{"id":7218,"date":"2023-08-19T12:27:53","date_gmt":"2023-08-19T16:27:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.midnightsunmag.ca\/?p=7218"},"modified":"2023-08-19T14:09:10","modified_gmt":"2023-08-19T18:09:10","slug":"listen-to-disabled-people-or-get-out-of-our-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnightsunmag.ca\/listen-to-disabled-people-or-get-out-of-our-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Listen to Disabled People or Get Out of Our Way"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"7218\" class=\"elementor elementor-7218\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-5382b4f7 elementor-section-height-min-height elementor-section-content-top elementor-section-stretched elementor-section-items-bottom elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"5382b4f7\" data-element_type=\"section\" data-settings=\"{&quot;stretch_section&quot;:&quot;section-stretched&quot;,&quot;background_background&quot;:&quot;classic&quot;}\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-504a31de\" data-id=\"504a31de\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-79461b54 elementor-hidden-tablet elementor-hidden-mobile animated-slow elementor-view-default elementor-invisible elementor-widget elementor-widget-icon\" data-id=\"79461b54\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-settings=\"{&quot;_animation&quot;:&quot;fadeInDown&quot;}\" data-widget_type=\"icon.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-icon-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-icon\">\n\t\t\t<i aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"fas fa-angle-double-down\"><\/i>\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-5567adaa elementor-section-full_width elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"5567adaa\" data-element_type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-no\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-28dbd3c4\" data-id=\"28dbd3c4\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-14fd3f2b elementor-widget elementor-widget-heading\" data-id=\"14fd3f2b\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"heading.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t<h2 class=\"elementor-heading-title elementor-size-default\"><a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/photos\/_oNISBwMTwo\" target=\"_blank\">Photo: Glen Carrie\/Unsplash<\/a><\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-7402beed elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"7402beed\" data-element_type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-33 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-72cc3ce\" data-id=\"72cc3ce\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-3d3a9cd3 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"3d3a9cd3\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h3 style=\"text-align: right;\">8. 19. 2023<\/h3><h1>Listen to Disabled People or Get Out of Our Way<\/h1><h3 style=\"text-align: right;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><br \/><a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.midnightsunmag.ca\/tag\/kate-klein\/\">kate klein<\/a> <br \/>&amp; griffin epstein<\/span><\/strong><\/h3><hr \/><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>In the US state of Tennessee, two laws are stacked against labour organizers fighting for workplace safety: employers can\u2019t mandate vaccines or masks, and workplaces are not allowed to be fully unionized. So, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, faculty in the Medicine, Health, and Science program at Vanderbilt University in Nashville took matters into their own hands. Faculty created a free \u201cmask bank\u201d for students and staff by pooling their resources to buy and distribute high-quality masks. As professor Aimi Hamraie remembers: \u201cEventually we tried to get the university to let us pay for those masks out of our research funds, because&#8230;we were providing what should be an institutionally provided resource and service for people. And they wouldn\u2019t let us use our research funds to buy masks because there\u2019s no category in their system of reimbursement for PPE.\u201d The workers involved recognized they shouldn\u2019t have to pay for workplace personal protective equipment (PPE), but the university wouldn\u2019t budge, and they weren\u2019t going to put themselves or their students in danger.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Vanderbilt University excused its unwillingness to participate in community safety by citing the lack of a precedent or a pre-existing framework for doing so. Many workers across the US and Canada have faced similar hurdles when trying to organize in response to a massive global health crisis. In May 2023, we \u2013 kate and griffin \u2013 <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/briarpatchmagazine.com\/articles\/view\/they-dont-know-how-to-fight-for-this\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">published an article in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Briarpatch Magazine<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> exploring how unionized workers are pushing union leadership to understand COVID protections as part of a broader disability and accessibility framework. After facing our own struggles as disabled educators trying to bring a disability justice consciousness to our union local, we were inspired to reach out to other workers. We hoped to hear powerful stories of union leaders mobilizing for COVID safety, and to learn from their victories. Instead, we found people struggling in the same ways we were: small groups of committed workers making modest gains and building support networks, but failing to move the needle within the broader union infrastructure.