must look elsewhere for development subsidies: the hourly wage (in 1987) at the SF store (gross sales of $20 million) is a munificent $5.00-down from $5.50! The salesworkers are sold discounted shirts but are required to wear black slacks and dark socks and shoes.<br />
<br />
The designers of image, however, fared better—the corporate headquarters boasts many amenities, as well as subsidized vacations and the use of company facilities. Perhaps the method to this discrimination is found in the effort to shape The Image, which 1s everything in this business.<br />
<br />
The image began to tarnish in late 1986, as problems emerged. Said one observer, "Suddenly Esprit ran into this incredible wall of consumer resistance." Although sales remained flat, profits fell by 80%. The expansion into retail stores foundered; overseas sales were doing well (in places like Chile) but remitted insufficient funds to the home office. There have been wholesale replacements of personnel at senior levels, the introduction of executives from other fashion companies, and a new sales force. With the prospect of reduced profits, the company showed its professional staff the same courtesies it had previously bestowed only on garment workers—a 30% layoff, wages and bonus reductions, warehouse closings, and extensive "perk" rollbacks. Employees now buy their own coffee and pay for personal phone calls. The days are gone when a manager, considered to be "negative and burnt out," would be sent on a European trip in the hope that she would conclude that she no longer belonged at Esprit.<br />
<br />
According to Susie, "Doug has always known we'd get through... he doesn't ever think things will get out of his control."<br />
<br />
And control is indeed a central concept here. Says Patagonia owner Yvon Chouinard, one of Mr. Tompkins' closest friends, "Doug is not an Evel Knievel type. Before he jumps, he knows he can do it." Behind the "carefree" and "breezy" look of the fashion, behind the amicable surroundings and benevolent attentions is an overpowering need for domination and an almost obsessive attention to detail.<br />
<br />
He once told his workers, “If ask you what books you’ve read to stimulate your brains, what adventures you’ve had… what love affair was fulfilling… like good coaches, we want answers and actions.” Of his alleged “septigon” of sexual relationships among Esprit employees, according to author Leonard Koren, “He believes that if you want to harness [sic] the entire employee, you have to engage the entire being.” Could it be the emperor of old fashioned harassment and self-indulgence dressed up in new age clothes?<br />
<br />
Management style differs as much as Image management, with Ms. Tompkins favoring a more “career” look, maturing the line with the customer. Says she, “I’m the product person and that’s what I fight for.” She professes to have outgrown the leisure lifestyle, and she is deeply concerned with AIDS and the homeless (wouldn’t it be “nice” if her concern extended to Esprit’s far-flung employees?).<br />
<br />
Mr. Tompkins continues to look to youth as the icon of fashion and sex. He prefers the vision of Esprit’s photographer Olivero Toscani, saying “This company will never have a career orientation. Will I listen to Toscani before I listen to Susie? You bet. He’s the image maker and she isn’t.”<br />
<br />
Said Corrado Federico, chief operating officer of Esprit’s flagging fortunes, “You an have all the image and panache in the world, but without substance forget it.” Substance, in the world of fashion?<br />
<br />
Come with us now into the twilight between image and reality.<br />
<br />
<hr><br />
<br />
[[Image:Desprit processedworld23.jpg]]<br />
<br />
''By Dan Herman''<br />
<br />
The chic tanned receptionist took in my surplus pea coat and weathered boots with disdainful curiosity, wondering what might possess this rustic intruder to pose as a new employee of Esprit De Corp., San Francisco's homegrown fashion capital. Indeed I felt none too sure myself. My career plans hardly included typing business letters for the trendsetter of flashy fashions for the 1980's. But as I explained to the young woman, I was a mere transient in the church of trendiness having been taken aboard as a temporary word processor.<br />
<br />
Once admitted to the inner sanctum, I saw immediately that the creator of Esprit had no love of things convention al. Esprit is the mission control of haute couture: a cathedral-like assemblage of glass walls and redwood beams; every chair made of wicker and every desk made of oak; and resting appropriately atop each, state-of-the-art computers of all shapes and sizes.<br />
<br />
Yet Esprit is far more than bold architecture—it is a sort of corporate utopia. It boasts its own gourmet cafe, a greenhouse, a small park, even a lawn tennis court (the only one in Northern California). On its walls hangs perhaps the world's foremost collection of Amish quilts, as well as exhibits of photos from exotic lands. To keep all this impeccable and orderly, Esprit hires full-time landscapers, carpenters, even an architect or two. And moving gracefully through this stylish complex like bright colored tropical fish are the Esprit executives themselves: predominantly healthy lithe, nubile, young women, attired in bold, modern styles and chic Italian shoes (to keep them healthy, lithe and nubile Esprit employs a full-time fitness director).<br />
<br />
As if to cement my first impressions, my smiling Esprit coworkers happily informed me that all the rave media reviews (Newsweek , Us Magazine, and so forth) of Esprit are true. I was told that Esprit is a progressive company that cares about its workers; that it hires diverse, "international" people; that it believes in health and youthful vigor; and that it is a darn fun place to work where employees dress and act just as they wish (so long as they're stylish). And what's more 'exciting' —Esprit is on the verge of becoming a fashion empire like Levi-Strauss. In addition to some 2,000 San Francisco employees, Esprit has set up shop in over twenty foreign countries.<br />
<br />
But the more I saw, the more doubtful I became. Whisk aside the saccharine Esprit public relations and you find something quite unglamorous: an old fashioned, anti-union, anti-worker company run by a man who discriminates against the old and unattractive, who has no qualms about doing business in South Africa and Chile, and whose success is based on paying slave wages to foreign textile workers.<br />
<br />
The spiritual and financial force behind Esprit is Doug Tompkins, the 45-year old president and owner (along with wife Susie) of the company. Babyfaced, silver-haired, trim and tanned, he seems the distillation of the Esprit ideal: fun-loving, lighthearted, yet success-oriented. In keeping with Esprit's 'fitness' consciousness, he spends only about half the year on the job. The rest of the time he jaunts around the world to climb mountains, run rapids, and consort with other high-powered fashion industry types.<br />
