Which Side Are You On?

My congregation is about to embark on a major capital campaign to revitalize our crumbling physical plant. Our rabbi recently raised the question on his blog of whether we should have a strict policy of only using unionized vendors to do the construction work. I posted the following response:

A mishnah we studied in Pirke Avot class tonight says the following: “… love work, hate acting the superior, and do not bring thyself to the knowledge of the ruling authority.” As the texts so often do, this one seems to side with the weak, the oppressed and the exploitable. The bias here in favor of the low person on the totem pole is categorical. It bespeaks an institutional priority in favor of the powerless. This principle bears directly on the issue of whether we should have a policy of Union Only! at CBE.

Several prior entries in this string have suggested that some non-union firms treat their workers better than unionized shops in the same industry. Fair enough. In my life, I’ve worked in two union shops, one an awful hell-hole of a factory in Long Island City, where I lasted two weeks before fleeing to the Catskills and then fifteen years at Legal Aid, where I was a proud member District 65/UAW until I became part of management. The Teamsters, who owned the union franchise at the factory, seemed to have little interest in the membership. There is much positive, and some decidedly negative, I could say about the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, but there is no question that without the union, we would have been paid a lot less, staff and supervisory attorneys alike. Plus, the union was the most important vehicle for keeping the issue of quality representation on the table, even if it was often honored in breach.

For me, the issue isn’t whether there are good or bad unions or better or worse non-union companies. The issue is unionism, not the merits of this union shop or that one. The quoted mishnah instructs us to be suspicious of power, to ask ourselves “which side we are on?” A logical corollary is that we should be suspicious of social and institutional arrangements that promote or maintain unequal power relationships. Unions promote fairer, more balanced institutional relationships, both in the workplace and in society generally.

With these observations in mind, there are several things that we, as a congregation, should look for in the vendors with which we contract, none mutually exclusive of the others. Obviously, a reputation for doing a good job is essential. Second, to support the institution of unionism, a union shop should generally be a requirement. Third, we should be sure that any union company we deal with treats its workers properly. This trilogy of considerations reminds me of still another mishnah we studied this evening: “If I am not for myself, who is for me, but if I am for my own self only, what am I, and if not now, when?

[Full disclosure: for the last eleven years I have been an attorney in a not-for-profit law office, essentially functioning as an appellate public defender. For most of that time, I’ve been a supervisor. So far as I know, the staff has never considered forming a union. If the issue ever comes up, I will support it, but I think it’s the staff’s responsibility, not management’s, to organize itself. As I think Hillel would agree, some things you have to do for yourself].

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Flowers Blooming in Spring

Americans who love Israel, and who return there again and again as I have, always notice something each time back. There is always change, and usually things look that much more like us, ugly Americans. I've never been to Israel this time of year, but I'm told that it's the season when the flowers bloom in Jerusalem. Another kind of flower bloomed this week in Jerusalem, one called the “Winograd Commission Report.” But given the season, it might as well have been a cherry blossom, so much does it remind one of the home front, USA. Forget the ubiquitous cell phones, the ipods, the fashion statements. With the publication of the WCR, the circle has closed. The Israelis couldn’t look more like us, no matter how hard they try. An empty suit at the first table in the Knesset. Even worse in the White House. Both rushed into wars without a plan, fueled by self-delusion and arrogance. I suspect that Bush was more the believer than Olmert, which probably cuts both ways.

We can only hope that the Israelis learn a lot from the WCR. But the report also bears a lesson for American Zionists. Few Americans, and fewer American Jews, were willing to question the invasion of Lebanon last summer, and that’s understandable. From the start, it made no sense to me, yet I must admit that I felt very finky any time I said it out loud. When kids on your side are dying, it’s uncomfortable to criticize too much. And, yet, looking back, I have to wonder whether it was even more finky to stay silent. My country right or wrong.! Its always stinks. Once and for all, it should be clear that the blanket endorsement so many American Jews give any policy or action pursured by the Israeli government does Israel more harm than good.

It’s a mark of Israel’s vibrant democracy that the Winograd Commission could even happen. Yet, it’s hard for me to feel very optimistic. The word on the Israeli street seems to be that the one thing holding Olmert up at this point is the absence of an alternative. The authentic Israeli leadership seems to be a thing of the past. Who’s available? The truly repugnant Netanyahu, an octogenarian Peres – still notable after all these years for his opportunism, Tzipi the Great? All of them either uninspiring or worse (far worse). It looks like there is still a lot of rot to clean out.