Help DKG Solidarity Group celebrate Valentine's Day! This story is part of a series of I ❤️ DK Guild posts written by Community members to show their support for the writing, activism and site services work of DK Guild members. All of us together make Daily Kos the most vibrant progressive community on the net. Let's do everything we can to keep it that way!
❧ This is my grandma and her two older sisters, around 1906. They were three of eight kids of an immigrant Sicilian family in New York City. There wasn’t much money, so everyone had to work, which meant the girls and their mother all sewed piecework at home. They might easily have been sent out eventually to work in a sweatshop like Triangle Shirtwaist, except their mother was absolutely determined that they go to school, so they sewed at home at night, after their schoolwork. My grandma worked in the garment industry all her life, and you can bet that as soon as she had a chance to join the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), she did. She understood the value of the union—she had seen it.
❧ This is my grandpa and his family, around the same year. He’s the little boy on the far left, looking super uncomfortable in his ruffled collar. They lived in a small city in New Jersey, and were also immigrants, but somewhat more prosperous than my grandma’s family. But my grandpa was left-handed. That was not allowed in those days; also, public school teachers were allowed to hit you if you screwed up. He took to skipping school and hiding out in the woods all day. When his father found out, he was unceremoniously yanked out of school and sent to work in a match factory. He was nine. Later on, when he had a chance to be apprenticed to a plumber, he jumped at it. You’re damned right (he’d have said) he joined the union! He understood how powerless employees are treated.
I heard about unions from a pretty early age. They sounded like a good idea to me. They still do. I was happy to learn that there’s a union that Daily Kos employees can join. The people who work here don’t just bring us good information and the framework to understand it and act on it—they make a space for our community, and keep it running 24 x 7 x 365 (366 in leap years). They love Daily Kos too, but that’s not enough for them to live on. They deserve fair treatment, and they deserve to be allowed to negotiate the terms of their work from a place of collective power.
You might think it would be a no-brainer for a place with Daily Kos’ values, but when people’s interests don’t align, an agreement needs to be reached—and we all know how unequal power relationships tend to go, even if the more powerful party has the best intentions.
Please support the Daily Kos Guild, in the ways they’ve described in the box below. Even with a union, management still holds many cards. One of the union’s cards is support from the Community, and we can help widen that support and adjust that balance of power just a little.
How to Support the Daily Kos Guild:
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Recommend this story—help it reach and stay on the Trending list.
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Leave a comment, even if it is just a word or two, to let them know you are an ally. Memes, gifs, union logos, photos, emojis, anything—say hello!
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Follow the DKG Solidarity group!
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Send a Kosmail to @DK Guild to let us know you’re with us
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Share a link to all stories posted within the DK Guild Solidarity group on all social media, and tag us @DailyKosGuild on Twitter and Instagram.
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Use these hashtags when possible: #DailyKosGuild #NegotiateWithDKG #Solidarity
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Follow @DailyKosGuild on Twitter and Instagram.
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Please also follow individual Daily Kos writers and Staff on Twitter and Instagram.
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Please sign the DK Guild petition: Tell Daily Kos to uphold its mission, values, and commitment to working people, and share the petition link with others
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Share this story with pro-union friends and family through texts, email, and personal conversation!