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Workers deserve the kind of protection and power that comes with being unionized. But formal unionization is not the only way to organize a workplace. As we did our research for the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Briarpatch <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">article, we connected with many other educators and post-secondary workers organizing outside or against their existing unions \u2013 or in the case of the faculty at Vanderbilt University, without the protection of a union at all. In most of these cases, the work was being led by disabled, chronically ill, Mad, neurodivergent, and\/or psychiatrized workers, with support and solidarity from colleagues with pre-existing commitments to collective struggle. As disabled activist and writer Alice Wong <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/2020\/08\/14\/message-from-the-future-disabled-oracle-society\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">reminds us<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, disabled people have always been \u201coracles,\u201d anticipating the contours of future oppressions and strategizing ways to keep people safe. Hamraie\u2019s department at Vanderbilt was full of people who teach about the social determinants of health, researchers examining the history of AIDS activism, disability scholars, and workers with experience doing mutual aid organizing \u2013 lineages that allowed them to clearly see the wisdom in approaches to organizing that prioritize grassroots adaptation and collective response.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What happens when the institutions that are meant to protect us fail to understand what protection looks like or cannot imagine new ways of organizing beyond conventional union tactics? What can the broader labour movement learn from the creative interventions made by workers whose identities, experiences, and commitments ensured that they didn\u2019t have to rush to catch up when the pandemic hit? What might all workers, unionized or not, gain from understanding disability justice as a lens and a set of material practices that not only belong in, but might help to expand, the labour movement \u2013 including but not limited to trade unions?<\/span><\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><h2>Disability, ableism, and labour\u00a0<\/h2><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While COVID-19 disproportionately threatens people who already face structural oppression and\/or who have pre-existing health conditions or concerns, the pandemic is also itself a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thestar.com\/life\/health-wellness\/report-says-long-covid-could-impact-economy-and-be-mass-disabling-event-in-canada\/article_c31acd7e-1925-548d-b91e-dc75c4bf7c9f.html?\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">mass disabling event<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/europe\/news-room\/fact-sheets\/item\/post-covid-19-condition\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 10 \u2013 20% of all COVID infections result in potentially life-altering Long COVID<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. As a result, there is a growing population of disabled people, at least some of whom are members of unions, fighting for support from their employers. And yet, according to disability rights advocate and policy analyst Ariel Adelman, the labour movement continues to fail to incorporate disability justice into its organizing work. Adelman <a href=\"https:\/\/tcf.org\/content\/commentary\/the-labor-movement-is-incomplete-without-disability-justice\/\">examines<\/a> the historic strikes of workers at the University of California (SRU\/UAW), US-based Starbucks stores (SBWU), and US rail workers (multiple unions), explaining that they have \u201cfallen short of their own ideological goals.\u201d For example, while Starbucks workers included pandemic protections in their demands and rail unions fought for sick leave, neither group enforced COVID safety standards for their strike actions. Disabled workers in SRU\/UAW have made multiple public statements about the lack of attention paid to COVID-19 safety throughout the bargaining process. As Adelman <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/tcf.org\/content\/commentary\/the-labor-movement-is-incomplete-without-disability-justice\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">writes<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, \u201cThe lack of explicit support from workers\u2019 unions for broader pandemic safety measures\u2026harms workers and society at large.\u201d This lack of support deepens what Adelman identifies as the already-existing \u201cableism in the labour movement.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ableism is often misunderstood as a form of oppression wielded exclusively against people with specific conditions that have been legitimated <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">as disabilities<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> by the medical industrial complex \u2013 misunderstood as separate from but, as the Ontario Human Rights Commission (citing the Law Commission of Ontario) writes, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ohrc.on.ca\/sites\/default\/files\/Policy%20on%20ableism%20and%20discrimination%20based%20on%20disability_accessible_2016.