Proud to be an American Worker.

Nothing but pride belonging to this group.

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

I am aware of how the middle and upper classes perceive blue collar workers and all workers. A hard hat and red vest, "our" uniforms were symbols of those who failed in society, well paid on many accounts but limited. It's amazing what a little white coat and a stethoscope does. Those ignoramuses, those fat bellied beer drinking guys with no manners whose role it was to maintain the infrastructure of society while the Harvard boys (and increasingly girls) were born to manage it.

I remember working in a very rich neighborhood one time. We had been sent to check on a report of a leaking fire hydrant. Back then, before the introduction of electronic leak detection stuff we had a small hard plastic phone, a simple device that magnified sound. It was very similar to the device deaf people used many years ago.

Whether we could see water or not, which was a tell tale sign of a leak although not always an indication of its origin depending on the ground, the soil, the lay of the land (like golf), we would drill a hole in the road surface, and then hammer, or push it through if the soils allowed, a metal bar with a point at the end we called a pin bar. Our intention was to hit the cast iron water main below.  When we hit it we would drill two more holes and do the same thing maybe two or three feet apart depending on the situation.

Then we would take that small plastic phone and place it on the pin bar and listen. The old timers had taught us to place it on then remove it, place it on then remove it and get some idea of the sound. We would do that with one, two three or more pin bars on the main below to narrow the sound down a bit. Once we thought we were close to it we would then dig a hole and repair it.

Hydrants and valves were a bit different as a hydrant is hollow so sound could be magnified. We would listen at the top of the hydrant as well, or place a bar on a nearby valve. This didn’t involve any effort as valves some feet below the surface had a 6 or 8 inch steel cylinder placed on them that ended flush with the street and were then covered by a metal cap. Check any street in your neighborhoods and you will see them. This is so in the event of a break the water could be shut off and isolated.

Anyway, on this occasion, myself as the equipment operator, the foreperson and the two crew members were standing back after listening to our detectors trying to decide where the sound led us and whether the leak, a small one, was at the 6” elbow that connected the hydrant which was attached to a riser, to the run from the main line or on the run itself or where the run is connected to the main line in the street.

We were thinking about that trying to agree and isolate the leak.  It was ten in the morning and as we were standing there, a guy dressed in a bathrobe comes out of his rather expensive abode and was not very friendly. He was quite upset, “Is this what I pay my rates for, you guys standing around chatting like this?” he said.  Without thinking and seeing him dressed in his bathrobe I responded, “Well at least we got out of bed before 10 am this morning.”

I immediately regretted it as when these types call in and complain the guys at the top react. Our Supervisors, most of them anyway, understood and would have sympathy with us but as everyone knows, crap rolls downhill. I could have got in trouble and also put the foreperson in a spot and my immediate supervisor who would be forced to do or say something.

Fortunately nothing happened. And I am not saying all of these petit bourgeois and bourgeois types are as bad as that, but they all have this view of regular workers and just express it in different ways. It’s like the condescending racism the white liberals have with regards to people of color.

I also recognize that working people are no saints. History shows us that. Workers have the capacity to be incredibly heroic and express great kindness and solidarity to others. We can also exhibit severe brutality and commit acts of horrible violence; it depends on the conditions. But in general, due to our social role in work and the production and maintenance of human life, we have a more collective consciousness.

The main point is that the working class is not seen as having ideas and thoughts about the world. We get the TV garbage that we deserve. The mass media we desire. They give us what we want. But that is propaganda, we have no control over the mass media, we don’t own it we don’t run it. We certainly don’t determine its content. We want more leisure time too but they won't "give" us that. The reason this propaganda exists is that we must not even entertain the idea that workers can govern society. That workers can rule, can discuss trade the environment, the global community. Having a political party of our own changes this which is why working class consciousness in the US is what it is. The ruling class has two parties and we have none. The trade union hierarchy supports this system as well as they profit from it. They fear the working class and their own members.

The upper middle class and the rotten bourgeois that govern society live in a social cesspool as this article below shows. Someone opposing Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination for the so-called Supreme Court said “We cannot have liars on the Supreme Court” Being a liar is a requirement for being on their supreme court. It is a requirement for being one of their political candidates as they never ask us to vote for them and tell us what they actually stand for, more profits for them lower living standards for us.

Kindness, empathy, concern for others is not a useful trait in the capitalist world, it’s not good for business and business is about profit and profit has its origins in the unpaid labor power of the working class.

Central Yard Before They Shut us Down

We are supposed to be so lazy yet the rich have workers watch their children, raise them. They have workers fix their homes, mend their fences, create and maintain their gardens and more. I worked with men and women who could build houses in their spare time. Who could design gardens and landscape. Immigrant and poor women raise their children and at the same time provide succor and comfort to the children of the idle rich. Making money trading stocks is not work. And when their interests are threatened from global competitors, they will send workers to fight their corporate wars.

Despite our weaknesses, I feel comfortable saying that I am proud and somewhat honored to have come to this country and to have worked with other American workers in the factories on occasion, as a teaches aide and as a public utility worker. I have a clean feeling I wouldn’t have hanging around with the Harvard types although in history, individuals from this class have played heroic roles sacrificing their own class privileges on behalf of working people

The working class has colorful language, expressions and ways of speaking.  The old timers that helped me learn used to compete as to who had the best ear for detecting these leaks. “I can hear a rat pissing on cotton” they would say. It’s hard to beat that.

"When Brett Kavanaugh arrived at Yale University in 1983, there were reminders all over campus that until just 15 years earlier, women weren’t even allowed to attend the school." Just added this felt compelled to, f*%k Kavanaugh and the horse he rode in on.

Read more: Here's What Yale Was Like For Women When Brett Kavanaugh Was There