<br />
Yct like most everything else at Esprit, the real Doug Tompkins sharply contrasts with the image of Doug Tompkins. Doug master-minded the image of the friendly, happy Espriter, yet he remains aloof and enigmatic to his workers. Most Espriters refer to him as "Doug," but few know him well enough to say hello. He occasionally dines with upper-echelon employees, but he scarcely notices the rank and file, and he smiles only in photographs. His employees reason that the pressures of the industry keep him preoccupied. In any event, most agree that his diffidence is surely not symptomatic of low self-esteem.<br />
<br />
Despite the fact that Doug spends little time at Esprit, he controls the cosmetic details of the premises with totalitarian fervor. Doug demands final approval of any new furnishings, lighting, even small accessories like typing stands.<br />
<br />
Another cosmetic detail to which Doug pays inordinate attention is hiring policy. “When I first arrived at Esprit, I asked a coworker why everyone looked under 21. She shrugged, assuring me that many were closer to 25 (she herself was 19). Almost without exception Esprit hires the bright, cheery-faced young people you might see in Club Med ads. It is easy to imagine that Esprit manufactures its cute employees in Hong Kong right alongside its cotton v-necks and acetate skirts. The assembly line does not, however, tend to produce many blacks, Hispanics or middle-aged employees.<br />
<br />
Whatever their age or race, the company treats all workers the same: like children. High-heeled shoes are banned (ostensibly they could damage the wooden floor); workers are forbidden to bring snacks or open beverages near the work area (special mugs with hinged lids are provided); workers may not wear clothing with flashy logos other than Esprit, etc. With all the rules, Esprit could easily be mistaken for a boarding school. On the wall in the cafe hangs a framed aphorism that sums up the atmosphere of the place; "Please pick up after yourself, your mother doesn't work here."<br />
<br />
In fact, your mother couldn't get a job here—she would be too old. But more to the point, your mother wouldn't want to work at Esprit for fear of breaking her neck. It is a good thing indeed that Esprit stresses youth and fitness, because Espriters must be agile and well-coordinated to avoid slipping down the narrow stairways of polished wood. Workers say that Doug refuses to mar their treacherous beauty with traction strips (just about everyone recalls falling down the stairs at least once).<br />
<br />
Likewise, Espriters must be quick-witted enough to dodge a glass partition now and then (Doug believes in the illusion of openness and communication among workers, and thus installed glass walls. The glass also offers the advantage of exhibiting Doug's stable of colorful employees—rather like a Macy's window display). Visitors at Esprit, conspicuous by their clumsiness, often see walls materialize within inches of their faces, which is usually too late.<br />
<br />
And if invisible walls and slippery stairs aren't enough to keep Espriters agile and alert, there are the wicker chairs, which sounds harmless enough until you have sat in one for a day. Only then do you realize that Espriters must have especially strong backs, since their chairs give no support whatsoever. Esprit once supplied workers with dull, old office chairs but Doug tossed them out in favor of the cute but rickety wicker. Workers sometimes complain of chronic backaches but are promptly reminded that at Esprit image is everything.<br />
<br />
Of course, if you think about it, image is not everything. It is mere illusion. Yet Doug Tompkins and Esprit have bravely ventured beyond the realm of image and into the realm of the callous. Back in 1974, a youthful Esprit celebrated its puberty by [[Jung Sai Garment Workers Strike 1974|locking out some 125 manual workers at the company-owned Great Chinese American Sewing Company in Chinatown]]. This magnanimous step was taken because the workers wanted to join a union. After a lengthy legal battle, the National Labor Relations Board awarded the workers $1.25 million in back wages. Tompkins, however, is not a man who likes being told how to run his business. Esprit moved its manufacturing overseas mostly to the Far East where workers know their place.<br />
<br />
Doing business in repressive nations has subsequently become something of a crusade for Tompkins. Not only does Esprit conduct a thriving business in South Africa and Chile, but Tompkins has also launched the "American Free Trade Council," an organization that lobbies for the lofty principle of, what else, free trade. Despite its noble ideals, Esprit refuses to comment on any of this. Either the company does not wish to brag of good works, or its spokesmen are fearful of the provision in the company manual threatening dismissal for any negative statements made to the press.<br />
<br />
The best way to describe the brave new world at Esprit is, in fact, 'see no evil, hear no evil.' Whatever its shortcomings, Esprit continues to be inundated with resumes from credulous young grads who are attracted to the company's image. Esprit is even now planning to build a "campus-like Esprit City" for its deserving executives. And Esprit continues to present itself as a populist organization by using 'real people' in its ads (which greatly cuts down on modeling costs).<br />
<br />
Such a real person is Ariel O'Donnell, a San Francisco waitress who had the good fortune of serving Doug and Susie one evening. Over the next several days she was ushered into the Esprit head quarters for a photography session and an interview. Her face appeared in Esprit ads in Mademoiselle, Glamour. Vanity Fair, Elle and Metropolitan Home. The caption in the ads reads: Ariel O'Donnell, San Francisco, California. Age 21. Waitress/Bartender. Non professional AIDS Educator. Cyclist. Art Restoration Student. Anglophile. Neo-Feminist. Clearly a model citizen of the Esprit utopia.<br />
<br />
In fact, however, a 1987 issue of Image magazine reported O'Donnell's true biography like this: "Waitress, bartender and cyclist are factual descriptions. Non-professional AIDS educator and neo-feminist, O'Donnell assumes, were extrapolations from her interview remark. 'No longer can we be sexually free. We have to be safe. So if I were sleeping with someone new, I'd insist he use a condom.' An interest in art restoration became ·an art restoration student.<br />
<br />
