Why The Work Class? Pt 4 Sara Nelson "Solidarity is a Force Stronger than Gravity"

Sara Nelson took office as the International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO on June 1, 2014, and she is currently serving her second four-year term.

Sara became a United Airlines Flight Attendant in 1996 and has been a union activist since nearly the beginning of her career, including serving as strike chair and leading communications for nearly 10 years at AFA’s United chapter. 

In the summer of 2019, she addressed DSA’s largest ever Convention, which occurred during a surprising wave of strikes by teachers, hotel workers, and others. Much of the convention revolved around the power of the working class when we organize -- which is what Nelson spoke about.

Nelson draws on diverse stories throughout the U.S.’s history to show how organizing at work not only improves people’s lives, individually and as a group but that rather than being just another form of activism, labor organizing is our most powerful weapon. 

NPEC Curriculum - Sara Nelson’s “Solidarity is a Force Stronger than Gravity" 

YouTube video of Sara Nelson’s “Solidarity is a Force Stronger than Gravity" 

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Transcript

Elton LK: 0:00

You're listening to CLASS, an official podcast of the Democratic Socialists of America National Political Education Committee. My name is Elton L. K. Most of the time on CLASS, we talk to socialists to learn why socialism is necessary and how we win it. Many of our episodes are based on the curriculum of the DSA National Political Education Committee. that is selected in order to support the facilitation of Socialist Night School classes conducted by local DSA chapters and other political education projects. We're currently in the middle of the series called Why the Working Class. Today, rather than talking about the text, we're going to be listening to the text directly. The text is actually a speech by Sarah Nelson at DSA's 2019 National Convention. Sarah is a great speaker. And you should hear from her directly. Sarah Nelson took office as the International President of the Association of Flight Attendants, CWA, AFL CIO, on June 1st, 2014. Sarah Nelson became a United Airlines flight attendant in 1996. And has been a union activist since nearly the beginning of her career, including serving as strike chair and leading communications for nearly 10 years at AFA's United Chapter. Part of what makes her speech so great is her ability to communicate the socialist belief that an injury to one is an injury When my comrade suffers, it affects me. She applies this to discrimination around gender, LGBTQ, and racial issues in the workplace. We are often told that the working class doesn't care about woke politics. In many cases, this is true. Culture war is being used to divide the working class. But when workers see that the bosses win when the working class is divided, Workers begin to care for and support each other. Now let's listen to Sarah.