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201canalogous to\u201d<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> other forms of social oppression. The disability justice movement understands ableism more broadly. As Talila \u201cTL\u201d Lewis puts it,\u201d ableism is \u201ca system of assigning value to peoples\u2019 bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, productivity, desirability, intelligence, excellence and fitness,\u201d all of which are \u201cdeeply rooted in eugenics, anti-Blackness, misogyny, colonialism, imperialism and capitalism.\u201d These interlocking forms of oppression \u2013 and the expectations they set for individuals\u2019 behaviour \u2013 affect everyone, albeit in different manners. In this way, Lewis argues, \u201cyou do not have to be disabled to experience ableism.\u201d Disability identity is also complicated because it is both gatekept and stigmatized: many people do not readily or easily claim the label of \u201cdisability,\u201d even if they have chronic health conditions, mind and body differences, and\/or access needs that are unmet by our current social structure.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite this breadth of disabled experience, most unions see ableism as a niche issue, disconnected from other forms of workplace oppression, and treat disability as anomalous rather than common within the workforce. As such, although unions have often advocated for accommodations and\/or compensation for workplace injury, they have rarely understood disability as scholar <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dukeupress.edu\/Assets\/PubMaterials\/978-1-4780-2500-9_601.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sami Schalk<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> defines it: \u201ca political concern\u201d requiring not only individual support but also collective action.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/><\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The COVID-19 pandemic could have been a turning point for the labour movement. And it has had an impact on some unions\u2019 organizing demands: for example, Adelman\u2019s article highlights the Chicago Teachers Union\u2019s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.usnews.com\/news\/education-news\/articles\/2022-01-05\/chicago-teachers-union-votes-to-go-remote-during-omicron-surge\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">pivot to remote instruction<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in response to unsafe classrooms, and strikes by <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/paydayreport.com\/atu-shop-steward-who-warned-of-covid-19-dangers-dies-from-it\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">transit workers<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and others to protest unsafe working conditions at the beginning of the pandemic. \u201cUnfortunately,\u201d Adelman writes, \u201cmost unions have not continued this kind of action; few recognize that the pandemic has no end in sight.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We wonder: what would it look like to follow Alice Wong\u2019s lead and see disabled people as <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/2020\/08\/14\/message-from-the-future-disabled-oracle-society\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">organizing oracles<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, central to labour justice? As disability and transformative justice movement worker Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.teenvogue.com\/story\/future-is-disabled-book\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">writes<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, \u201cWe have the power to transform the world from the hellscape it is in right now to one oriented around care, safety and everyone having enough.\u201d But this can\u2019t happen if we limit our imaginations and allow the mainstream labour movement, with its narrow scope, to be our only option for workplace organizing.<\/span><\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><h2>Tethering ourselves to a community of disabled workers<\/h2><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to foundational disability justice performance project <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sinsinvalid.org\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sins Invalid<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, disability justice organizing is driven by sustainability rather than urgency, asking that organizers and communities \u201cpace ourselves, individually and collectively, to be sustained long term\u201d and reminding us that \u201cour embodied experiences guide us toward ongoing justice and liberation.\u201d This kind of organizing invests in \u201cflexibility and creative nuance,\u201d asking us to experiment and rethink constantly. It insists on interdependence and building alternative social and political structures, \u201cknowing that state solutions inevitably extend further control over our lives.\u201d It does not rely on vanguards or a figurehead who fits a narrow, ableist image of a \u201ccharismatic leader.\u201d Instead, it makes space for people to bring their unique skills and capacities to collective work. These material practices can be seen in the labour organizing of the Disabled Academics Collective (DAC)<\/span><b>, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">founded in the summer of 2020 by disabled historian Nicole Lee Schroeder.