From the perspective of history, all of this blurring of reality doesn't really matter—utopias don't usually last long. But Esprit is somehow above history. With its existence based on a gaseous cloud of image, Esprit has proven as resilient as superstition itself. Perhaps it's time to call an exorcist.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
[[category:Labor]] [[category:Tales of Toil]] [[category:1980s]] [[category:Dogpatch]] [[category:Dissent]] [[category:Chinatown]] [[category:Technology]]</div>Ccarlssonhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=File:Desprit_processedworld23.jpg&diff=36567&oldid=0File:Desprit processedworld23.jpg2024-03-17T05:33:38Z<p><a href="/index.php?title=User:Ccarlsson" class="mw-userlink" title="User:Ccarlsson"><bdi>Ccarlsson</bdi></a> uploaded <a href="/index.php?title=File:Desprit_processedworld23.jpg" title="File:Desprit processedworld23.jpg">File:Desprit processedworld23.jpg</a></p>
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<p><b>New page</b></p><div></div>Ccarlssonhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=A_Teaching_Temp_Talks_Back&diff=36565&oldid=0A Teaching Temp Talks Back2024-03-17T05:13:12Z<p>Created page with "'''<font face = Papyrus> <font color = maroon> <font size = 4>"I was there..."</font></font> </font>''' :''"Foundsf.org is republishing a series of "Tales of Toil" that appeared in <a href="/index.php?title=Processed_World:_A_Political_History" title="Processed World: A Political History">''Processed World magazine''</a> between 1981 and 2004. As first-hand accounts of what it was like working at various jobs during those years, these accounts provide a unique view into an aspect of labor history rarely archived, or shared.'' ''by Sophia F..."</p>
<p><b>New page</b></p><div>'''<font face = Papyrus> <font color = maroon> <font size = 4>"I was there..."</font></font> </font>'''<br />
<br />
:''"Foundsf.org is republishing a series of "Tales of Toil" that appeared in [[Processed World: A Political History|''Processed World magazine'']] between 1981 and 2004. As first-hand accounts of what it was like working at various jobs during those years, these accounts provide a unique view into an aspect of labor history rarely archived, or shared.''<br />
<br />
''by Sophia Fury''<br />
<br />
''—from Processed World #19, published in April 1987.''<br />
<br />
[[Image:Teaching-temp-talks-back processedworld19.jpg]]<br />
<br />
I work as a part-time instructor at a San Francisco Bay Area community college. The California public university system, which includes universities, state universities and community colleges, was designed in the 1960s (when there was lots of money kicking around) to enable any young Californian who wanted one to get a college degree, regardless of economic level. I myself was a product of the education boom. Thanks to the largesse of financial aid, I armed myself (along with the rest of the hordes) with my liberal arts degree, ready to tackle the world. I'm still tethered to the public university system, but now I'm looking at it from the inside as an employee, and, along with my fellow part time instructors, watching it disintegrate.<br />
<br />
Nowhere do you see the insidious undoing of the promise of equal opportunity as in the current California community college system. With the passage of the tax cutting Proposition 13 and the election of a short-sighted, "bottom-line" governor, the California community colleges had begun their slow decline. Government funds have been reduced to a trickle over the last few years. Administrators moan and groan over the restrictions imposed on them. Classes have been cut. Tuition is raised yearly. Attendance is down. Lowincome teenagers have proven to be a completely expendable commodity in the highly competitive, high-tech job market of the 1980s, and the California system of education has remorselessly abandoned them.<br />
<br />
The university system is also abandoning the very graduates it spawned-the new crop of mainly extraneous teachers in the arts, humanities and social sciences. In the community colleges, the teaching profession is slowly but surely going the route of two-tiered polarization, just like the thousands of traditional, skilled jobs that are currently being degraded. On the top, you have the twenty-year veterans protected by the American Federation of Teachers and an antiquated tenure system in which incompetence, egotism and banality unfortunately run rampant. On the bottom, you have people like me-people who want to teach and therefore accept low-rung jobs working as temporaries in the colleges.<br />
<br />
Budget-minded administrators knew it would be impossible to disturb the sanctity of the "ivory tower," so they found a way to screw the new teachers-by simply not letting them in. In California, whenever a college-level teacher retires, he or she is increasingly replaced by a disposable, cheap, part-time teacher. More than half of the faculty at the college where I work is part-time and temporary. The ratio is even higher at other schools. The "teaching temp" is paid an hourly wage for class room time only. There is no vacation pay, holiday pay, or health or retirement bene fits. Months like December and April are total hell. While the old-timers bask "in the luxury of periodic paid weeks off, part timers get stuck with paychecks about half their normally miserable size. Nor is there compensation for classroom preparation time or "office hours," the customary time in which the teacher and student can talk one-on-one. At the end of the semester they “1et you go”—unless, that is, they keep you on for the next semester... and keep you on for the next summer... and the next... and the next.<br />
<br />
The result is that at the college level these days, half the faculty are walking zombies who are disillusioned, insecure... and tired. Part-timers spend their off-hours scrambling for other part-time jobs that can support their teaching habit. I work as a part-time word processor; an acquaintance of mine tutors high school kids. Many part-timers have families that rely on their income. It's not unusual for them to dash off after class, in a mad race to make a decent living. Most likely they jump in the car, get on the freeway, and drive 45 minutes or an hour to their next class at another school, or else they run home to grade piles of exams and papers, a grueling activity for which they don't get paid.<br />
<br />
As a consequence, part-timers hardly ever see one another. I only know two other part-timers at my school, and I see them very infrequently. The implications are obvious: we are too alienated, isolated and enervated to develop the camaraderie required for serious job organization. The AFT reps encourage us to attend their meetings, but we know they don't really represent us. We know we're going to have to organize ourselves if we want change, yet we're overcome with a paralyzing malaise, underneath which rage battles bum-out. But from day to day we mainly accept things, silently praying that enough of the old-timers will die so that we can get their jobs.<br />
