Splitting shifts
Downs, Peter
ent from themselves. The conference was organized around yet what it really believes and thus its long-term impact is still six "threads"-Native-American, African-American,...
...dition even while expanding it...
...ting professional counseling to try to cope with the stress the new work schedule places on the family...
...Staley Manufacturing Company in Women of color had been put in the role of teachers by white Decatur, Illinois...
...basket was actually burned a week later for the purpose of "re- Union consultant Ray Rogers, however, says Staley was alleasing the energy of women's dreams into the universe...
...There's no consistency to my days off," he complains...
...be at the A.E...
...At what point does a difference become a division...
...agement...
...is about competitiveness and corporate consistency...
...Kramer adds that hav- dropped by almost one-third...
...I can't see her perform...
...Mohan acknowledges that production has have to work on her graduation night...
...Their dispute with cause they believe the church "is bankrupt morally, financial- management is not about wages, but about being a part of their ly, and theologically...
...On the second day I'm all right, just to the new work rules, that would seem like the company but on the third day, I have to get my schedule into swing with was getting its just deserts...
...Though no women will be ordained until the legisthe days of the year...
...CATHERINE WALSH American, Hispanic, Euro-American, and lesbianlbisexual- Catherine Walsh is an assistant editor at St...
...I can't see any of his games...
...serve to limit managers' favoritism and arbitrariness, and gutWomen had been invited at the beginning of the conference ted employee rights to union representation to settle grievances...
...ety of chemicals and sweeteners for industry...
...Twigs and grasses, yarn and Lyle...
...So I really only have one day with my family...
...My boy plays bas- President Dave Watts says "management wants to run the plant ketball...
...I can't be involved in anything outside of work," he says...
...The cility so that it could be "competitive...
...When I get up, I'm a zombie and I don't have sales may show a drop as well...
...Catholic bishops' call for "Putting Children and Perhaps the blistering final session, in which minority wo- Families First" (Origins, November 28,199 1) may men excoriated the conference's latent racism, was inevitable...
...to the one in Decatur...
...diversity," said Adrian Dominican Sister Jamie Phelps, a conference planner and African-American theologian from Chicago...
...participants it to replace the old agreement of 160 pages with a "modern could also choose to put personal items, letters, and the names agreement" of 17 pages...
...Women-Church hasn't defined But Mohan says the schedule is not a problem because manCommonweal 4 June 1993: 7 of cutting the costs of employing more people," he says...
...But the true value of the "It is a major, major step backward for workers in the indusbasket may have been sentimental only...
...As theologian Mary Hunt told the National Catholic Reporter, The 730 workers at the plant are members of the Amalmany Catholic women were exploring other spiritualities be- gamated Industrial Workers, Local 837...
...The Reverend John Broadhurst's question hangs in Their children are grown, but the Hannas say management still the air like the smoke from his cigar...
...the hopes, dreams, and be- corn wet-milling plants in the United States, says the Staley liefs of women from many different walks of life could all fit offer was anything but the norm...
...REPORT FROM THE PLANT FLOOR Sister Phelps warned that "charting new waters" of cross-cultural dialogue would not be easy, and she was right...
...Minority women were highly visible as keynote speakers and SPLITTING SHIFTS workshop presenters...
...He says management's offer merely of loved ones on the basket...
...At a focus session on African-American women and the church, Danny Wirges, AIW regional director, argues that the comone black woman expressed surprise and discomfort at seeing pany isolated workers from their families when it "radically so many white women present...
...And it wasn't just the faces...
...He leans his head back, takes a thoughtcouple they know of at Staley likewise was separated by man- ful drag...
...The conference was organized around yet what it really believes and thus its long-term impact is still six "threads"-Native-American, African-American, Asian- a matter of conjecture...
...What," he found a way to interfere with their family life-it separated the asks, "is the point at which an individual cannot couple and forced them onto different shifts so that they do not walk down the same road in fellowship with anshare the same days off...
...in the Church of England, Broadhurst is responsible for ponHe acknowledges that management knows who are married cou- dering such fundamental queries...
...The church's ruling body, ples, but he blames the union for these scheduling problems the General Synod, shocked Anglican conservatives on because it refused to help the company implement its final offer...
...Bill and Nancy Hanna are married and both work at Staley...
...He says they are get- from the Midwest on labor topics...
...His schedule is a problem: "When I'm only what they are told by the company...
...Larimore coached Little MIGRATING ANGLO-CATHOLICS League, but his new workweek forced him to stop...
...The new work schedule, in particular, was one of the worst that endures-like a Navajo rug-requires faithfulness to a tra- aspects of the Staley offer...
...For some families trying to admuch patience with the kids...
...families and communities...
...REPORT FROM ENGLAND Denton Larimore also pans the six-day week...
...They are always out of sync culture to expropriate exotic aspects of their spiritualities came with their families and the rest of the community...
