Pulse/Impulse

I work for Big Labor. I don’t use that term as pejoratively as those in the right-wing business community might. I want to work for New Labor. New Labor represents the unrepresented and is, among other things, made up of workers’ centers where low-wage workers, often undocumented, go to learn about their labor rights and get assistance in asserting them. This has been my dream for years, working for or establishing something like a workers’ center. During law school, I spent some time working with immigrant workers who were not being paid, not being paid minimum wage, or otherwise being taken advantage of by their employers. This is the last time that I went to work everyday excited, that I happily took work home with me and researched labor laws on my laptop in Starbucks. I went to church on Sunday mornings to meet with members of the community and hear about their concerns. My boss had to calm my enthusiasm (and remind me of safety concerns) when I wanted to go knocking on doors looking for a lost client so we could pursue an unpaid wage claim.

I’ve recently been reminded that I am not skilled at hiding my unhappiness, my non-enthusiasm with my current position. This made me think about the things I have been telling myself, because I am someone who wants to do “labor law” yet I don’t really know if that’s true or what that means. If it means writing one more brief for the purpose of restoring the job of an underperforming public employee, it’s probably not true. I shouldn’t begrudge my employer for defending some less than deserving workers, because without the traditional labor movement, unrepresented workers would have few of the protections that they (technically) enjoy under the law today. And filing grievances over petty disputes probably does go a long way in protecting more important rights in a Collective Bargaining Agreement. And it’s the traditional labor movement that will do the heavy lifting in getting the Employee Free Choice Act, which has the potential to further expand the benefits of organizing to low-income communities, passed this year. Yet personally, I would rather be out there fighting for the little guy and I feel like those who have the protection of a union have won half the battle. So I’m glad someone is taking care of them, but I am just not passionate about playing that role.

I also wonder about the role of attorneys in poor communities in actually making a difference for that little guy. I recently heard staff from a very successful workers center speak at a conference. What I took away most from this was that the law can do nothing for communities of law wage workers, communities of color, immigrant communities, without community organizing. A staff member actually told a legal aid attorney that her organization was wasting its time on wage claims for farm workers because it couldn’t organize or represent the undocumented. So what is a lawyer to do when legal advocacy might be a waste of time if not sustained by a community of activists making other substantial changes? Many legal aid organizations don’t have the resources to do more than represent individuals with their individual problems, simply helping people keep their heads above water.

A keynote speaker at this conference said that a law degree is the degree of the 20th century, but that today the people changing the world are not lawyers. This was all very discouraging for a lawyer who has few other talents (or resources).

So who are the people changing the world today? Bloggers? Community organizers? Yogis? Social workers? Entrepreneurs? These are the people I’ve been meeting and thinking about lately. I haven’t actually resigned to the fact that lawyers cannot make these kinds of changes. I went to law school partly because I studied community organizing and watched a lawyer accomplish in a class-action settlement a victory for a poor community that could not be accomplished through organizing (we tried). I think the law is at least a part of the struggle for social justice but I’m still figuring it all out.