<br />
It's not just the part-timers who are suffering here: it's the whole system of education that's going down the tubes. Parttimers, generally speaking, do not participate in departmental affairs. Curriculum and policy are decided by the twentyyear veterans (the full-timers) who have generally given in to their apathy. A more cynical and beaten bunch you'd be hardpressed to find. For the most part they're appalled at the degradation of education, yet they're overcome by inertia. They shrug apologetically when they see you in the halls, stopping to chat about "how the teaching's going," yet their primary goal is to reduce the amount of work they have to do themselves. Decision-making by the discouraged is a dreary business. Policy is either nondescript or totally inconsistent. Passing the buck has become elevated to an art.<br />
<br />
In addition many full-timers strike me as having completely lost touch with student needs. Wracked by insecurity at being low level professoriate, and despairing at the shrinking level of esteem society affords them, faculty members unconsciously vent frustration on their students. I've been ap palled at the disparaging words exchanged among teachers in reference to the declining abilities of the students. That the students try their best, given inadequate intellectual preparation in high school and at home, isn't much considered. Nor does it strike the full-timers that perhaps building intellectual skills in the classroom first requires recognizing the validity of ignorance and understanding some of its origins.<br />
<br />
It's funny, the community college teachers seem to think that the professors at the university level have it made because students there are "so much more intellectually motivated." But having just arrived at the community college from the university, I know better. Faculty alienation from students—and vice versa—is omnipresent in the university system. Students arrive at college less trained for critical analysis than for stifling obedience from which they understandably long to escape. Oversized classrooms and psychologically insensitive teaching methods have made instruction in the public schools a matter of power and submission. Professors at the college level interpret the younger student's indifference as '1ack of academic ability and interest" rather than a healthy response to bullshit drudgery. Professional egos get bruised ("why should I have to teach incompetents?"), and students are punished for it.<br />
<br />
The academy gets its steam from intellectual self-hatred. Professors rush to the library in their off-hours for research, to convince scrutinizing administrators and fellow academicians they are worthy of tenure. The competition is fierce, the work ethic unbounded. Professors then carry this weak-kneed egotism into the classroom, where they try to impress their poor students with what scholarly hot shit they are. Students are then blamed for not being smart enough to understand abstruse, self-obsessive, disorganized academic mumbo-jumbo. If they give up trying, as so many students have, then they're totally ignored by the education system. Many students have become "bottom-line" thinkers—the value of the intellectual effort is measured by its cost effectiveness ("what’ll this effort get me?").<br />
<br />
The whole milieu for mind expansion and personal growth has become warped beyond belief. Used to be, a professor would hang out in office hours and students would drift in to discuss intellectual issues, learning problems or personal dilemmas. A good teacher could really make a difference in somebody's life. Students often looked to a teacher for encouragement and advice and attention, stuff the student probably wasn't getting a lot of at home. But today, neither full-time nor part-time teachers have the psychic energy required to reach out and inspire. And students often seem more interested in their economic futures than in ideas or abstractions.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, many of my students strike me as starved for positive feedback, kind words, and strong role models. They're also hungry for something interesting that they can relate to. I myself am torn between my desire to provide them sympathetic guidance and adult friendship, which is so lacking for young people these days, and my unwillingness to donate too many hours of my already busy week. I usually volunteer three or four hours to office time, and I'm glad I do it, but it's not really enough. The sad truth is, with the majority of teachers on the run, the student who is slower or less confident will probably get overlooked. Students with learning disabilities or family problems often drop out.<br />
<br />
Something pretty tragic's going on here: with a few minor exceptions, the personal relationship between student and teacher is becoming a thing of the past. Enrollments are declining as a result, creating more cutbacks, more substandard teaching, and less intellectually capable students. It's a bureaucratic vicious circle that's completely out of control, and virtually paralyzing education. And it's the kind of organizational dysfunction you see everywhere these days.<br />
<br />
The decline of education in America offends me to the core for a couple of different reasons. First of all, it represents the arrival of a new socio-economic lineup here in the richest country in the world. Today, even the myth of America as a "nation of middle-class people" is dying a rapid death. Social classes are polarized and the growing numbers of poor, without access to better opportunities, are mercilessly shut out of the system, Life in the eighties has become a survival-of-the-fittest aerobic scramble to the top, in order to join the closing ranks of the “boomoisie.” The majority is undeniably being left behind.<br />
<br />
But the decline of education has other ramifications that I find equally frightening. Critical thinking and the thirst for knowledge are becoming rare. Mass media has chipped away at intelligent reasoning by offering fluff packages as "information." People are increasingly rendered passive by their ignorance. The old myths have made a comeback. Americans today are accepting responsibility for their own "failure," instead of lashing out at the appropriate instigators who value money over lives. We're at a dangerous crossroads. It'd be easy at this point to give in to fear or despair. I sense that tendency in me on the one hand—but I'm also too fucking angry to give up.<br />
<br />
