Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Unions and the Hotel

[S. Kashdan (skashdan]

For the record, I have lived in cohousing for ten years, and like Karen, I 
too value and want to support organizations that allow workers to  speak 
with their own voice about wages, benefits, and working conditions.  I
also value the general standard of a 40-hour, 5-day work week, and I know 
that neither
would exist without unions.  While some unions are bloated,
unreasonable, and even corrupt, individual working people are powerless to 
have a say in gaining living wages or health and other benefits without 
joining together in unions. Very many union organizations need to be 
improved and made more truly representative and directly accountable to 
their membership, not abandoned. And most hotel workers are far from well 
paid, so they deserve the right to join together for mutual improvement 
without the employers setting the conditions on which this will be allowed. 
While I have been involved in dissident caucuses in unions  when working as 
a university instructor, and while I definitely believe that people should 
criticize union actions when they are wrong, I also strongly believe that 
cohousers should support organizations that make it more possible for more 
working people to cooperate together to improve their wages, benefits and 
working conditions, as well as to establish more social links, etc., and I 
also believe that cohousers should support organizations that can make it 
more financially possible for others to live in cohousing and other 
intentional communities.

Sylvie Kashdan

Jackson Place Cohousing
800 Hiawatha Place South
Seattle, WA 98144
www.seattlecohousing.org
info [at] jacksonplacecohousing.org



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Karen Carlson" <kcarlson2 [at] wisc.edu>
To: "Cohousing-L" <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Sent: Saturday, April 02, 2011 8:54 AM
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Unions and the Hotel



It would be interesting to know how the membership does feel. I may have
made the unwarranted assumption that people who live in cohousing
communities tend to be liberal/progressives, and this camp that usually
supports the idea of unions.