All is well with the BMGS 2.0 on Thursday, July 16, 2009. Intriguing developments the past couple of days involving my book on the financial crisis, but I will keep it close to the vest unless and until there is something more to say. And meanwhile I'll keep working, connecting with the people in my life, swimming, and trying to get the water out of my ears afterward.
!Viva la Huelga!
When I created this blog a little under three months ago I checked a box that allows Google to place ads on the blog. At some point in the future this may lead to my depositing a check for $14, or whatever, in my bank account, although I am embarrassed to say that I may have screwed up somewhere so that this will never happen. The reason I think this may be true is that I can't access my account, and Google does not seem to want to help me access it.
This doesn't seem important to me now, and I am disinclined to think that it is part of a vast conspiracy in which, if I were smart enough to unravel it, Google might be exposed as violating its corporate motto, "Don't be evil." The primary impact that the Google ads have on my life and on my blog, for now, is that they serve as an indicator when I veer off-topic, as you already know I am wont to do. The Google ads are robotically engineered to be associated with the content of whatever site they land on. The idea, of course, is that if this blog is a blog about losing weight and getting smaller, people who read it may be interested in clicking on Google ad links for sites about calorie-counting, losing 50 pounds in 20 minutes, and so forth. This kind of engineering is working pretty well for Google.
For me, I notice from time to time that Google ads turn up here on different topics, such as country music ring tones. That's okay. I'll be surprised if those ads are paying off, but what do I know? Sometimes there are ads about services for bloggers, and sometimes for other things that seem further afield. I pay desultory attention to these trends, and occasionally let them spur me to get back to the original topic at hand.
Today I am going further off topic than usual.
As anyone can clearly tell from the volume, if not the quality, of my entries here, I am a writer. (You might have concluded that perhaps I am a "frustrated writer," and if so, I sort of forgive you, but the truth is that I am the real thing, inasmuch, at least, as I make most of my living by writing.) I am even a member of a labor union for writers, although it is a little past time for me to send in my 2007-2008 dues. The union is called the National Writer's Union, which is also at-large Local 1981 of the United Auto Workers, and is thereby affiliated with the AFL-CIO.
I am proud of this. I don't wear a hard hat to work. I don't punch a clock. I contract individually with companies for much of my writing work. I own the company that provides most of my writing income. So this does not feel much like In Dubious Battle. I don't sit down at the computer each morning and yell "!Viva la Huelga!" at the top of my lungs.
My union is not the same union that represents the writers out in Hollywood, the Writer's Guild of America. (They're actually all over, not just in Hollywood). It's a different union, but it is all one struggle. The major issue facing both unions is getting fair payment for all the commercial uses of the work that writers do, including all the kinds of "new media" that have come along in the past few decades.
The fragmentation of everyday life and commerce in this era makes it very easy for writers and others, even those of us who are just scraping by, to resist seeing our connection with the wider struggles of other writers and other workers. It's so easy to say, "I can fend for myself." It often seems to be true, for a while, at least.
But we are all in this together, in so many ways, even if we don't see it sometimes. An injury to one is an injury to all, and what goes around comes around.
It's time for me to renew my membership in the National Writer's Union. I'm not by my nature a joiner, but the fact is that I benefit every day from the work that my union and other unions have done to get fair payment for writers and other workers. I hope and believe that both the Writer's Guild and the National Writer's Union will win important gains on this current "new media" issue, and that I will benefit from these gains throughout the rest of my life as a writer.
Maybe someday they will even help me figure out how to get paid properly by Google, although I really believe I ought to be able to fend for myself on that one.
I'm not going to preach about the strike issues here. I'll just thank Ned and Nick for sharing these links with me, and pass them on. That's all that organizing is, really, just passing it on.
And oh, by the way, "!Viva la Huelga!"
0 comments:
Post a Comment