[[category:Labor]] [[category:Tales of Toil]] [[category:1980s]] [[category:Schools]] [[category:South Bay and Peninsula]] [[category:Excelsior]] [[category:Women]]</div>Ccarlssonhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=File:Teaching-temp-talks-back_processedworld19.jpg&diff=36564&oldid=0File:Teaching-temp-talks-back processedworld19.jpg2024-03-17T05:09:27Z<p><a href="/index.php?title=User:Ccarlsson" class="mw-userlink" title="User:Ccarlsson"><bdi>Ccarlsson</bdi></a> uploaded <a href="/index.php?title=File:Teaching-temp-talks-back_processedworld19.jpg" title="File:Teaching-temp-talks-back processedworld19.jpg">File:Teaching-temp-talks-back processedworld19.jpg</a></p>
<p><b>New page</b></p><div></div>Ccarlssonhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Help,_I%27m_Doing_Hard_Time_in_the_Federal_(or_state_or_county_or_city)_Bureaucracy&diff=36563&oldid=0Help, I'm Doing Hard Time in the Federal (or state or county or city) Bureaucracy2024-03-17T05:06:54Z<p>Created page with "'''<font face = Papyrus> <font color = maroon> <font size = 4>"I was there..."</font></font> </font>''' :''"Foundsf.org is republishing a series of "Tales of Toil" that appeared in <a href="/index.php?title=Processed_World:_A_Political_History" title="Processed World: A Political History">''Processed World magazine''</a> between 1981 and 2004. As first-hand accounts of what it was like working at various jobs during those years, these accounts provide a unique view into an aspect of labor history rarely archived, or shared.'' ''by THEMIS,..."</p>
<p><b>New page</b></p><div>'''<font face = Papyrus> <font color = maroon> <font size = 4>"I was there..."</font></font> </font>'''<br />
<br />
:''"Foundsf.org is republishing a series of "Tales of Toil" that appeared in [[Processed World: A Political History|''Processed World magazine'']] between 1981 and 2004. As first-hand accounts of what it was like working at various jobs during those years, these accounts provide a unique view into an aspect of labor history rarely archived, or shared.''<br />
<br />
''by THEMIS, that complaining bitch over on the fifth floor''<br />
<br />
''—from Processed World #5, published in Summer, 1982.''<br />
<br />
[[Image:Tales-of-toil-pw05.jpg]]<br />
<br />
George Orwell MUST have worked for the government at one time. How else could he have known so much about doublethink, or the fact that 2 + 2 = 4 when you're talking about engineering but 5 when you're talking about the budget.<br />
<br />
We were sitting around the bar talking after (during?) working hours, talking about a promotional exam we had to take. Jerry (all names are naturally fictitious) said how part of the exam was to see if you could write logical, terse, to-the-point para graphs. I said that they should have selected people who could write paragraphs that were as ambiguous as possible, so that when policy changed with changes in administrations. no one would be embarrassed.<br />
<br />
Susie added that she would have picked people who could mention as many supervisors' prejudices as possible, without offending any of them. This is one organization where they pay good money (taxpayers' money, remember?) to send you to school to learn how to write, and then shitcan your letters and documents because they're too honest. "That isn't the way we do things. So-and-so doesn't like that word."<br />
<br />
I could handle it if it was the ordinary business bullshit. What gets to me though is that this is supposed to be an agency that has some responsibility toward environmental protection, and although they glorify it mightily in all their statements of policy, the truth of the matter is that no one could give less of a fuck about the environment, because it just gets in ,the way of the REAL work of the agency, which is building dams or roads, or dislocating Indian tribes, or tearing down neighborhoods, or whatever. So part of my job is to MAKE IT APPEAR that the agency is doing everything humanly possible to comply with our many state, county, and federal environmental regulations, while in ACTUALITY I have to minimize or downright quash or at best find a nice convenient loophole to get around any real environmental problems and hope they don't hit the light of day.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Joan-notes-pw05.jpg]]<br />
<br />
It isn't just my agency that does this. They all do it. I know this because I have to work with them all. But that's just part of it. Part of it is the way you lose your job skills through over-specialization, so that after a couple of years you're as useless on the job market as a dodo bird. Part of it is the crummy and demoralizing work atmosphere. Part of it is being as a "professional" and finding out a computer program could probably do your job... with a good deal less anguish to all concerned. And part of it is the total illogicality of the red tape itself, which somehow transcends mere human pettiness, and becomes something awesome and immovable, like a glacier.<br />
<br />
I once figured out that to do my job according to the book, following all the procedures, would take 32 working days per item. Then I figured out how many were allowed me by all the time limits in the system. 15 working days. So I HAVE to do my job wrong in order to follow the rules. Theoretically, what I'm doing should take thought, analysis, independent judgment, and professional standards. But I don't HAVE THE TIME. If you have 15 days to do a 32 day-job, you don't have time to think. You have time to use buzzwords and recycled phrases from other documents. Then this stuff gets unloaded on the unfortunate public and they complain about gobbledygook. No wonder!<br />
<br />
It took me about a year to figure out why government has the lousiest reputation in the world. Then I realized it's because they're denied even the elemental satisfaction of doing a good job. The politics change too fast. They change the rules in the middle of the project. Things you write, work on for months, disappear and you never see them again. Original thought is about as welcome as a nun in a whorehouse. So after a while you drop out spiritually. You have to keep going there to pay the rent and feed the kids. But nothing in the world can induce you to feel involved, or God forbid, responsible.<br />
<br />
Needless to say, this is not very good for you.<br />
<br />
That's why I spend as much of my working time as possible drunk or stoned. When you're drunk, you don't feel. When you're stoned, you at least have a handle on what's going on. You can watch your mind go CRUNCH as you step in from the sunny streets into the dull, stale smelling building. You can see every body avoiding eye contact. You see how damn programmed everybody is, sitting at their desks, trying to or pretending to work. Not thinking. Daydreaming about the next 3-day weekend. Thinking about that glorious day when they'll be too old to work.<br />
<br />