Sara Nelson: 2:11

at this convention, you will talk about the urgent issues of our time and how you will love our Children and grandchildren by taking action to heal our world, set Children free from cages, literally save our planet. Secure healthcare as a right, build power for working people, and an economy that provides a good job for everyone who wants one. Eliminate student debt, ensure every person can afford a place to live, and stop the dark forces of hate driven dictatorships on the march, much like they were in the 1930s. Still, some ignorant political hack or media purveyor of hate is likely talking trash right now about democratic socialists. Some might be watching this right now. And here's what I have to say. Helen Keller was a Democratic Socialist and so was Albert Einstein, George Orwell, Bayard Rustin, and the Ruther family. And when Nazi troops came to Warsaw Ghetto to kill the last Jews left, the men and women on the rooftops who met them with gasoline bombs were Democratic Socialists. And Democratic Socialists stood up against dictatorships throughout the 20th century. They filled Stalin's camps and Siberian graves. The minimum wage, national health care, worker safety rules, social security, before the Great Society and before the New Deal, this was the Democratic Socialist agenda. And of course, our Democratic Socialist working heroes, Eugene Victor Debs, A. Philip Randolph, and Lucy Gonzalez Parsons. The police called Lucy Parsons more dangerous than a thousand rioters because of her skills as an orator, organizer, and rabble rouser. Her cry that only direct action, or the threat of it, will move the boss is a lesson we can all do well to remember. Now my comrades, solidarity is a force stronger than gravity. When I repeat that phrase for a crowd, there's often a pause as people take in the words, sometimes followed by nervous laughter, awesomeness of it. We've seen examples of this all over the country this year from Red for Ed teacher strikes promoting public good to hotel and grocery workers fighting for one job to be enough or Amazon, Google, Uber, and Lyft workers fighting for respect, decency, human rights, and the ability to organize their union. I know the power of solidarity because I have lived it. As a brand new flight attendant at United Airlines, the company failed to pay me. With a balance of zero in my bank account and no idea how I would even eat that day. I went down to the airline office and asked why I hadn't been paid and what was going on. They had no answers. And for the first time, I felt like it was just a number in an HR file. The tears started to roll when I felt a tap on my shoulder that changed everything. I turned around. I saw someone standing there who looked a lot like me. She's wearing the same uniform. I'd never seen her before, otherwise. She's holding her checkbook and asking me how to spell my name, and she said, as she handed me a check for 800, number one, you go take care of yourself, and number two, you call our union. I did call our union, and I had my paycheck the very next day. But that's when I learned the power of being a part of a union, because they fought for me in a way that I couldn't have fought for myself alone. I learned that in our union, we are never alone. And on my first week on that job, my flying partner of 35 years told me, Listen, management thinks of us as their wife or their mistress, and in either case, they hold us in contempt. That was a lot to hear for a 23 year old fresh out of company training. Whew! Your only place of worth is with your flying partners. You wear your union pin, and if we stick together, there's nothing we can't do. If we stick together, there's nothing we can't do. On June 26, 2015, a dear friend walked into my office just a few minutes after the Supreme Court decided for marriage equality. Now, if I'm being honest, I was feeling cynical when he walked in. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to celebrate. But at that very moment, I was in the middle of a fight to prevent furloughs of our members. We were trying to stop the Obama administration from pushing a trade agreement that would gut millions of jobs. And our streets were filled with protesters demanding answers for the killings of our black youth. I couldn't see how this decision would have an impact on any of that. But my friend was standing in my office, tears running down his face, and he's not a crier. He said, I don't have a partner. I don't know that I will ever be married. But that's not what today is about. I didn't realize until today the oppression I have felt my entire life. Today, my country recognizes me and the choices I make in my personal life as the same under the law. The feeling of being acknowledged as equal has moved me more than I ever expected it to. In those words, I remembered two things that are easy to lose sight of, but that we can't afford to forget. Number one, every step forward makes the next step possible. And two, we cannot ever dismiss the oppression of someone else as their problem. Recently, I received an email from an AFA member who wrote, As a transgender person, I am terrified. I am turning to my union for help. And the call came to the right place. Some of the earliest wins for LGBTQ rights happened not in the courtroom or in the legislature, but at the bargaining table. Years before San Francisco started issuing same sex marriage licenses, long before Massachusetts became the first state to pass marriage equality, our union, the Association of Flight Attendants, CWA, negotiated four and one domestic partner benefits for every United flight attendant. In fact, before any municipality passed anti discrimination ordinances, unions representing all types of workers won anti discrimination in contracts. Because on the job site, people realized that if management could fire a colleague for who they loved, he sure as hell could fire you for what you believed, or where you spent your Saturday night, or in the case of flight attendants, just for getting married, or having a baby, or having the audacity to gain ten pounds. These discriminatory issues were the heart of why our union was founded, but our work is not done. We are always working to form a more perfect union until all of us are equal and free in our minds and under the law. As we beat back discriminatory practices through a contract at one airline, another soon followed suit. And just as important, it gave members a sense of power that they had to change their own lives. Some of those members and our union leaders testified in the San Francisco hearings that led to