"Newsies" for Taiwan Solidarity

"Newsies" for Taiwan Solidarity

Copied from Education-Emancipation-Organization (www.e-e-o.blogspot.com) 

   
     “To cooperate to the fullest extent with the labor movement and to work for a progressive labor philosophy to awaken in all members a labor consciousness and sense of solidarity with labor.” United Federation of Teachers  (NYC-UFT) Mission Statement 
     So, how does an EFL teacher draw the attention of students in Taiwan where workers' unions are as foreign as English itself? How can we help students in Taiwan achieve their dreams in a harsh and changing workplace?      On April 19, 2018, I rode to Shengang Middle School where I conduct conversation enrichment. With the 8th graders, we've been discussing child abuse and oppressive child labor. The week before, an introduction to Kid Blink and the Newsies was  distributed and then we saw the first part of the Disney musical film, "Newsies."    The Disney Company is not famous for labor agitation; indeed, they have been at the heart of anti-labor clampdown since Walter himself testified in the McCarthy witch hunts against communists in Hollywood in the '50's; communist being a code word for unionism. But profit is profit and they couldn't let the market that made the anti-child abuse musicals "Oliver," "Annie," and "American Tail" slip through their hands. 
     The film is an entry-level introduction to activism for Taiwanese middle-school students with intermediate EFL skills. Children of families in Taiwan that suffer from underpay and overwork in a union-less work force with a declining standard of living, so much that the birth rate has dropped significantly, need to know this. Foreign teachers must take the lead in helping Taiwanese students  establish a culture of unionism. 

     On March 15, 2018, 107 years after the tragic workplace fire, the 8th grade class wrote and presented summaries about oppressive child labor from an excerpt of Fire at the Triangle Factory. We then read “Joseph Miliauskas: Breaker Boy” from We Were There, Too; Young People in U.S. History. Earlier, they had done a multiple choice on oppressive child labor discussing scenarios through reported speech question and answers. I told the children we would see a movie about such exploited children. They were thrilled to hear that; children love movies. I had tweaked their interest. 
      I handed my assistant the DVD so I could show the trailer and get the kinks out but  I was not going to show the film until every child showed their homework; a short introduction about Fire at the Triangle Factoryor “Kid Blink and the Newsies: Bringing Down Goliaths”. After sharing aloud, we begin to watch the Disney musical, Part 1. The children were asked to note actions of the main character, English or Chinese was okay. 

The class then caucused in groups of 4-5 to  write two actions each (present tense) about the film segment. They begin  sentences with a list of time phrases I put on the board (First, Next, Finally) and in cooperative learning,  order the actions, choosing five to write on their team space on the board. I took photos of each board and combined the groups findings (see brainstorm list below) then handed out the list the following week for them to put in order removing redundant and  irrelevant sentences. Once that was done, I continued showing the film and the group work process. 

    I played Part 2 for them yesterday after they began to organize the 37 details they had amassed from part one. Each group brainstormed two more details for the continuing lesson to conclude two weeks from now. At the end of class, the students made compound sentences with "after" and "before" as I showed them how to eliminate the excess pronoun after initial proper noun. They wrote two examples on the board. The silence came when I showed how, with commas, they could go on forever adding to time order details without repeating the subject pronoun. It must have been a revelation to them. I never heard them so quietly listening. 