You watch people deteriorate. Like in any other institution, the longer you stay there, the crazier you get. The 25-year-olds look at each other with terror in their eyes, as the possibility occurs to them that they may be there the rest of their lives. Just like a prison. Or an insane asylum. Except we're respectable. We're government workers.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Collage processedworld05.jpg]]<br />
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[[category:Labor]] [[category:Tales of Toil]] [[category:1980s]] [[category:Civic Center]] [[category:downtown]]</div>Ccarlssonhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=File:Collage_processedworld05.jpg&diff=36562&oldid=0File:Collage processedworld05.jpg2024-03-17T05:05:49Z<p><a href="/index.php?title=User:Ccarlsson" class="mw-userlink" title="User:Ccarlsson"><bdi>Ccarlsson</bdi></a> uploaded <a href="/index.php?title=File:Collage_processedworld05.jpg" title="File:Collage processedworld05.jpg">File:Collage processedworld05.jpg</a></p>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>''<del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">—from </del>Processed World #2.005, published in Winter, 2005.''</div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>''<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">—originally published in [[</ins>Processed World<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">: A Political History|''Processed World'']] </ins>#2.005, published in Winter, 2005.''</div></td></tr>
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</table>Ccarlssonhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=45_Westpoint:_A_World_of_Possibilities&diff=36557&oldid=045 Westpoint: A World of Possibilities2024-03-12T19:29:57Z<p>Created page with "'''<font face = Papyrus> <font color = maroon> <font size = 4>"I was there..."</font></font> </font>''' :''"Foundsf.org is republishing a series of "Tales of Toil" that appeared in <a href="/index.php?title=Processed_World:_A_Political_History" title="Processed World: A Political History">''Processed World magazine''</a> between 1981 and 2004. As first-hand accounts of what it was like working at various jobs during those years, these accounts provide a unique view into an aspect of labor history rarely archived, or shared.'' ''by James Tr..."</p>
<p><b>New page</b></p><div>'''<font face = Papyrus> <font color = maroon> <font size = 4>"I was there..."</font></font> </font>'''<br />
<br />
:''"Foundsf.org is republishing a series of "Tales of Toil" that appeared in [[Processed World: A Political History|''Processed World magazine'']] between 1981 and 2004. As first-hand accounts of what it was like working at various jobs during those years, these accounts provide a unique view into an aspect of labor history rarely archived, or shared.''<br />
<br />
''by James Tracy''<br />
<br />
''—from Processed World #2.005, published in Winter, 2005.''<br />
<br />
[[Image:JSmooke03-69no27.jpg|right]]<br />
<br />
''Photo: Joseph Smooke''<br />
<br />
Thanksgiving Morning 2003. At the intersection of 30th and Mission an odd assortment of humanity gathered—even by San Franciscan standards. Homeless families, most with strollers in tow, cautiously mingled with trade union activists. College students tried out their Spanish on Latino day laborers. Street punks, checked out the non-profit workers with a sneer that acknowledged “I’ll probably be you one day.” The crowd of about 140 had diversity written all over it—elderly and young, and enough ethnicity to make even the most jaded observer speak about Rainbow Coalitions as if the idea was just invented five minutes ago.<br />
<br />
Protest signs handed out casually read “Let Us In!” below a cartoon of a global village angry mob. The mood remained mellow, maybe strangely so for a group of people who, in an hour’s time would be participating in an illegal takeover of vacant housing; one unit among thousands owned by the San Francisco Housing Authority—the often troubled agency that is charged with providing homes for the city’s most impoverished.<br />
<br />
Announcements are made: the bus chartered to bring the protesters to the secret takeover site is late, but will arrive shortly. The driver of the bus had been reached by cell phone and reported a hangover from which he’d just woken up. He would be stopping for a strong cup of coffee. Even on Thanksgiving Day, there was more than one protest going on in San Francisco. A couple of hundred feet away, United Food and Commercial Workers members picketed Safeway in the ongoing battle over the company’s attempts to do away with healthcare benefits. A delegation went over to wish the unionists well as one nervous housing protester tried to conceal the Safeway logo on her fresh cup of coffee.<br />
<br />
The press showed up early to search for a spokesperson, played today by Carrie Goodspeed, a twenty-four-year-old community organizer with Family Rights and Dignity (FRD), part of the Coalition On Homelessness. She’s nervous at first but then relaxes. “The Authority owns over one thousand units of vacant housing that could be used to house families. We will risk arrest to make this point.”<br />
<br />
“Is this the right thing to do?” blurted one reporter. There’s silence and an expression on Godspeed’s face of someone with second thoughts. Suddenly that expression disappears.<br />
<br />
“Definitely. It’s the right thing to do.”<br />
<br />
TAKEOVER! The caravan consisting of five autos, some bikes and the long-awaited bus arrived at the tip of the West Point Housing Development. Banners in the windows proclaim: “HOMES NOT JAILS FOR HOMELESS FAMILIES,” and “THESE UNITS SIT VACANT WHILE FAMILIES SLEEP ON THE STREETS.” The dwelling was opened up the night before by a team of members of FRD, Homes Not Jails (HNJ), and other assorted individuals. Some were there to pressure the SFHA into rehabilitating the vacant units and have a very politically correct Thanksgiving. Homeless people added another thoroughly practical aspect: “If I get busted, I sleep inside. If I don’t, I sleep inside,” one person remarked.<br />
<br />
A speakout commenced in front of the building. Camila Watson, a resident of the development took the microphone. Watson is one of the reasons this action landed here—due to her outreach most of the neighbors are reasonably supportive.<br />
<br />
When Watson was homeless, she turned for help to [[The Race Card|Bianca Henry]] of FRD, one of the women occupying the apartment. Watson’s name had “disappeared” from the SFHA’s waiting list. Extremely aggressive advocacy on Henry’s part, coupled with a clever media event the previous year, had helped the agency to “find” Watson and offer her a place to live.<br />
<br />
