BY CAPRICE LAWLESS
Teaching moment #1:
One student was hit by lightning while on the job. Another one (who works at a deli) watched her boss banging on the restroom door as he yelled at the co-worker inside (whom she and others could hear was vomiting) that she needed “to finish up and get back to the serving line!” One described routinely being forced to work at the top of a cell phone tower for 10 hours without a break. Another reflected on the way she and her co-workers at the nursing home are forced to work when sick and coughing, as they have high turnover because the pay is so low. One had to get back to work right away, although her son had attempted suicide. I learned these facts from reading student narratives at the start of my English Comp. class this term at Front Range Community College. It’s odd how the heightened focus on jobs and careers is unaccompanied by student awareness of worker rights, and of health and safety protections. None of them had ever heard of OSHA, NIOSH, the NLRA, NLRB, ULP reports, etc. (It’s chilling to think that lack of awareness might be by design, but I digress.)
The teachable moment thus presented, in preparation for their argument essay, students researched and shared lists of vocabulary related to worker rights, then identified the various federal and state agencies advocating for worker protections. They gave to classmates lists of links – and their thoughts about what they discovered – regarding state and federal online resources. We watched the revealing PBS documentary, The Ludlow Massacre, then listened to Tennessee Ernie Ford sing “Sixteen Tons.” We read about Cesar Chavez and his speech, “The Wrath of Grapes,” along with some essay excerpts by James Loewen and Howard Zinn. We watched and then discussed a YouTube clip about the Triangle Shirt Waist Fire. Also helpful were group-assigned reports on websites such as “Youth@Work: Talking Safety Curriculum for Colorado,” and, from the Univ. of California at Berkeley, YoungWorkers.org.
After I found the helpful article by Taylor and Provitera in the Journal of Management Education, “Teaching Labor Relations with Norma Rae,” of course we watched that 1970s film and covered afterward the scores of questions and comments it generated among them. Students liked that film because the protagonist is someone their age, performing so-called “unskilled” work (such as the work they do), under harsh circumstances similar to what they experience in their jobs.
The topic for their argument essay (assigned last week): “Do you see examples of worker rights under attack today in the U.S.? “ Seven days later, a young man was buried alive in a nearby city when the un-stabilized trench he had been forced to work in collapsed atop him and a coworker. Both workers died. This morning, a young woman in Pennsdale, Penn., was killed when she fell into a meat grinder. To learn that “OSHA is investigating” these incidences makes my students mad, because they realize how many employers nowadays skirt OSHA to cut costs, how the workers pay the price, and how the gig economy erodes worker solidarity. They know that trench in Windsor, Colo., should have had barriers In place to protect workers. They know any factory equipment, such as a meat grinder, has to be shielded to prevent worker injuries at that plant in Pennsdale. This unit is teaching students about writing solid arguments, predicating them on a syllogistic outline, including data to support each claim, and balancing logos, pathos, and ethos along the way. (Heavy on the ethos, though, I’m finding so far in their essays.) Also along the way, they are picking up knowledge about job safety and worker rights that might actually save their lives.
I usually assign argument topics about recent incidences of racial profiling or contemporary examples of propaganda. Of course, students find – and cite – sources they identify on the Web, in journals etc. I also urge them to consider interviewing friends, family and coworkers on these topics, and show them how to cite a personal interview in the MLA 8th Edition. Those interviews, this time, seem to be creating different bonds with their coworkers and, from what I have read so far, a realization that the workplace battles their grandparents tell them about seem to have been only temporarily won, and are stirring anew in their own generation.
This is the first time the argument topic touched on labor issues. The vein of gold it has opened up is rich and promising among my 15- to 24-year-old students. (That’s right: In the Colorado Community College System, 20-46% of our students are in high school. This is what happens when you have no shared governance, but I digress AGAIN.) Some email me to apologize for missing class, stay late to talk about things happening at their jobs, and discuss in groups how those problems can be expressed in their argument essays. They are rushing into class early to report on necessary signage missing at work (something they notice now). They listen to things they hear in- and outside work with a critical ear, now that they know more about logic fallacies, how to spot a cogent argument, and how to question the motive of a speaker.
I’ve shared my excitement about this argument unit with my department leads. I was told that I might be offered the chance to share some of these ideas at a break-out session at the fall In-Service (to an audience of two or three faculty members). This is likely because any talk about worker rights is a conversation-killer in the authoritarian, corporatized, non-community community college where I work. Thinking about labor issues, listening to Woody Guthrie sing about embattled workers, or chatting about Howard Zinn is uncommon where I work, by design. Lesson plans like these might get students – and the teachers who teach them – thinking things ought to be different. That is Teachable Moment #2.
