The Labor Day weekend was followed by a strike here in our quiet little county on the Bay. Teamsters Local 570 and Ecology Services have been unable to agree on contract terms, and the union members made a decision to walk out.
That matters to county residents in parts of Pasadena, Severna Park, Odenton, and Laurel because Ecology Services has a contract with the county to pick up garbage, recycling, and yard waste in three service areas.
I am a strong believer in the benefits of union membership and union action to leverage higher wages and better working conditions, but our contract with the employer prevents me from intervening on either side. My primary responsibility is to ensure that somebody picks up the trash. That’s why our team at the Department of Public Works is hustling to get routes filled by any vendor we can find. Let’s hope a deal gets made and these workers are able to continue their service to our people.
Labor unions are built by organizers and community organizations are built by organizers. When Barack Obama was running for President the words “community organizer” were used by his opponents with disdain, because he had been one. About a week after announcing my candidacy for County Executive, I got a call from a friend who happened to be an elected official from the political party of the incumbent County Executive I was challenging.
“Is it true that you were a community organizer for ACORN,” he asked.
“I was, for a long time. We did really good work to bring investments to neighborhoods that really needed it.”
”Well they just found out about it and they’re coming after you for it. That stuff may fly in Prince George’s County, but not here in Anne Arundel.”
ACORN - the acronym stands for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now - was an effort launched in Arkansas in 1970 to empower low and moderate income communities through door-to-door neighborhood-level organizing. I worked for them in Chicago, Des Moines, and out of the D.C. national office from 1984 - 1994, minus a couple years in the early 90’s when I was at National Low Income Housing Coalition.
ACORN no longer exists, but I was interviewed this week for an oral history of the organization. Memories came flooding back, and with them came a better understanding of my approach to governing.
I talked about being arrested with residents of Altgeld Gardens, a public housing project on the far south side of Chicago, for blocking trucks from entering the hazardous waste landfill next door that had cyanide seeping into the nearby well water.
I described putting money into the pockets of homeowners in Des Moines neighborhoods by getting the city to lower assessments to reflect declining values in a bad economy. And signing a community reinvestment agreement with Norwest Bank so that loans would be available to buy homes in those depressed neighborhoods.
I reminisced about how our relationship with the city changed after we helped a union leader become mayor, and how our members became leaders.
I found myself crediting those leaders and the staff at ACORN who trained me, for instilling in me a solid work ethic and a clear understanding of how real power is built and used in our body politic.
And at the end, I addressed the controversy over the term community organizer, arguing that no activity is more patriotic, more democratic, or more effective at creating the engagement that holds government accountable. And that by demanding accountability, community organizing provides responsive governments with the legitimacy they need to function on behalf of the people they serve.
That’s why we turned the office of Constituent Services into the Office of Community Engagement and Constituent Services, which now leads EngageArundel. Engage, by the way, is a polite way of saying Organize.
And that’s why we do Stakeholder Advisory Committees in nine county regions, Budget Town Halls in seven council districts, and grass-roots mobilizations when we have tough bills like forest conservation and housing before the County Council. Those who traditionally hold the power don’t like all the organizing and engagement, but in the long run, it creates the stability and progress that benefits everyone.
If you doubt what I say, consider violence interruption, the emerging programs across the country whereby residents of neighborhoods where violent crime is high are hired to work the streets, to organize community events, to connect with both perpetrators and victims, and to offer paths to opportunity.
We have one of these programs in west county and a new one that our Department of Health launched recently in Eastport under the umbrella of Cure Violence Global. This week I attended the staff meeting of this new team, heard their activity reports, and came away understanding why it is that gun violence has dropped so steeply since they began their work.
These violence interrupters are community organizers. They are building community. And we are all better off because of it.
Until next week…