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">COVID-19 hit as Schroeder was in the final stages of her PhD. \u201cBecause I\u2019m a historian of medicine and disability, I knew this was going to go bad,\u201d Schroeder told us. \u201cWe have to prep for the long haul \u2013 three to five years, at least \u2013 and we have to prep for the rise of eugenics.\u201d In the summer of 2020, Schroeder posted on Twitter to ask whether other disabled scholars would be interested in creating an online space \u201cwhere people at all levels of the academy can connect with each other.\u201d The response was overwhelming. She gathered a group of interested people, and in July 2021, on the 31st anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, launched the Disabled Academics Collective. Though the DAC has advocacy-focused public-facing resources, at its core is its Discord server, an online discussion hub for approximately 800 disabled students, faculty members, and independent scholars to build solidarity, community, and collective care. The choice to use Discord as an organizing platform was intentional: the DAC is designed to be \u201ca repository of disabled peoples\u2019 knowledge,\u201d and Discord is easily searchable and saves all posts. \u201cMany newly disabled people, especially with Long COVID, are realizing the academy is no longer structured for them,\u201d Schroeder told us. \u201cI wanted a space to allow people to do that early learning \u2013 you can read through these posts, see other peoples\u2019 experiences, get feedback, ask questions.\u201d<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The DAC Discord also supports labour self-advocacy. As disabled workers, Schroeder notes, \u201cwe\u2019re often told that we\u2019re the first person to ask for an accommodation at our institutions. I wanted people to be able to say, no, there\u2019s precedents \u2013 I know people at other campuses are getting this.\u201d But it was important for DAC to remain autonomous and decentralized \u2013 and, particularly, that it provide resources that unions can\u2019t. \u201cWe have a lot of unions in the US,\u201d Schroeder says, but few of them are \u201cactually engaging in radical action. They\u2019re just like, \u2018Let\u2019s pay people an okay wage.\u2019\u201d She continues, \u201cI have seen some institutions and faculty groups push to establish mask mandates on their campuses again, that is true.\u201d But, she adds, unions such as the one at the University of California will often \u201cabandon\u201d disabled people in contract negotiations. For Schroeder, this is because of a lack of disabled people and disability justice analysis \u201cin the room.\u201d She says: \u201cYou need people who are aware of disability. I\u2019m a part of my union, but I\u2019m not active in it. I don\u2019t trust them to fight for me when I\u2019m not there in the room, raising every single point about accessibility. If other people are in the union, and I see them unmasked, then I already know, you\u2019re not fighting for me.\u201d<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ultimately, the DAC functions as a way to connect people to one another and to relevant social movements, outside a single workplace. Schroeder\u2019s hope for her own work, and for the DAC, is to help disabled people across academia \u201ctether themselves to a community they didn\u2019t realize is as expansive as it is, reclaim histories they have not been told or long denied, and see themselves as something bigger.\u201d This is where power \u2013 and change \u2013 comes from.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p><h2>A place where we take care of people<\/h2><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In interviewing union representatives for our <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Briarpatch<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> article, one thing that became obvious is that many conventional mechanisms for pursuing labour justice have become almost impossible to use when it comes to COVID-19. It\u2019s very difficult to prove without a shadow of a doubt that you got COVID in one particular location, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/kitchener-waterloo\/waterloo-region-paramedics-covid-19-wsib-1.5882060\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">so workplace health and safety claims have been getting rejected<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> even when transmission has happened at work. People often can\u2019t get workplace accommodations unless they have a medical diagnosis for themselves, which means they won\u2019t be entitled to access to remote work \u2013 let alone universal masking \u2013 if they, for example, live or are in close community with somebody who is immunocompromised. It\u2019s hard for union members to file a grievance related to COVID when everything in the collective agreement was designed for pre-pandemic times. A <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/legal\/workers-cant-sue-over-take-home-covid-calif-top-court-rules-2023-07-07\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">recent ruling by a California court that workers cannot sue over COVID-19 spread to their households<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> may have a chilling effect on union organizing around COVID, even beyond the United States. It feels clear that unless labour organizers find new language and frameworks attuned to the present moment, workers will continue to be left inadequately protected.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In truth, traditional labour rhetoric has long ignored disabled workers and pushed issues related to ableism to the sidelines. But disability justice-informed language has a lot to offer the labour movement right now \u2013 so long as labour organizers are willing to challenge the internalized ableism (and misogyny) that may lead some to see this language as \u201cweak\u201d or \u201csoft.