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Issue Number 29
Taken from Duchess Armstrong's Address to Local 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers at Leviton Manufacturing Company strike headquarters.
I have always been interested in organizations for labor. I have always felt that it was important that everyone who was a worker join a labor organization, because the ideals of the organized labor movement are high ideals. I believe that membership in a union is the closest bond that a civilian can have to that created by military service; it instills worthy social and political values as well as creating those individual social ties that change us from a mob to a community.
These ideals mean that we are not selfish in our desires, that we stand for the good of the group as a whole, and that is something which we on Regina are learning every day must be the attitude of every citizen.
We must all of us come to look upon our citizenship as a trusteeship, something that we exercise in the interests of the whole people. In the past I have worked to ensure that your leaders and public servants understand this responsibility, and uphold their duty to it. But it applies to each of us individually as well.
Only if we cooperate in the battle to make this planetary system a productive society where the interests of all people are considered, only when each one of us does this will genuine freedom be achieved. The citizens of Regina deserve to hold their heads high when this place is spoken of by people from off planet.
We hope to make the great battle which is before us today a battle of the citizens versus a remote oligarchy.
I could not help thinking as we sang the Imperial anthem that you who have seen hardship for so many weeks in your fight to better conditions for everyone involved must sometimes think that things are not as they should be on this planet. I am afraid that I agree with you.
I know many parts of the country and there are many conditions that I would like to see changed, and I hope eventually they will be changed. But in spite of that I hope that we all feel that the mere fact that we can meet together and talk about organization for the worker and self rule for this planet is in itself something for which we ought to be extremely thankful.
There are many places, an empire close by, where there can be no longer any participation or decision on the part of the people as to what they will or will not do. And so, in spite of everything, Here we can still sing the Imperial anthemn and really feel that we are moving forward slowly, sometimes haltingly, but always in the hope and in the interest of the people on the whole planet.
I just want to say that my education in the labor movement has come largely through Gino Scalese. In my dealings with Mr. Scalese on planet, he has taught me many things I wouldn't have known otherwise. He has expanded my view of the little people to whom I owe my succcess to include you all.
I've continued to work with Randi Kyle, at the Foundation for Social Assistance on her programs of workers' education at the starports, both up and down. When I visit the Foundation, I always ask everybody what they are doing in the work project. Sometimes I get funny answers. One man told me that the apprenticeship program and the political forums at the Epicurean Society that I started were "dangerous subjects". I said it doesn't seem that way to me. We must have education and the ability of the people to understand the today's problems and how to solve them.
We should have projects to study the employees' problems and I wish we had employers' educational projects, too. It is in our best interests to make sure that businesses succeed on Regina; and when those businesses succeed, the workers should succeed too. They can't do business without you and you can't feed your families without jobs.
The important thing is to try to learn what conditions are throughout the subsector as a whole, and what the people of Regina are really thinking and what they are striving for.
As I look over the past few years, the thing that gives me the most hope for the future is the fact that, on the whole, people are standing together, people are working for the good of a group, not just for themselves. When we learn that I think we are going to find that we can move forward faster and faster.
I wish those of us who are employers would learn that it is through cooperation that we achieve more—that through stating our problems and asking people to work with us to solve them that we really get somewhere.
But that requires constant education for all of us, and I think we ought to bring all we can into really understanding the problems that are before the subsector as a whole and as they affect our own particular situation here on Regina.
We ought to try to solve the problems in our ports so that we can be more helpful in the solution of the problems that face the planet. A cost overrun here, a wall that has to be torn down because it was improperly built to begin with there, these are the things that will cost us the business of a corporation or a naval port. We have the right to demand fair wages for our work, but we owe a fair job or product for that money.
We find ourselves at a serious moment in the history of the Imperium. We face problems not only as citizens of the Regina; we face them as part of the entire Imperium again.
The greatest thing we can get out of the present labor problem is to develop the habit of working together and realizing that whatever happens is going to affect us all.
I want to leave you this morning and express my gratitude to you for having stood together to gain those things, materially and spiritually, that will make life for your group richer and more productive. As Reginans, we have a lot of lessons that the Imperium would be well served to learn from us, an it is our duty to teach them. I hope the day will come when all the people of this planet will understand that cooperation will bring us greater happiness, and will bring us in the end a better life for the whole sector and will enable us to exert a greater influence on the Imperium as a whole.