domestic partner benefits and helped set the course to marriage equality. When my friend came into my office, all the years of union activism, fighting for those rights, came flooding back to me. Suddenly, the ruling wasn't a distant thing handed down by a court. It was the natural outcome of years of hard work we won through solidarity, changing one contract, one workplace, one community at a time. It reminded me that for every fight forward, we win in a contract. Until our nation recognizes each of our inherent dignity and equal rights under the law, we struggle under an invisible weight that sometimes we don't even see ourselves. I'll tell you something. There's a weight that every woman in this room deserves to have lifted. Earlier this year, Delegates fell just short of a floor vote. on the Equal Rights Amendment. If the vote had moved forward in one, Virginia would have become the 38th state to ratify, enough to tip the balance for a constitutional amendment to be approved and for women to be recognized as equal under the law of our land. Our union had to fight tooth and nail for the women who once made up the entire workforce to be treated fairly on the job. We also fought to allow men to have the same rights on the job. We fight every day for every member to have equal rights and benefits on the job, but when 80 percent of aviation's first responders step off our planes into our country, we do so with a nation that's unwilling to say that we are full and equal citizens. Evil dictators intent on controlling everything and stripping all people of our rights start with belittling women and treating women as less than human. Sisters and brothers, comrades, sexism, racism have for centuries been the premier tactic of the boss to hold us down, keep us divided, and deny us of the power we have to ta to together to take on what we are owed as workers for moving this country, teaching this country, feeding this country, building this country, communicating in this country, and around the world. More than 100 years ago, Frederick Douglass told us all we need to know today. The difference between the white slave and the black slave was this. The latter belonged to one slaveholder, and the former belonged to the slaveholders collectively. Both were plundered, and by the same plunderers. The white laboring man was robbed by the slave system of the just results of his labor because he was flung into competition with a class of laborers who worked without wages. The slave holders blinded them to this competition by keeping alive their prejudice against the slaves as men, not against them as slaves. No one is born with sexism, racism, ageism in their heart. These are the tactics of the boss of those who want all the money and all the power to deny us solidarity, the greatest force for good. Expose it, call it out, deal with it. And in our unions and on our picket lines, we can do exactly that. Our union halls provide something social movements too often cannot. A home base in the storm, a place where our common interests, a fair paycheck, equal treatment on the job, dignity and respect, an opportunity to thrive, are grounded in an experience we all share, regardless of our color, creed, national origin, identity, expression, or any other marker our opponents use to divide us. Just five years after I started my flying career, at the events of September 11th, 2001 changed everything. I had frequently worked Flight 175, the plane you can picture hitting the South Tower of the World Trade Center, because that's the image captured from so many angles after American Flight 11 struck the North Tower 17 minutes earlier. That could have been me, but instead it was my friends. Amy, Michael, Robert, Catherine, Al, Alicia. Amy, Jesus, and Marianne. Even as we grieved, over 100, 000 aviation workers lost our job nearly overnight. And then the bankruptcies came. I was our communications chairperson, still in my twenties, working around the clock to communicate new procedures, but mostly to communicate repeated bad news. I remember a day in the office about six months into the 38 month bankruptcy when our union president called me to tell me to stop the work on communicating another pay cut, closure of bases that was operating people from their homes. We already had nearly 7, 000 on furlough. He told me, United just called to tell me they were furloughing another 2, 500 flight attendants. And it all became too much in that moment. And I told him, I need a minute to cry. And I did. Right then and there, I knew how I was going to spend my life. We would have to fight like hell to hang on to everything so we could live to fight another day for what I knew the people I worked with truly deserved. And let me tell you, it wasn't easy. Our jobs, our healthcare, our pensions, it was all on the line. People felt out of control and focused inward. Wanted to talk about process or wanted to talk about the issues of little consequence. They wanted to talk about shoes. Management won't let us wear comfortable shoes. I said, for God's sakes, wear the damn shoes! They're holding planes together with duct tape, for goodness sake! Wear comfortable shoes and get out on the picket line for our pensions! All too often, workers feel overwhelmed and powerless and desperate. But in my union, I had hope. As a group, we fought on everything. We fought when everything was stacked against us. Bankruptcy. Wall Street. The White House. And we made a difference. They had all the power because we had our, uh, They had all the power, but because we had our union, we actually had a way to fight back. They stole our pensions. When 80 million would have saved them, the court granted termination with one hammer of the gavel, and in the next awarded 400 million in bonuses to the top executives. But we fought back, and because we fought back, we doubled the amount they were willing to pay for a pension replacement plan. We have to recognize our power comes from the ground, not from someone claiming to be our savior. When the teachers of West Virginia were grappling with whether or not to strike, the bus drivers told them, We've got your back. Not a single bus will drive students to school. Too often, we don't understand our own power. Look around. It's all of us, together. When we start with what people feel and see in their lives, we can build solidarity. It's amazing what solidarity on the worksite can do. People who may be on opposite ends of a political debate can find common ground, and when you ground that fight in the workplace, you build that solidarity. Just a few months ago, my union went to bat for