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In June 2020, scholars across the social and health sciences formed the Accessible Campus Action Alliance and published a statement called <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.google.com\/view\/accesscampusalliance\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Beyond \u201cHigh-Risk.\u201d<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Its initial focus was to pressure universities not to return to in-person learning. As one collective member explained: \u201cSo many universities were relying on the accommodations process to cover COVID safety, and we didn\u2019t think that that existing structure was adequate for getting people the access that they needed. We were basically making the argument that everyone is affected by this, so it shouldn\u2019t be an individual accommodation process.\u201d Treating disability accommodations as a case-by-case bureaucratic process limits workers\u2019 imaginations, and makes it hard to see these issues as a collective matter.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Instead of relying on traditional labour frameworks such as \u201cworkplace health and safety,\u201d \u201cequity,\u201d or even \u201cdisability rights,\u201d the Beyond \u201cHigh-Risk\u201d statement centred on a different concept: \u201ccare.\u201d The member we spoke to acknowledged that \u201ccare is a contested term,\u201d but argued that \u201cit provides a useful contrast against more economic frames and calculations.\u201d In some ways, the choice of words was pragmatic: in the US, federal legislation defines faculty at private universities as managers, so they\u2019re not allowed to unionize. Using rights-based language linked to the labour movement could therefore have jeopardized their political work if they were accused of stepping outside the bounds of what they\u2019re allowed to fight for.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But \u201ccare\u201d turned out to be a concept that travelled. The statement caught on, sparking a national conversation about what kind of institution a university could even be; as of this writing, it has over 60 pages of signatories. The collective member we interviewed emphasized that this success has helped many workers expand their imaginations of what\u2019s possible: \u201cA university doesn\u2019t have to be a real estate developer. A university can be a place where we take care of people.\u201d<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What does it mean to \u201ctake care\u201d in a workplace? If unions attempt to understand \u201ccare\u201d legalistically, as a right that can be fought for or a line item to be negotiated at the bargaining table, so much is missed. \u201cCare\u201d as understood in the Beyond \u201cHigh-Risk\u201d statement is about human relationships, about experiences of belonging, and about imagining a world that is organized according to different priorities. If unions see themselves as bureaucratic rights-administrators meant solely to enforce and update collective agreements, \u201ccare\u201d is not a concept that\u2019s likely to be useful to them. But if unions were to see themselves as vehicles for broad social movements, and as vibrant hubs where workers could get organized around issues that matter to them, wouldn\u2019t it make sense to lead with ideas that move people? Wouldn\u2019t it <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">especially <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">make sense to lead with ideas that resonate with workers who may not have historically seen the union as a place for them? Can a union articulate a radical vision of what our worlds of work could look like? Or do we need other kinds of organizations for that?<\/span><\/p><p>\u00a0<\/p><h2>Building power amongst disabled workers<\/h2><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Organizing for disability justice outside the union structure is personal for us (kate and griffin). As disabled faculty at an Ontario college, we know the limits of what unions can offer. Last spring, in the middle of an Omicron surge, Ontario college workers very nearly went on strike. Though we were fighting for better working conditions, our union\u2019s plans for executing a strike did not include any safety measures to prevent COVID-19 transmission or meaningful accommodations for workers unable to make it to campus to picket four days a week. In response, we offered to organize a Sick and Disabled Access Team, to come up with creative solutions to ensure everyone could be included in our workplace strike action. We were not taken up on our offer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Though the strike was averted, the need to organize at our workplace did not disappear. We continued to negotiate with the union to create a working group focused on bringing a disability analysis to our local. We were told it would be hard for us to start this initiative through the union unless we were to become formally involved with the union as stewards; at the same time, we were told that as stewards, our activities would be focused mostly on upholding the collective agreement, and we would need to be very careful not to encourage any grassroots actions that might be seen as \u201cinsubordination\u201d by our managers. In particular, given Canadian labour law, we would need to ensure we were never \u201cencouraging employees to participate in an illegal strike\u201d \u2013 taking some potential labour actions off the table.