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Happy Anniversary
Congratulations on your anniversary. May you celebrate many more. I have a little story about Northland
Poster's place in my life.
Five years ago, when I was 52, I happened to be an apprentice at [an engineering union]. Heavy equipment
operators. In the normal course of events, one gets a job as an operator and then gets signed up by the union.
Two years earlier, I'd been given a job by a major excavating company. The job was given to me as a favor to my
partner who worked for the company as a site supervisor. But I was a competent operator and a hard worker,
so the main supe decided he keep me on and called the union BA to come sign me up. I was very excited. The
BA came to the job site, saw that I was a woman, and refused to sign me up.
I was hired back by the same company in the spring, and once again the union refused to sign me up, a
different BA this time. I finally made it into the union through the back door, the one reserved for women and
people of color, the apprenticeship program. It was not an easy apprenticeship, especially the classroom
portion. Oh, the work was doable, but the racism and sexism of the union officials and instructors (except one,
who really did try) was overt, constant, and appalling. Every day was a trial. Then one day I discovered your
ABCs of Organizing poster in a seldom used room. At every break I would stand in front of that poster, feeling
a sense of comradeship, taking in the energy of people who were making a difference for women and people of
color. My kin were there in that awful place, my kin were you and I felt you through your poster.
That poster played a large role in my ability to continue returning to [the Local] day after day. Every morning,
before I went to class, I'd stand in front of the poster and say, "Here I am, and I know you're out there. You
remind me that the world is bigger than this union, and that makes me stronger. Thank you."
Thank you indeed. Happy anniversary.
Nancy Evechild
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