one of our members. Selena was a DACA recipient and a graduate of Texas A& M who had arrived in the U. S. at age 3 and just begun her dream job as a flight attendant. She was assigned a trip to Monterey, Mexico when she told her supervisor she couldn't fly internationally because of her DACA status that had been changed by the executive order from the White House and not corrected in the court order to reestablish it. She was told, no, no, no, it's okay to take the trip. On probation and afraid to lose her job, she went. But when she came back, CBP stopped her and turned her over to ICE. She was put in a private detention facility in prison like conditions for six weeks, without the ability to even go outside more than once a week. When we learned about her case, our union mobilized and we got her released within 18 hours. But the comment, but the comment that I saw that sticks with me the most during that time was from a conservative member. A self proclaimed Trump voter who said that she wanted strong immigration laws, but this, this was too far. Because the fight started in the workplace because our members understand that in the union an injury to one is an injury to all. That flight attendant was able to see past her political beliefs to what was right and what was wrong. Now she's someone we can mobilize to fight for a fix to the DREAM Act. And from there, who knows? People think power is a limited resource, but using power builds power. And once workers get a taste of our power, we will not settle for a bad deal. And we won't stand by while someone else gets screwed either. Now that's what happened. That's what happened during the government shutdown. It was a humanitarian crisis with the 800, 000 federal sector sisters and brothers who were either locked out or forced to come to work without pay. And another million people, a million people, doing contract work. Locked out with no warning at all. Only because of our unions we heard the stories of real people. During the shutdown, agencies were handing down memos from the White House to tell federal workers that they were forbidden from speaking to anyone about how they were faring during the shutdown. AFGE and other federal sector unions put a stop to that to make sure people could express their personal hardship that they were forced to face. Federal workers were suddenly no longer nameless, faceless bureaucrats. They were, they had stories and they became human to the public. No money to pay for rent, for childcare, or a tank of gas to get to work. The veteran and federal worker stretching insulin through the night and wondering if she will wake up in the morning. The transportation security officer in her third trimester with no certainty for her unborn child. The air traffic controller who whispered to his union leader, I just don't know how long I can hang on. The TSA officer in Orlando who took his life by jumping eight floors to his death in the middle of the security checkpoint. With nearly two million workers locked out of work or forced to come to work for free. And the rest of us going to work in a workspace that was becoming increasingly unsafe. The truth is that if our federal sector sisters and brothers can't do their work, we can't do ours. We're connected. We had to define what was at stake and understand what our leverage was to fix it. We called for a general strike, but we have to understand the strike is the tactic. Solidarity is our power. Now calling for a general strike first and foremost made clear who had the power. When it seemed there was no answer and no end in sight, labor led the way. The shutdown ended not so much because a few grounded flights in LaGuardia, but because those ten air traffic controllers who could no longer safely do their jobs signaled a much more powerful threat to the GOP. Labor was rising and the very last thing they could allow to happen in this process was to let us taste our power. Some thought the shutdown was about a wall. If you were looking on social media or network news, it appeared the wall was already built, as the country seemed bitterly at odds over racist fear mongering. But it was all a lie. It was a lie. I spoke with transportation security officers who told me that if it weren't for the stress of not getting a paycheck, they'd never been happier at work. Normally, the security checkpoints are less than pleasant, but instead of grouching during screening, people said thank you. They were kind. They offered help. Most people want to choose kindness. We pull together when things get bad. I saw it after 9 11 and I saw it during the shutdown. Americans like to feel solidarity. It was our unions that brought the stories of real people to the public and the public had to face those people in their everyday life. And that built solidarity. Now, healthcare. Unions long ago took steps to set a standard for our society. We broke new ground in our contracts in an effort to make healthcare a right for every person on this earth. What we legislate, we don't have to negotiate. Today, every time we go to the table, management comes up with proposals to diminish our care or transfer costs to our pockets. It's a massive win when we keep contractual health care at status quo. But the for profit health care system in this country is unsustainable. Most Americans, including many union members, have to choose between having health care or paying rent. Or, a low premium plan with a cross your fingers high deductible. Even the best plans with no premiums cover our care in hospitals that are drastically understaffed. Caregivers waste time getting approval for procedures and medicine rather than taking immediate action to save lives. Trump and the GOP would love to have our country believe this issue creates a divide between union members and those without a union contract. But the truth is that an injury to one is an injury to all. And today, our family, our friends, our neighbors are dying because greed puts a cost on their lives of those that we love. While Bernie Sanders proposes health care for all, Donald Trump and the GOP are right this minute trying to strip protections of those with pre existing conditions. Let's be clear about the positions that are being taken here. It is not about union plans or non union plans. We need to organize and tell the truth about what's at stake, which side we're on and the leverage we have to fix it. We cannot retreat to our own communities. We must define our issues as one national objective, focused and well coordinated, while also conducting effective organizing that is adaptable to the local context. The