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We recognize the need for a union to uphold the limited rights guaranteed to workers by a collective agreement. However, as people interested in grassroots struggle more than service provision, these limitations concerned us. Instead of becoming stewards, we decided to found an autonomous worker-led group called College Workers for Access, a \u201cdisability justice-focused space in a pandemic world for people left behind in the \u2018return to normal.\u2019\u201d While we wanted this to be a space where people could find emotional support during a moment when our employer had made it clear we were expected to navigate the risk of COVID entirely alone, we also hoped that our monthly gatherings could be a space to cultivate a radical disability politic amongst our coworkers and move towards action outside the union.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It quickly became clear to us as organizers that there exists a whole segment of the workforce that was and still is completely ignored by both our employer and our union. People with permanent disabilities \u2013 and therefore permanent access-related needs \u2013 were feeling lost in an accommodation process designed around time-limited injury and illness in a pre-pandemic world. Immune-compromised and otherwise higher-risk people, and those with personal, interpersonal, or ethical concerns about contracting or transmitting COVID, were struggling to have their legitimate worries and principles affirmed by either their colleagues or their bosses. Some had been sitting with the question of whether they would be able to continue in their line of work in the face of so much risk, or whether they would be quietly pushed out by their employer, especially if they were on contract.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As of this writing, College Workers for Access has existed for one full year. Our gatherings have spanned a range of feelings: sombre, rageful, tender, disillusioned, and hopeful. Together, we have listened to each others\u2019 stories; researched and built a political analysis around our rights in the accommodations process; laughed together and made morbid jokes as a way of collectively coping with impossible circumstances; and planned public forums to discuss how to translate accessibility frameworks that we use with students into the contexts of our own working lives.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What makes College Workers for Access different from many conventional union-led disability frameworks, which tend to focus on facilitating accommodations under the collective agreement, is that we see disabled workers as a potentially powerful labour bloc. If governments and employers continue to refuse their responsibilities around workplace health and safety, more and more workers will become disabled by COVID-19. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thestar.com\/life\/health_wellness\/2023\/03\/09\/report-says-long-covid-could-impact-economy-and-be-mass-disabling-event-in-canada.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We are seeing this today<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. When we spoke with our union local executives about our experiences, we told them that the widespread abandonment of COVID safety measures could realistically result in disabled workers being eliminated from the workplace en masse. Seeing disability solely through the lens of workplace accommodations runs the risk of understanding disabled and chronically ill people as an administrative burden rather than as potential organizers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As we begin our second year of College Workers for Access, we are still deciding how much energy we want to put towards convincing our union local to change its practices and address its ableism. We see some promise in divesting from the union entirely and building something that holds more excitement for us as radical educators with investments in intersectional grassroots organizing. We do hope, though, that our colleagues at the union may learn from what we are able to accomplish when we imagine what connection between workers can look like beyond negotiating collective agreements and filing grievances.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Through our work in College Workers for Access, we want to help all workers at our college to understand how a disability justice framework can benefit them even if they have not historically read themselves into the category of disability. In doing so, workers may be better able to\u00a0 see how, as people with bodies labouring under racial capitalism, the liberation of each of us is bound up with the liberation of all of us. As Sins Invalid co-founder Patty Berne <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sinsinvalid.org\/blog\/disability-justice-a-working-draft-by-patty-berne\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">reminds us<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A Disability Justice framework understands that all bodies are unique and essential, that all bodies have strengths and needs that must be met. We know that we are powerful not despite the complexities of our bodies, but because of them. We understand that all bodies are caught in these bindings of ability, race, gender, sexuality, class, nation state and imperialism, and that we cannot separate them. These are the positions from where we struggle. We are in a global system that is incompatible with life. There is no way to stop a single gear in motion \u2014 we must dismantle this machine.