Look Who’s Talking

Apparently dozens and dozens of labor leaders have signed this declaration, including Jonathan Tasini, national president of the NWU. “I disagree with Tasini on just about everything in the union,” Sustar tells me, “but I’m very proud of him for this.”

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The chairperson of the NWU steering committee is Helena Worthen, a professor with the University of Illinois’ Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations in Chicago. Worthen personally agrees with the resolution, and in October, with national elections just ahead and the nation already boiling, she believed her union should put itself on record. A quorum of the committee was present, and no one dissented. So without consulting the local membership of about 400 writers, the committee put NWU’s name behind an antiwar statement so ideological it was likely to horrify anyone taking him- or herself halfway seriously as a journalist. Horrify them unreasonably, Sustar would say. As he’d later E-mail me, “The notion that journalists must refrain from expressing political opinions through their unions seems to be a peculiarly American view, based on the myth of an objective media.”

Said another, “Taking a position on the war just renders this union all the more pathetic, inept and ludicrous. We want to be known as a hungry gang of tough negotiators, breaking new ground for writers’ rights and helping them to make a living SO THAT THEY CAN EXPRESS THEIR OWN OPINIONS. Piping off on the war just colors us as a ragtag bunch of ineffective social activists.”

“This isn’t the 1930’s and we aren’t Tom Jobe [sic]. Focus, people, focus.”

To be a writer, even a journalist, is no guarantee that when you raise your voice anyone will hear it. Sure enough, a couple of the responses to Gradel’s questionnaire advised NWU members to simply go out and do what they do. “I don’t think we would be saying ANYTHING if we just said we don’t want a war with Iraq. Like, duh,” said one. “My guess is that our opinions would come out in a thousand tongues–so let us take our opinions elsewhere and write, write, write.” Another barked: “Don’t cower behind the union–just get your butt out there! You’re a writer!…Write a book about how you feel–fiction it up, do it as a what-if, make your characters as nasty and angry as you want and get this ‘union against war’ idea out of your head and onto paper.”

“All the other considerations are secondary to raising our voice against the war.”