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AmandaBellIntro 1 - 19 Jan 2010 - Main.AmandaBell
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> | I came to law school in order to change my working life. For nine years I worked as a union organizer in Connecticut, Oregon, New York City, Washington DC, the Central Valley of California, North Carolina, Puerto Rico, and Florida, mostly with low-wage service-industry workers. I love what working people achieve through organizing a union. The fight and the victory are thrilling. However, traveling so much for work is hard. Also, I had the bad luck to be working for the hotel workers union when it married the garment workers union, then for the garment workers union when it divorced the hotel workers union five years later. Both events created more upheaval than usual in the union, which made the normal stress of helping members to organize much worse.
My intention is to be a union lawyer after I graduate. With a law degree, I will have more social capital that will insulate me from intra-union politics and I will not have to travel as much. Also, I will be able to help workers in new ways while still being present for (most of) the exciting bits. Lawyers are extremely cautious, and union lawyers are no exception. As an organizer obliged to consult with the union’s lawyers before doing much of anything, I wasn’t able to know when their caution was well-founded versus when it just came from the fact that they had no organizing experience and didn’t understand that sometimes the urgency of getting something done outweighs a remote possibility of being sued. I also detest policemen who invent non-existent “laws” simply in order to prevent my members from carrying out a lawful, necessary picket. I particularly detest such policemen when they are receiving free meals or other favors from the employer we are picketing. I would really like to be able to tell them, “Officer, I should inform you now that I am an attorney.”
I apologize if I have exceeded a word limit. I just transferred into this class and don’t know the details of the assignment. I hope I did it right.
-- AmandaBell - 19 Jan 2010 |
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