...I can't be A TANGLED PAST & FUTURE involved in church activities, scouting, or even bowling league...
...Wirges says that means workers do not have ference by minority women, over the tendency of the dominant the same days off each week...
...The worst Peter Downs is a free-lance writer who reports frequently stress, Kramer finds, is with his children...
...Their meeting indicated that there would be further resistance to management's would-be norms...
...lation passes several parliamentary and synodical hurdles, the Professor Clements, however, notes that Staley's twelve-hour historic vote has forced the Anglo-Catholic contingent to outshifts actually decrease leisure time because employees work wardly organize, inwardly re-evaluate its place in a remarka hundred hours a year more than they did with a five-day, forty- ably diverse church...
...Mohan, who is also executive vice-president, says the combright strips of cloth were provided so women could symbol- pany merely eliminated "antiquated work rules," which enabled ically weave their dreams into the basket's frame...
...He claims to a head during the final session when a Native American told the company also swept away seniority rights, rights which white women carrying drums, "Put them down...
...and end in creating something new...
...But as Linda Simunek, a Filipina woman SPLITTING FAMILIES who spoke on education, noted, the sea of white faces in front of her were "different from mine...
...PETER DOWNS work...
...AIW Local 837 working, I can see my kids one hour a day...
...The Hannas say every other married other...
...ready competitive, providing Tate & Lyle with one-third of its This colorful, chaotic basket seemed finally to capture the $400 million profit in 1991...
...That's not how Henry Kramer, a worker with over twenty For the time being, workers at the Decatur plant are doing years' seniority, sees it...
...She's a senior this year, and I tion has suffered...
...On the first day, I cott of Tate & Lyle's Domino, GW, and Redpath sugars, their sleep until 4 P.M...
...Though Simunek eventually received a standing ovation, her approving words for military women who put their bodies on the line "to free Kuwait" were greeted with a loud murmur of The first major union battle to take up the American disapproval...
...Decatur is surrounded by miles women who, distancing themselves from much of their own of corn fields, and the Staley plant processes corn into a varicultural and religious traditions, were looking to fill the void...
...November 11, 1992, by voting in favor of female priests, jerkHe says that twelve-hour shifts are actually better for workers: ing tears of joy from one side of the debate, tears of grief from they increase leisure time because workers "only work one-half the other...
...My daughter is on the drill their way, so we're letting them do it...
...Anthony in an attempt "to bring women together across a great deal of Messenger and a free-lance writer...
...It's like we're tools the company uses and then stores in a toolbox when it doesn't need us...
...On April 4, officials of seven unions representing Tate & Lyle workers in the United States and Canada met for the first time...
...As a result, "producteam...
...She wanted to know why no restructured the work week" in March, shifting it from regusessions had been planned where women of color could "air lar eight-hour shifts to twelve-hour shifts at straight time, three our dirty laundry without our white sisters listening in...
...A leader of the Anglo-Catholic opposition to female priests Mohan denies there is a policy to separate married couples...
...During the closing ceremony at applied the "norm in the continual processing industry"-inthe nearby Civic Plaza, the basket was symbolically burned as dustrial plants that work around the clock-to the Decatur fasome women danced around it waving orange streamers...
...Staley spokesman, J. Patrick But a number of minority women grew increasingly un- Mohan, agrees that the dispute is not about wages...
...I can't have a consistent part in my family's life...
...Workers from a Brooklyn, New York, plant told of a failed strike against a contract similar to the one Staley wants in Decatur...
...hour week...
...This is an alternative way of doing that...
...Historically, companies used overtime as a way The dilemma facing Anglo-Catholics, whether to remain in 8: 4 June 1993 Commonweal...
...to participate in the weaving of a large basket set up in the Staley is a subsidiary of the British conglomerate, Tate & Albuquerque Convention Center...
...Joe Dwyer, a Teamster leader from Tate & Lyle's Western Sugar plant in Billings, Montana, and president of the ad-hoc council, announced that the various unions supported the AIW's fight in Decatur...
...Leaders of Tate & Lyle's Australian unions telegraphed a message of solidarity, while union leaders from a Tate & Lyle plant agement gave each worker a personal schedule for a full year: in Silvertown, England, spoke by telephone to the meeting and "I know one guy who carries his schedule around in his pock- explained their struggle against a proposal virtually identical et so he knows when he's off," he says...
...Seemingly anything University of Iowa, who has surveyed the union officers at other could go into making the basket...
...Professor Laurie Clements of the whimsy of the Women-Church conference...
...This days on and three days off, with a rotation from days to nights complaint and variations on it, expressed throughout the con- every thirty days...
...To weave something try...
...They were horrified," he says...
...He says it comfortable with the role the conference had thrust upon them...
...With the AIW calling for a boys ing three days off in a row "is not worth it...
Vol. 120 • June 1993 • No. 11