Newsies: Part One Brainstorm

Order and delete redundant and irrelevant details

___An old man calls all the boys to get up.

___They sing, dress, and go to the sidewalk.

___The Newsies feel the extra profit their bosses take is not good for them.

___The Newsies decide to strike.

___The boys buy newspapers and sell them.

___Newsies have to buy newspapers.

___Newsies sell newspapers to people.

___Jack has stolen food.

___The police chase Jack.

___Jack, Dave, and Les run into a theater.

___They watch a singer in the theater.

___The newspaper bosses want to make more money from the Newsies.

___They wake up early.

___They live in the same place.

___They take some newspapers and sell them.

___The police chase them.

___They sit on the steps.

___Newsies discuss how their newspaper sale profit is getting lower.

___They decide to stop working.

___Newsies buy newspapers to sell.

___The police chase them.

___They run into a theater to see a friend of Jack’s father.

___They go to Jack’s house to meet his family.

___The Newsies go on strike.

___Cowboy teaches Les how to sell newspapers well.

___The police chase Cowboy.

___Cowboy steals food.

___The company increases the price of newspapers.

___Newsies want to get all the Newsies in New York City together.

___There are many boys that sell newspapers in New York City.

___Jack meets two boys, David and his brother, Les, on the street.

___Jack sees a detective so he runs into a theater.

___David and his family celebrate his dad’s birthday.

___The Newsies go on strike.

___The Newsies sell newspapers to make a living.

___Suddenly, the newspaper’s price gets higher.

___Cowboy wants a family.

     For labor solidarity, "Newsies" is the most important film Disney ever released. The film is a pathway into the notion of what a union is; great to show to middle and high school students in Taiwan, most useful because it sneaks up on them and has them on the side of the newspaper boy strikers before they realize they have aligned themselves correctly with class interests designed to raise their social “workers” consciousness while welcoming them to the world of the  English.
      Even at a low-intermediate level of proficiency, this can be done with the use of kinetic activities (contests, cooperative learning, arts and crafts, etc.) and through the media of song and film: a musical named "Newsies." 
www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com
 Copyright © 2018 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.

The Untold Story of the Mississippi Delta Chinese

https://www.facebook.com/UntoldAmericaShow/videos/1911643398859136/

The New People's Army in the Philippines

The New People's Army is marking its 50th year of waging war against the U.S. sponsored Armed Forces of the Philippines.


https://youtu.be/-mtusYyzvmo

Which Side are You and I On?

Embedded in the modern history of these two nations, China and Russia, is an origin in revolutionary thought; the equality of women and men, the daring of workers' spirit. To fend off the tantalizing materialism of Capitalism, both nations had to retreat from their socialist tendencies or risk being overrun by infantile immediate gratification easily swayed by shiny objects. Furthermore, the arms race, always led by the United States, made these great peoples veer from their revolutionary goals; they just couldn't keep up with the military industrial complex (a phenomena we see now in the U.S. itself that continues to expand militarily while decimating social programs selling out the now defunct middle class).

The only way was to slow down and, as Marx predicted, go through a deeper period of bourgeois development before socialism can become the norm, socialism that would be health care, education, utilities, and all basic human needs provided by collective goals, even if a state has to go through a dictatorship of the proletariat to safeguard their advances from being co-opted by selfish interests, their selfish interests of protecting their borders from predators comes first.

Now that Capitalism is dying in the world as nations in South America, Africa, and Asia wake up to the exploitation they endured and the regime change caused by CIA that has a goal to protect the ruling class, we must realize that once the fox is no longer at the hen house, the chickens can relax and resume their socialist lives with vigor.

Trump is good to alert the world to America's true mindset. The world now knows that the American dream is a sham. You should not hold on to the privilege you have in name only. As Jews, we, and Israel are next on the agenda of Christian Millennial rulers.

In closing, what is at the foundation of deferred states like Russia and China is socialism. What is at the foundation of capitalist states like the US is feudalism.

Compare Chinese and Taiwanese development: While workers in Taiwan struggle without independent unions or a living wage, wages stuck at the same level as 20 years ago, Chinese workers are organized, constantly have strikes to improve their living standards (see China Labour Bulletin) and, in many areas, have surpassed living standards in Taiwan. Women in China have balls and really feel equal to men in many aspects while in Taiwan women still suffer from Confucian oppression; boys inherit the property, women who are older or married cannot find jobs, everyone works overtime without pay and are even afraid to use the holidays and sick days they have because their boss will not look kindly on it.

I strongly believe what my Pop, an anarchist who escaped from the Bolsheviks in Belarus in 1909 said, that the fish stinks from the head. Nothing that starts wrong (take Washington, the richest man in the fledgling USA) can ever come to anything. On the other hand, the spirit of revolutionary socialism, though retarded by capitalist incursion, colonialism and oppression, still has revolutionary socialism at its root. Mao Tse-Tung is still venerated in China; Lenin is still a hero in Russia. The faster capitalism can eat itself, the socialist states can flourish.

Taiwan Politicians that Give Lip Service to Workers’ Rights

      I hesitate to write an article about the Taiwanese politicians that give lip service to raising the standard of workers’ rights. The party on hunger strike in the rain want to exploit the goodwill of Sunflower movement remnants. They are staging an event outside the presidential office building. It looks good for them to be sitting under a makeshift tent in the rain, but it is all showmanship.