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Labour unions\u2019 current approach to disability could not be further away from this vision. Instead, it focuses on tweaking the capitalist labour system, chasing slight amendments to collective agreements and accommodating individual workers. The traditional labour movement has not yet begun challenging the broader ableism that underpins the institution of work itself. In this way, it not only fails to stop the machine, but is part of what keeps the machine running.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recognizing this reality, we have several options as organizers. We can try to change the mainstream labour movement so that it better understands and incorporates disability justice. We can honour that there are in fact <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">multiple<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> labour movements and invest <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in those that are already organizing against ableism as a form of social oppression constituted by and inextricable from all other forms of social oppression, especially white supremacy.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Or we can move away from trade unions as the primary framework for workplace organizing and try something different. In any case, one thing is clear: to meaningfully protect workers in a world that is decidedly not <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">post<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">-pandemic, unions will need to listen to grassroots movements led by disabled people and other oppressed workers \u2013 or else get out of our way.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-3ce5b14d elementor-widget-divider--view-line_icon elementor-view-default elementor-widget-divider--element-align-center elementor-widget elementor-widget-divider\" data-id=\"3ce5b14d\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"divider.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-divider\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"elementor-divider-separator\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-icon elementor-divider__element\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<i aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"fas fa-sun\"><\/i><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-d4d478b elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"d4d478b\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>kate klein (they\/them) is a facilitator, teacher, and organizer. They organize with a local abolitionist collective to create safety without\/despite police in their neighbourhood, and against workplace ableism alongside griffin and other sick &amp; disabled college workers. You can find them at <a href=\"http:\/\/rebelpedagogy.ca\">rebelpedagogy.ca<\/a>.<br \/><br \/>griffin epstein (they\/them) is a Mad\/psychiatrized white settler educator, community-engaged researcher, radical mental health and harm reduction practitioner, and poet in Toronto (Dish with One Spoon\/Two Row\/Treaty 13 territory). They are proud to do disability justice-oriented workplace organizing alongside kate and others. Find them at <a href=\"https:\/\/griffinepstein.com\/\">https:\/\/griffinepstein.com\/<\/a>.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-33 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-4d167365 elementor-hidden-tablet elementor-hidden-phone\" data-id=\"4d167365\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-33 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-11a7e403 elementor-hidden-tablet elementor-hidden-phone\" data-id=\"11a7e403\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-6695d80e elementor-widget elementor-widget-shortcode\" data-id=\"6695d80e\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"shortcode.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-shortcode\"><div class=\"shariff shariff-align-flex-start shariff-widget-align-flex-start\"><ul class=\"shariff-buttons theme-default orientation-horizontal buttonsize-medium\"><li class=\"shariff-button twitter shariff-nocustomcolor\" style=\"background-color:#595959\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.midnightsunmag.ca%2Flisten-to-disabled-people-or-get-out-of-our-way%2F&text=Listen%20to%20Disabled%20People%20or%20Get%20Out%20of%20Our%20Way&via=midnightsunmag\" title=\"Share on X\" aria-label=\"Share on X\" role=\"button\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" class=\"shariff-link\" style=\"; 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class=\"crp_clear\"><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>kate klein and griffin epstein on challenging the labour movement to take the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and disability justice seriously, and on alternative modes of labour organizing when traditional forms fall short.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7219,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_header_footer","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[60,303,351,75,33,77,54,61,65],"class_list":["post-7218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-covid-19","tag-disability-justice","tag-griffin-epstein","tag-kate-klein","tag-labour","tag-organizing-strategies","tag-organizing-tactics","tag-pandemic","tag-unions","entry","has-media"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Listen to Disabled People or Get Out of Our Way &#8211; Midnight Sun<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"kate 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