Some dude in 2020: You should not judge a historical figure, a man from the past, by the modern ethics! He was a product of his time. 500 years ago his actions were completely normal! It’s present-ism, we can’t judge… bla-bla-bla…
People from 500 years ago: Oh my, this guy is such a bastard, a genocidal butcher, a total piece of garbage. Let’s keep records of this douche so people from the future shall hate him too.
Columbus’s crew were writing about what a genocidal monster he was. There were mutinies and uprisings by his crews and colonists constantly. If his contemporaries were willing to risk the ire of the queen of Spain to oppose him, we have every right to call him out on it too.
When Christopher Columbus landed in the Americas in 1492 convinced he had found the fabled western route to India, he wasn’t the only one who was fooled. And although his geographical mistake was understood fairly early, the mistake persisted for centuries in various ways. The icon of Thanksgiving, the turkey, for example, was thought to be a type of guineafowl, and is named (first in English for the bird around 1540) for the route the bird took back to Europe. Thus the turkey fowl was named by British sailors traveling through the Eastern Mediterranean, and obviously through the country of Turkey. When Carolus Linneaus came to the new world three centuries later and began to describe the species he found, he used the common name and misunderstanding and gave the bird the binomial meleagris gallopavo, from the Ancient Greek meleagris (μελεαγρίς) meaning a guineafowl. Many languages throughout the world continue with this mistake: the French use poulet d'inde, shortened to dindemeaningchicken from India; the Russians say indeyka (индейка), meaning relating to India; Dutch, Danish, Estonian and a handful of other countries derive a word from Calcutta; Arabic uses dīk rūmī (ديك رومي) or daǧāǧ rūmī (دجاج رومي) meaning Roman/Greek/Byzantine rooster/chicken, referring again to its origin around the Eastern Mediterranean, and so on. Probably too late to give the turkey its own identity!
Image of wild turkey, meleagris gallipavo courtesy Ruben Undheim, used with permission under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0).
More things to talk about around the holiday table that don’t involve current politics. Or if you prefer, use this post to launch a discussion about long and deep roots of colonialism, racism, etc., that stretch back to before the founding of the republic. We have a lot to talk about, and understanding our history requires a lot of work and open hearts and minds. Or you can just talk about the power of words.
Esmeralda Perez knows that keeping buildings clean isn’t easy. The mother of three has worked as a janitor at Chase Bank’s offices in Polaris for the past seven years, and before that, she worked as a housekeeper.
Her day begins at 5:30 pm and ends at 2 am, long after the office workers have gone to sleep. Each day she cleans bathrooms with hazardous chemicals that require her to wear a mask, goggles and gloves.
To make matters worse, if one of her coworkers misses work, Esmeralda’s workload increases – with no extra time allotted to compensate for it. No matter how much cleaning there is to be done, she and her coworkers only get 8 hours, plus a half-hour meal break. The resulting workload puts significant strain on Esmeralda’s back, and there are days she can barely work through the pain.
Esmeralda estimates that over 40% of her income goes toward paying rent, with much of the rest of her income spent on essentials for her children., Her employer, Mid-American Cleaning, does not provide family health insurance, so her five-year-old daughter qualifies for Medicaid, but supporting her is still a struggle as she grows. Her oldest child is trying to start college, too, making her finances even tighter as she tries to help him get an education.
Corporations in the area are prospering – JP Morgan Chase paid its CEO $23 million in 2011, and eleven Fortune 1000 CEOs headquartered in Columbus took home over $134 million in pay. Unfortunately, while Columbus’s unemployment rate remains well below the national average, the poverty rate in our city has nearlydoubled in the past 10 years. This is because more and more jobs in our city don’t pay a living wage. In a city home to hundreds of millions of dollars in profits each year, most full-time janitors are paid less than $19,000 annually, meaning that many qualify for government assistance.
Esmeralda has hope, both for herself and for her coworkers. She knows that raising standards will help everyone – and will also help secure a better future for her children.
Five days a week, Veronica Ramos-Lopez rides with her coworkers to work as a janitor at Chase Bank’s Polaris offices. She works from 5:30 p.m. until 2 a.m. most nights, cleaning bathroom after bathroom with an arsenal of cleaning chemicals. It’s hard work that doesn’t even offer sick days, meaning that Veronica often has no choice but to work while sick if she falls ill.