marchers in Puerto Rico, hey, were spurred forward by the leak of emails and instant messages showing the governor's inner circle mocking victims of a hurricane, spreading homophobic and misogynist lies, and joking openly about corruption. But it was teachers, sanitation workers, nurses, drivers, who marched and changed history. And in case anybody hasn't said it to you lately, that was a general strike. Last night, Politico asked me what I thought about Bernie Sanders using his campaign list to turn people out for our union actions. I told them, Bernie Sanders believes unions are integral to our democracy, so he's taking action that reflects his core beliefs. But also, he knows that when you come out for someone else's fight, you're more likely to view it as your own fight. You've got a stake in the outcome. And when the fight is won, you feel that win too. He's breaking down the I've got mine mantra. That's the worst of capitalism. And a mindset that's been bred to control people through fear that someone else is gaining because you are losing. On the picket line, the opposite is true. The goal is collective, and people who have never spoken share an experience that will change each other's lives. Bernie Sanders, using his list to turn out people for strikes and protests, is literally demonstrating Not me. Us. It's breaking through the politics of fear, building power, and bringing people together. It's a living example of the president he wants to be and the way he plans to get results. So, wouldn't it be great if the social norm were people rising up in a general strike, if lawmakers didn't secure healthcare as a right. Equal pay, affordable housing, fully funded public schools, voting rights, democracy free of corporate money, and jobs that provide bread and roses too. Wouldn't we be stronger if we saw fear of someone else as a tactic by the powerful to divide the working class? Wouldn't we be better if people different from ourselves raised our curiosity and we asked them to tell their stories? This is what happens on the picket line. The last thing we can do is take the rights that we've gained for granted. Mother Jones told us we will fight and win, fight and lose, but above all, we must fight! These rights are never absolute, they exist because generations of workers died to give us these rights. They don't tell us this in the schools, but this is true. They were shut down at Homestead, Pennsylvania and in the hills of West Virginia. They were hanged for the Haymarket Affair in Chicago and beaten on the overpass near Detroit. All for taking a stand for the rights of working people. They were beatings at Stonewall and murders in San Francisco City Hall. These activists thought it was important enough to stand up against all odds. And put everything on the line to make it better for their families, and for our families too. And the good news is, today it's our turn! So sisters and brothers, comrades, I ask you to put at the center of your agenda, shaping our labor movement. Unions in this country have led mobs against immigrants, and we have lifted up immigrants. We have written union constitutions that exclude African Americans, and yet Dr. King gave his life on a union picket line. We as a movement are not automatically on the right side, we have to choose to be and we have to live that choice. And today the choices haven't gotten easier, they have gotten harder. Our lives and our well being are completely tied together with the workers in Mexico and Canada, China and Germany. Yet politicians in every country seek to divide us and pit us against each other. I learned the hard way, at the bargaining table and with some of the world's most powerful corporations stacked, even with the power of the bankruptcy court. That the solidarity and courage of working people is the greatest force of good in human history. So, let's use it. Spread the word. Spread the word that the labor movement belongs to all working people. Women. Women. People of color. Young people. Join unions and run unions. We need your vision, your passion, your creativity, and your leadership. Spread the word that unions are for everyone. If you're done with poverty, build your union. If you're sick and tired of pension defaults for Main Street, and stock buybacks for Wall Street, build your union. If you want for yourself what you're willing to want for someone else, even if they are different from you, build your union. We don't have to wait for the next election when we have a union. The power of solidarity gets results right away. And in my union, I have learned. That when you organize in a union, when you mobilize people together, when you are a union leader, you are not just talking with people who agree directly with you. We have more in common than anything that can divide us. But we honor our differences, our different opinions, our different ideas, because when we challenge each other, we have better results. The power of solidarity gets results right away. In our union, we can define what's at stake, recognize racism and sexism and every ism as the boss's tactics, rather than our brothers and sisters hearts. Change comes fast when the risk becomes too great for those in power. You got that? Change comes fast. Ask the teachers in West Virginia. Change comes fast when the risk becomes too great for those in power. And power shifts to the people when we act in unity. And so finally, look to the people all around you. Look at them. Look at the people around you. And tell everyone around you. I've got your back. Alright, once more time. You're back! You're back! I've got your back! I've got your back! I've got your back! I've got your back! Thank you, DSA! Have a great convention!

Elton LK: 31:45

This is Class, an official podcast of the Democratic Socialists of America National Political Education Committee. My name is Elton LK. Thank you to Casey Stikker, who deserves a big thanks for sound engineering and theme music. Thank you to Palmer Conrad for editing. if you're inspired by anything we've been talking about, if you think the system is rigged and democracy is the solution, join DSA. Become a member. I've put a link in the show notes to DSA's website. if you're already a member of DSA, please share this podcast with your local chapter. Class is intended to be a resource for chapters and members to articulate, apply, and share socialist theory with DSA and the wider working class. Also, remember to rate and review us on iTunes or your favorite podcatcher. As you know from listening to other podcasts, this is an important way to get out the word about class.