     Since the party in power used the youth movement to take control of the legislature in the last national elections, they only need lip service passing laws that mask the real issue - raising the minimum wage to a living wage. Promote laws already on the books safeguarding workers organizing unions protecting them from revenge by bosses. The labor laws here and in the U.S. are similar except that in Taiwan only a workplace with over 30 employees can unionize.

      Instead of sitting out in the rain complaining about laws they ignored passing last year, this political party could be going around Taiwan promoting and explaining the labor laws on the books long before the party they criticize took over the legislature. They could be helping interested workers organize clandestine grass root unions, to build a base for eventual government recognized unions. Since they are not, let them starve, die of pneumonia, or  ignore them better still for all their useless shams while helpless workers suffer slave conditions in Taiwan.
      Well, the police chased them away today; two former professors, a shoe-tosser, and a death metal musician, all turned politicians. They were saved from pneumonia and starvation so they should be thankful, but they won't be. Even President Tsai Ying-Wen, like a good mama, asked them to leave. So they slinked away, will tell their constituents they had victory, put it on their resume, and go on pretending they give a shit about working people in Taiwan. Where is Taiwan's Preacher Casy? Not in this bunch. 
             I woke up after an hour or so of sleep and went into the tea room to complete CD 16 and 17 of The Grapes of Wrath. It’s such a powerful condemnation of American capitalism and unbridled greed. We are part of one big soul, not individual souls, says Tom Joad to Ma before he has to leave the family after he killed the man who killed Preacher Casy. After seeing those egotistical clowns from the New Power Party on TV “apologize” publically for not being able to do anything to help workers after being removed from their three-day hunger strike, I told my wife how I felt personally insulted as I had directly communicated with two that ignored my pleas to unionize. It may not be my fight since I’d been marginalized long before I retired, but I can’t help but shake my head in disgust about the obstructionists that do the bidding for the ruling class with their individual “souls.”

A Year Since Trump Was Elected President

Some people said Trump's win would be harmful to the environment and embolden the myriad haters and racists all across America. I said "An eye for an eye" would do the trick; "direct action" would get satisfaction. Unless the FBI/CIA wanted Trump to start a civil war, they would tell him to shut up; the people united could never be defeated. The fascists would lose that war, too. 

A year later, we see that every stupid uninformed thing Trump said was eaten up by the media as the inevitable looting of social program went unabated by the Senate and Congress. The people weren't united and were defeated. 

Some said there would be grave peril from climate change. Trump, like Obama and Clinton, didn't stop it.  Capitalism marched on, armed to the teeth, threatening  nations that didn't agree; imperialist incursion and genocide all over the world.

Sanders remained a Democrat and refused to go independent. He was a distraction, a politician. The Democratic Party needed to be bold and instead sabotaged Sanders, the only ray of hope for  people like you and me.

WW III was averted by  Clinton's losing. She was a clandestine  loose canon, more than bug-mouth Trump. The "not-working" class felt it in their empty gut and believed in Trump foolishly. But socialism is the answer, not anti-union and pro-Wall Street. Sanders was the coward. Ignore his Democratic Party rhetoric. Grass-root activism is the answer.

"If Trump is the price we have to pay to defeat Clintonian neo-liberalism – so be it." — Mumia Abu-Jamal

Trump is nothing new. R. Dunbar-Ortiz in her excellent book An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States wrote: "It's not that Andrew Jackson had a 'dark side,' as his apologists rationalize and which all human beings have,but rather that Jackson 'was' the Dark Knight in the formation of the United States as a colonialist, imperialist democracy, a dynamic formation that constitutes the core of U.S. patriotism. The most revered presidents -including Clinton and Obama [add Trump]- have each advanced populist imperialism while gradually increasing inclusion of other groups beyond the core of descendants of old settlers in the ruling mythology."  

The infrastructure in America has fallen apart; transportation is backward, full-time jobs with benefits is scarce, poverty level is 60%, 60,000 middle-aged, despondent Americans died from drug overdoses. Schools are underfunded and prisons are for profit.