Despite hard work from Veronica and her coworkers at Mid-American Cleaning, if another janitor is absent, everyone else’s workload increases – with no extra time allowed to complete it. This not only makes the work harder, but also affects the quality of work janitors are able to perform. Veronica is grateful that she hasn’t had an injury on the job yet, but wonders if it may only be a matter of time.
Veronica’s story is too common among working people in Columbus. Columbus janitors are among the thousands of working people in our city who can work full time and still qualify for public assistance. Despite the city’s wealth, janitors are paid only $10 per hour, meaning that most full-time janitors receive less than $19,000 each year – well below the poverty level for a family of three.
This stands in stark contrast with the city’s Fortune 1000 CEOs whose offices the janitors clean: in 2011, eleven Fortune 1000 CEOs headquartered in Columbus took home a combined $134 million in pay. In an economy as healthy as Columbus’s, there is no excuse for poverty to exist among hard-working families.
The injustice evident here is not lost on Veronica, who lives with some of her coworkers in an attempt to make ends meet. She has an eight-year-old daughter who qualifies for Medicaid and a nineteen-year-old son who works in a factory nearby because he can’t afford to go to college.
With the janitors’ contract now being renegotiated, Veronica knows that if she and her coworkers do not receive raises as they have in the past, paying for rent and the increased cost of groceries will be next to impossible. Already, her rent and bills take up about half of her paycheck, leaving little for groceries and clothing for her growing son and daughter. Her dream of sending her children to college may be out of reach if corporate leaders don’t stand up for family-sustaining wages across Columbus.
Like all mothers, Adilo Muse adores her four children, who range in age from one to five years old. The oldest has just started school, and the youngest loves to play with his brothers.
But Adilo is struggling to have her youngest son’s medical needs taken care of, since he has asthma and sometimes requires a breathing shield. To make matters worse, the doctor says he will likely require surgery for a small lump in his throat. Adilo’s family likely qualifies for Medicaid, and she is in the process of applying for it.
Adilo isn’t unemployed, though – she works as a janitor at the Lazarus Building downtown. Despite working for cleaning contractor Professional Maintenance for four years, she is stuck at part-time status, working just 20 hours a week. She has searched for other jobs with no success.
Between what she makes and what her husband makes at temporary jobs, “the money is not enough,” she says. They manage to make ends meet in their small apartment on the West Side only through the help of family members.
“My mom is also sick,” she says, “but I don’t have enough money for daycare.” So if her husband is working, her mom has to watch the children when Adilo goes to work.
Despite this, Adilo wants more hours – because if she was full-time, she would qualify for health care and vacation days. With no sick days and a “four-strike” point system that can get her fired if she misses work, she can’t afford to take days off to care for her children or for herself.
Columbus needs family-sustaining wages and benefits, and the corporations here can afford to support those. Eleven Fortune 1000 CEOs headquartered here took home $134 million in pay in 2011, and 2012 was a banner year for corporations rebounding from the recession. On the other hand, most Ohioans make less today than they did in 1979 – meaning that while corporate profits have increased, working families’ wages haven’t kept pace with rising costs of food, rent and utilities.
Like many of her coworkers, Adilo wants to see things improve, both for her sake and for her children’s sake. She wants to see them go to college, but she knows that unless something changes, they will not be able to afford it.
It was INCREDIBLY cold and windy on Martin Luther King Day, but SEIU Local 1 janitors and their supporters marched in the parade in downtown Columbus anyway! (January 21, 2013)
Dwayne Paige is proud of the work he does as a janitor at the Franklin County Courthouse. “I’ve had judges tell me the lobby is the cleanest they’ve ever seen it,” he says.
After working at the Courthouse for years, Dwayne is a full-time janitor making only $10 per hour. That’s barely enough to make ends meet for the proud father, who is married and has a 16-year-old daughter to help care for. With his wife unable to work due to a disability, Dwayne’s hard work is the family’s main source of income.
