Lies: A Journal of Materialist Feminism - Libcom

I refused to sign. I wrote explaining that I was being forced to sign
and threatened with losing my job over a collective job action.
I found out later that the bosses had identified me as a key organizer.
Subsequently, they interrogated other coworkers fervently and
made it clear to them that any contact with me would blacklist them.
Apparently, they had magnified the flyer that had been distributed
and put it up on their wall. The least I could hope for was that stewing
over it made them work unpaid overtime.
The bosses saw this as a mainstream union’s effort from the outside,
in part because mainstream unions have monopolized all forms of
public labor actions, and in part because they could never believe
that we on our own could organize. They thought that they could
smother years of resentment from overwork and disrespect with
lottery prizes of Snickers and Kit Kat bars in our monthly staff
meetings. They thought they could buy us off with the bait of $50
vouchers so we would trip over each other to become the Employee
of the Month. They thought they could win over our hearts the way
they win over the public with banners saying “We love our CNAs”
hung over the doors of the home. So when we collectively decided to
change things on our own, they were not prepared.
What got me through management’s attempts to isolate me from
my coworkers were the relationships we had built with one another
prior to organizing. Our friendships consisted of more than risky
political actions. They consisted also of support and solace, advice
on how to handle relationships, discussions about how we planned
to return to our home countries to visit our families and how we each
adapted to America. Other times, we talked about U.S. imperialism
in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Tunisian revolt and Egyptian uprising.
“We need Tunisia here, in this workplace!” Alind would banter. We
laughed at the comparison between the two dictatorships, between
the North African country and our workplace, how that brought out
the contradictions of “free America,” the dream we all had come to
pursue. We laughed also because we knew how hard that would be.
Our little rebellion already solicited so much retaliation. How much
CARING: A LABOR OF STOLEN TIME 93