“I used to come by here and think ‘Why can’t I live in apartment 41, or 45, or 47. Give me paint and a hammer and I’ll fix it up.” With housing, other good things have come to pass. Watson now holds down a job, and is doing well at City College. The experience left her determined to fight for those still stuck in the shelter system.<br />
<br />
[[Image:JSmooke03-69-no25.jpg]]<br />
<br />
''Photo: Joseph Smooke''<br />
<br />
“They say these units are vacant because people don’t want to live here. I haven’t met a mother yet that wouldn’t move here over the streets and the shelter.”<br />
<br />
Another woman told a story of how her homelessness began the day the government demolished the public housing development she lived in, and reneged on promises for replacement housing for all tenants. One resident remarked how she feared taking homeless family members into her home, since her contract with the SFHA made that act of compassion an evictable offense. A young poet named Puff spoke in a style that was equal parts poetry slam, evangelical and comical. By the end of her microphone time she managed to connect homelessness, minimum-wage work, consumerism, police abuse, war and genocide. From someone with less passion and less street experience, it might have been indulgent. From Puff, it was a clear-eyed ghetto manifesto, and a call to arms.<br />
<br />
The San Francisco Labor Chorus rallied the group in rousing renditions of post-revolutionary holiday favorites such as “Budget La-La-Land,” stretched to fit “Winter Wonderland,” and “Share the Dough,” set to the tune of “Let It Snow”. At first the very white group of trade unionists seemed a little out of place in the projects.<br />
<br />
As many neighbors stopped by, a trio of young men came down the hill.<br />
<br />
“Is that where the homeless people are going to live?” the tallest one asked.<br />
<br />
“We hope so!” yelled Bianca Henry from the second floor window.<br />
<br />
“How many rooms?”<br />
<br />
“Three!” Henry replied.<br />
<br />
The youngest looking of the three flashed a smile gleeming with gold caps “Happy Thanksgiving, yo!” as the trio continued down the hill.<br />
<br />
'''The San Francisco Housing Authority and Hope VI'''<br />
<br />
Life as San Francisco’s largest landlord and last line of defense against homelessness has never been easy. [[San Francisco Housing Authority 1937-1965: The Early Decades|Born in 1940, the agency]] initially housed returning servicemen and their families. Over the years, it has grown to operate over 6,575 units of housing and administer another 10,000 units in conjunction with other providers.<br />
<br />
In the 1980s then-Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Jack Kemp announced the creation of the Housing Opportunities For People Everywhere (HOPE) program that would tear down public housing and rebuild it. HOPE was intended to get the feds out of housing provision by transferring ownership to resident cooperatives. President Clinton took most of the hope out of the HOPE program (now called HOPE VI) when requirements for resident participation, return, and unit replacement were stricken from the federal record.<br />
<br />
In San Francisco the HOPE VI program produced very mixed results. When it worked, it worked because tenant organizations forced it to work. Some developments lost units and the agency’s own numbers show that not every former tenant made it back to their former neighborhood. Many residents, some who lived through the “urban removal,” of the 1960s saw the demolition as one more attempt to kick Blacks out of town. It was widely believed that then Executive Director Ronnie Davis gave free reign to his staff to evict outspoken tenants, forge documents, and take bribes. Davis was never convicted of any wrongdoing while in San Francisco, but was convicted of embezzling from his former job—the Cayahuga Housing Authority in Cleveland, Ohio.<br />
<br />
Today, the SFHA is led by Gregg Fortner, who is regarded by most as honest, if a bit inaccessible. Continued federal funding cuts have kept vacated units vacant—about 905 vacant units or 16%, total. To meet the deficit in operating costs, the agency requested proposals from both for-profit and nonprofit developers to redevelop eighteen properties—again raising the specter of displacement—dubbed “The Plan” by activists and residents.<br />
<br />
'''This Town is Headed for a Ghost Town?'''<br />
<br />
Ted Gullicksen, a co-founder of HNJ, knows how to use a bullhorn. Speaking from the broken window he invites the press and anyone else to check out the apartment. “It won’t take thousands of dollars to fix it up.”<br />
<br />
Gullicksen, a working-class Bostonian helped to create HNJ to add a direct action complement to the San Francisco Tenants Union, which he directs. HNJ helps several “survival squats” (buildings seized for shelter not protest) in San Francisco. 45 Westpoint is a “political squat” used to protest the housing crisis, popularize demands, and generally raise a ruckus.<br />
<br />
This ruckus is usually raised on major holidays, especially the very cold ones. San Francisco’s press is usually quick to broadcast sensationalistic stories about homeless people using drugs or having mental health episodes in public places. Such “journalism” has played a major role in mustering public support for punitive anti-homeless legislation.<br />
<br />
On takeover days, the camera is forced to observe pictures of homeless people at their most powerful, not at their most vulnerable. Images of poor people and their allies repairing broken apartments replace one-dimensional images of addiction. HNJ specializes in the strategic use of a slow news day. Throughout the day facts, figures and theories on homelessness are thrown about, yet one message remains constant: “Nothing about us, without us.”<br />
<br />
What about the former residents of 45 Westpoint? What happened to them and who were they? The house holds a few clues. Stickers on the upstairs bedroom door read “Audrina loves Biz.” Judging from the demographic of the development, they were likely Black or Samoan. Large plastic “Little Tykes” toys left behind suggest a child, probably two. A sewing machine, a conch shell and a broken entertainment center might be what’s left of a ruined family, but who knows?<br />
<br />
What caused their exit? Maybe the family left in response to the gang turf wars that periodically erupt on the hill. They may have been recipients of the federal “One Strike Eviction,” Clinton’s Orwellian gift to public housing residents. “One Strike” passed in 1996, allowing eviction on hearsay for crimes committed by an acquaintance. Grandparents have been evicted for alleged crimes of grandchildren. A woman in Texas lost her home after calling the police to end a domestic violence incident in her unit.<br />
<br />
'''Beyond “Services”'''<br />
<br />