But Dwayne wonders if his curious, hard-working daughter will ever be able to go to college like she dreams of doing. “I will move Earth for her if I can,” he says, “but getting a quality education for her could cost a lot.”
He knows it’s not right for janitors across Columbus to be subject to poverty wages, but cleaning contractors like Scioto, who Dwayne works for, aren’t providing good jobs. Someone has to clean Columbus’ gleaming buildings, which are home to profitable Fortune 1000 companies like Nationwide Insurance, Huntington Bank and JP Morgan Chase – so why can’t janitors have a fair, livable wage?
The injustice is even more apparent when considering that eleven Fortune 1000 CEOs headquartered in Columbus took home a combined $134 million in pay in 2011, while full-time janitors only make about $18,000 a year. “I feel like there are a lot of people being done wrong,” Dwayne says about the city’s poverty wages.
Dwayne is no stranger to hard work – he’s worked all sorts of jobs since he was first employed at age fourteen. But he knows Columbus can do better, and he’s willing to fight to raise standards for himself and his coworkers. “If you want something, you have to fight for it. You have to stand up and be a voice.”
Today, Columbus janitors held an emergency meeting and voted to authorize their bargaining committee to call a strike if necessary. Following their meeting, janitors announced the outcome of their vote to media and community supporters. Janitors were joined by elected leaders, including State Representative Tracy Heard.
Columbus janitors, who clean the majority of the commercial office space downtown, and cleaning contractors returned to the bargaining table on Monday, July 15th. Full-time Columbus janitors are currently paid just over $18,000 a year—well below the poverty level for a family.
Cleaning companies are still threatening to freeze wages for at least 2 years and to slash janitors’ hours. This would have a devastating effect on hundreds of working families in Columbus as janitors would not only lose access to health care, but up to half their income.
“We’re fighting for good jobs for ourselves and for the next generation,” says Dwayne Paige, a Columbus janitor and father. “I want my daughter to have a better future, and that’s not going to happen if wages for working people stay the same while everything else goes up.”
Today’s “yes” vote means that the janitors’ bargaining committee can call a strike if and when it becomes necessary. Janitors and representatives for cleaning contractors are scheduled to meet again on Monday, August 5th.
In case you missed it: Columbus janitors and community supporters held an area standards picket outside 175 S. Third Street, where employees of Circle Building Services are paid poverty wages and have no access to affordable health care.
Unemployment in Columbus is decreasing while poverty continues to rise. This is because more and more jobs do not pay a living wage.
Columbus service workers are coming together to change this. Janitors – who have now been without a contract for three months – are standing up for justice alongside security officers who protect our downtown buildings, and are organizing to bring good jobs to their communities.
Columbus janitors, security officers and community members rallied on Monday to call on business leaders to do right by working people! Janitors – who have now been without a contract for three months – are standing up for justice alongside security officers who protect our downtown buildings and are organizing to bring good jobs to their communities.
Columbus janitors held a prayer vigil downtown yesterday! They joined with local clergy to pray for justice for working families.
Full-time Columbus janitors are on average paid just $18,200 a year - and we know our city can do better. Right now, janitors are in the process of bargaining a new union contract to secure fair wages, full time work, and affordable healthcare. There’s a lot at stake: The concentrated poverty rate in Columbus has nearly doubled since 2000, and this can be attributed in large part to the proliferation of low wage, no-benefit jobs.
Last week, Columbus janitors took to the streets to demand a fair contract. This Monday, they return to the table to negotiate with the cleaning contractors who have demanded a wage freeze for janitors for the next three years, in addition to increases in health care costs and the right to cut janitors’ hours at any time.
Columbus janitors rallied and marched across downtown today as they prepare to resume contract bargaining on March 18th. Columbus cleaning contractors have demanded a wage freeze for janitors for the next three years, in addition to increases in health care costs and the right to cut janitors’ hours at any time. Janitors are standing up, though, and are fighting for good jobs for families across Columbus.
Columbus OH a peaceful woman stands still holding a sign and police shoots her
THIS IS A GRAPHIC VIDEO PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION. FYI, it doesn’t specify whether they were rubber bullets or regular bullets, and I don’t know if this person is ok or not, there are no details from what I can see.
