Huff Post: Labor and the LGBT Community

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tobias-barrington-wolff/labor-and-the-lgbt-commun_b_844111.html

Tobias Barrington Wolff

Chief advisor on LGBT issues for 2008 Obama campaign

With this essay, I issue a challenge to LGBT Americans across the country regarding one of the most important priorities for our community at this moment: the urgent need to contribute our voices, our efforts and our resources to the existential struggle that the labor movement is currently waging against the Republican forces seeking to cripple the right of workers to collectively bargain and roll back workplace protections. I believe that our national organizations need to be putting feet on the streets and money on the table to support labor. I believe that we, as individuals, need to show up to support and defend workers. I do not suggest that this work should happen to the exclusion of our continued advocacy on traditional LGBT issues, but I do suggest that it should be a major commitment of the LGBT community right now, not just a symbolic statement of support. I urge this course of action for three basic reasons.

First, labor rights is an LGBT issue. As Gary Gates and others have long since demonstrated, LGBT Americans come from the same economic and demographic origins as all Americans. That means that 65-70% of LGBT Americans have no college degree. The median household income for LGBT Americans ranges from about $35,000 per year in the poorest states to about $65,000 in the richest. Huge numbers of LGBT Americans have either no health insurance or inadequate health insurance. If anything, these economic challenges are even more acute for LGBT workers, who enjoy no federal protection from workplace discrimination and no protection under the laws of many states, no access to equal health benefits in most companies, no access to equal treatment for their families under the laws of most states, and unequal treatment for their relationships under federal law. Working-class LGBT people tend to be less socially visible in our civil rights efforts, just as working-class people tend to be less socially visible in American public life as a general matter, but a large majority of LGBT people are directly at risk from the Republican assault upon workers.

Second, labor unions have been showing up for years on the issue of LGBT equality. As one illustration among many, look through the "AFSCME Pride" section of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees website, which reiterates AFSCME's commitment to LGBT equality and offers a clearinghouse of online resources and a link to a sign-up sheet for the AFSCME Pride network. Showing up to help labor in their current struggle is not an act of altruism, it is the satisfaction of a reciprocal obligation.

FULL story at link.

...decades ago were it not for tenure, seniority AND THE FRIGGIN UNION.

What Tobias says is on the money. Except for the part where he speaks about 'their struggle' as if we were not them. Clearly, Tobias is not labor, but most of us are, and many of us are union members.

"Look, you lazy gays, the White House can't do it all for you!" Considering the LGBT community hasn't been silent on labor rights for themselves, I wouldn't write a "challenge" to support something we already support.