Bianca Henry surveys the Thanksgiving rebellion with pride, a grin playing at her lips. This is the first time she has ever committed an act of non-violent direct action. For someone who was raised in the projects and knows first-hand the over-reaching arm of the law, the fact that she is purposely risking arrest for the cause is a small, but dramatic personal revolution.<br />
<br />
Henry’s pride in her work as an organizer is evident throughout. The takeover is part of an ongoing campaign to force the SFHA to house and respect families. Together with other parents, she has done one of the hardest things a community organizer can do: inspire poor people to move beyond “Case Management,” and “Services,” and take things to the next level: collective action, risky, scary, but potentially wonderful.<br />
<br />
By design, the action is separated into two zones: the Arrest Zone (inside the house) and the Safe Zone (on the grass outside). It assumes a social contract with the police to respect Arrest and Safe zones. Henry knows first-hand that even minor brushes with the law can bring the wrath of the C.P.S., I.N.S., P.O.s and PDs and various other Big Brother-like institutions adept at tearing families apart.<br />
<br />
Henry knows that if you want to get anything done, you can’t just wait for the next election. She might have been a Panther in the 1960s but there’s a pragmatic streak in her as well. She can effortlessly rattle off obscure public policy points and arcane aspects of the Code of Federal Regulations as they pertain to housing poor people.<br />
<br />
Starr Smith is Bianca’s co-organizer. A single mom who came to work with FRD when she was still homeless, she’s on the outside fielding questions and dealing with the dozens of unforeseen snafus cropping up by the minute. They make an interesting team. Henry grew up in the thick of gangs and her neighborhood was devastated by the crack cocaine industry. She exemplifies the Tupac generation of young people who grew up in the era where every reform won during previous upheavals was being stripped away. Smith came of age following the Grateful Dead in the final days of Jerry Garcia. Both faced down long-prison sentences and have built the FRD’s housing campaign from scratch. In many ways the eclectic crowd is a reflection of this partnership.<br />
<br />
Later in the afternoon one neighbor the group forgot to outreach to is steaming pissed—the President of the Tenants Association. She confers with Jim Williams, Head of Security of the SFHA. He in turn, asks Jennifer Freidenbach of the Coalition On Homelessness, to please call the agency when the protest is over.<br />
<br />
“We’re not leaving, we’re moving more people in,” Freidenbach answers.<br />
<br />
“Yeah right.” Williams retorted.<br />
<br />
“Really.”<br />
<br />
“Well…Why don’t we have our legal people call yours?”<br />
<br />
Within the next 24 hours, the San Francisco Police Department had indeed cleared 45 Westpoint and the other units that had been reclaimed. This “Autonomous Zone” was finished, but the world of possibilities opened through good old fashioned mutual aid and a crowbar remained.<br />
<br />
'''Rebuilding the Left One Block at a Time'''<br />
<br />
<blockquote>''“More often than not, reliance on voting in periodic elections has sidetracked them from the more powerful weapons of direct action. By engaging in the continuous struggle for justice and human welfare, workers will gain a realistic political education and cast the only ballot worth casting—the daily ballot for freedom for all.”''<br />
<br />
—Bayard Rustin, ''New South…Old Politics''</blockquote><br />
<br />
After the [[Seeing the Elephant in Seattle|1999 anti-WTO protests in Seattle]], Elizabeth Betita Martinez, wrote an influential essay entitled “Where Was the Color in Seattle?” Unfortunately, one never needs to ask that question about prisons, slum housing, and homeless shelters. These are some of the most integrated institutions in the United States. Nevertheless, the loosely dubbed “Global Justice Movement” and those actually at the receiving end of global injustice are usually separated by vast cultural, political, and economic spaces.<br />
<br />
For a day or so in San Francisco, this wasn’t the case.<br />
<br />
In September 2003, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that over 34 million people lived in poverty inside the United States. This statistic should have annihilated propaganda that the cause of poverty is personal pathology. In a more honest world, factors such as a shift towards a low-wage service sector, welfare reform and out-of-control military spending would replace such distractions as marital status and personality in discussions of homelessness.<br />
<br />
It could be a very good time for economic justice organizing in this country. Yet, as elections near, actions such as housing takeovers remain isolated by the liberal Left—marginalized by the urgency to “Elect Anyone But Bush.”<br />
<br />
The women of Family Rights and Dignity and the squatters of Homes Not Jails aren’t waiting for the next election. They embody a spirit of past movements, such as the Unemployed Workers’ of the 1930s, which is rooted in the everyday needs of community members. They build direct democracy with crowbars as their ballots and vacant housing as their ballot boxes. Election strategies might occasionally produce short-term good—but survival politics outside of the formal legislative system are better at producing organizers from the ground-up. That builds movements without illusions—ready to rumble no matter a Bush or Kerry victory.<br />
<br />
As an action initiated mostly by working-class women of color it also shows alliances can be built between America’s different dissident factions. It begins with supporting self-organized actions such as this and respecting the fact the communities who find themselves under the boot of poverty need people to have their back—not to act as spokespeople for their cause. Despite gentrification spasms, the city functions in a way similar to factories of old: a place where people of disparate backgrounds can meet, find common grievances and hopefully common collective action.<br />
<br />
P.S. 45 Westpoint was made available to homeless families in late February 2004. <br />
<br />
[[category:Housing]] [[category:Bayview/Hunter's Point]] [[category:2000s]] [[category:African-American]] [[category:Racism]] [[category:Homeless]] [[category:Gentrification]]</div>Ccarlssonhttps://foundsf.org/index.php?title=File:JSmooke03-69-no25.jpg&diff=36556&oldid=0File:JSmooke03-69-no25.jpg2024-03-12T19:23:16Z<p><a href="/index.php?title=User:Ccarlsson" class="mw-userlink" title="User:Ccarlsson"><bdi>Ccarlsson</bdi></a> uploaded <a href="/index.php?title=File:JSmooke03-69-no25.jpg" title="File:JSmooke03-69-no25.jpg">File:JSmooke03-69-no25.jpg</a></p>
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