The stock market had a great 2017. Sweatshop jobs from Amazon to Foxconn moved back in to make the unemployment rate seem low. Tax were cut where they shouldn't have been and the military in 175 countries got funded; the U.S. infrastructure got under-funded and sacred land can now be looted. U.S. workers have not benefited at all as Trump said they would. 

Join a grass root organization;  go with them on marches. Organize within your community and workplace. Nothing will help workers but organizing together. 

Thousands protest labor amendments

POOR CONDITIONS:Employers are likely to force their employees to sign agreements saying they agree with longer work hours, a union member said

By Lin Chia-nan  /  Staff reporter

Police and labor groups protesting proposed amendments to the Labor Standards Act yesterday scuffle as protesters continue to block the road outside the Executive Yuan in Taipei, despite the organizers dismissing the rally earlier in the evening.

Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times

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Thousands of people yesterday marched from the headquarters of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to the Executive Yuan in Taipei, urging the Cabinet to withdraw its draft amendment to the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法).

At noon, protesters gathered in front of the headquarters and started to march toward the Legislative Yuan at about 3pm.

One of the organizers, the Taiwan Railway Union, estimated a turnout of more than 10,000 people in the afternoon.

Several scuffles broke out between protesters and police when police tried to narrow down the demonstration area at the intersection between the Zhongshan N Road and Zhongxiao E Road.

Instead of continuing their march along Zhongxiao W Road, the organizers urged protesters to stage a sit-in at the intersection and wait for the Cabinet to respond to their appeal, but they received no response and dismissed the demonstration at 6pm.

Despite the dismissal, some protesters were still occupying the intersection as of press time last night.

Prior to the dismissal, some protesters tried to break through a police blockade set up in front of the Executive Yuan complex.

One member of the Social Democratic Party, surnamed Lu (呂), was forcibly removed from the scene by police, with his left ear allegedly cut on the wired barricades.

Since the Cabinet announced the draft amendment on Nov. 9, many labor rights groups have been protesting against what they said is the most retrogressive amendment to the act, which was pushed to a second reading by DPP lawmakers on Dec. 4.

Anticipating the demonstration yesterday, Cabinet spokesperson Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) and Minister of Labor Lin Mei-chu (林美珠) tried to clarify what they called a “misunderstanding” about the draft amendment at a news conference on Thursday.

In the Cabinet’s draft, Article 34 proposes that the interval between two work shifts can be reduced from 11 hours to no less than eight hours if an employer obtains approval from its workers’ union.

Most people oppose the article because they do not understand its two premises: It only applies to those who have to work in shifts, and people are not allowed to work more than 12 consecutive hours, Hsu said.

The work schedule of employees can be changed once a week at most, but the restriction becomes irrelevant when employers and employees reach an agreement, according to the draft.

Some lawmakers have tendered motions that propose businesses should obtain the ministry’s approval before they are allowed to shorten workers’ rest intervals, Lin said, adding that the ministry thinks the proposal is feasible and would include it in the final draft.

No one misunderstood the articles, at least the Taipei City Government did not, Taipei Department of Labor Commissioner Lai Hsiang-lin (賴香伶) said yesterday when asked to comment on Hsu’s explanation.

Many hospital management teams, due to staff shortages, are likely to change workers’ schedules almost every day, which is a fact that the Cabinet fails to understand, Lai said, adding that it should encourage businesses to hire more workers instead of easing regulations.

The ministry should set up a registration system and ask businesses adopting shifts to fully reveal their schedule information, she said.

If businesses are to lengthen employees’ working hours, they should obtain approval from the ministry, which could be helpful to prevent employers from abusing the loosened regulation, she added.

Employers are likely to force workers to sign agreements that say that they agree with the lengthened work schedules, Taiwan Higher Education Union department director Lin Po-yi (林柏儀) said.

People who have to work in shifts, such as guards, nurses and drivers in the logistics industry, are relatively powerless in society, Lin Po-yi said, adding that the draft amendment would worsen their already poor working conditions.

The DPP has forsaken the public, who cannot but take to the streets to defend its values, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said.

Asked if the KMT has any strategies to boycott the draft amendment in the extraordinary legislative session next month, Chiang said that party members are discussing plans, but cannot reveal them at the moment.

During a visit to Tainan yesterday, Premier William Lai (賴清德) said he would ask the Ministry of Labor to collect the appeals of protesters, but no further response could be solicited from the Cabinet as of press time last night.