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Your Message in the Right Number of Words Most community’s newspapers invite readers to publish their viewpoints in an Op-ed or Open Forum section. It’s a priceless opportunity to get your message out and help sway public opinion — and public officials — to your side. But first you need a clear, concise, compelling Op-ed that puts your message into play. Jeff Gillenkirk has composed dozens of successful op-eds for community groups, non-profit organizations, foundation directors, labor leaders and under his own by-line. Following are examples of his op-eds, and a list of others placed in local, regional and national publications over the past two decades: Los Angeles Times COMMENTARY The Death Penalty: A 1% Nonsolution to Crime By Jeff Gillenkirk January 1, 2004 We are a people of ritual. We string up Christmas lights against the darkness, trim the wicks on menorahs, break the fasts of Ramadan, gather our clans for sumptuous feasts. In the midst of this season of ritual, another evocative pageantry has been added — the execution of a prisoner. One week before Christmas, San Diego Superior Court Judge William Kennedy set a date for the killing of Kevin Cooper by the state of California, in what would be the 11th execution since 1978 and the first since January 2002. Now another familiar ritual begins — the ritual of society gearing up to execute a man. First, a menacing mug shot of the convicted murderer appears. Then comes the litany of gory details of the crime: the defendant's frustrated claims of innocence; the anger of the victim's family; the hopes of the defense lawyers; the certainty of the prosecutors. As we get closer to the actual killing, we'll see profiles of the condemned man as an abused child; the anguish of the victims' families awaiting final justice; dramatic, last-minute legal appeals to the Supreme Court; the clemency petition to the governor and his anguish over his power to administer death — and his solemn acquiescence to justice. We will read descriptions of the condemned man's last meal; the strap-down on the gurney and insertion of the needles; the phone on the wall that may ring at midnight; the final expiration of breath; the pronouncement of death; and the sad retreat of hundreds keeping vigil outside the gates of San Quentin. This is how it will be. It always is. Kevin Cooper was convicted of killing four people in Chino Hills in 1983. It was a gruesome crime. Four people were hacked to death with an ice pick, a hatchet and an ax. They included a 10-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy; an 8-year-old boy was left to die. In that same year, 2,640 murders were committed in California. Just 24 people received the death penalty — about 1% of perpetrators — all of whom still sit on death row. Those who adamantly support the death penalty argue that all murderers — not just 1% — should be executed. But justice, while ostensibly blind, must also be discriminating. Death penalty proponents claim that the ultimate punishment is reserved for the "worst of the worst." Those selected for death, however, are usually not the worst of the worst. Like Cooper, who was adopted, abused as a youth and caught in a downward spiral of menial sales jobs and botched burglaries, they're usually poor and unable to afford a decent attorney. A distressing number are mentally retarded. A study compared California's death penalty system with the Illinois findings that led that state's governor to commute the sentences of 167 death row inmates to life without parole and it found California's system surprisingly similar — lacking basic safeguards such as videotaped interrogations or standardized DNA testing. "California's system is seriously flawed and dangerously unjust," the author concluded. But the date for Cooper's execution has been set: 12:01 a.m., Feb. 10. Death penalty supporters argue that Cooper's killing will deter others from committing murder, though this is a matter of faith rather than fact. No study has ever quantified a link between motivation and murder statistics. Supporters often resort to arguing common sense. "Wouldn't you be stopped from committing murder if you knew you'd die for it?" Probably -- if I knew I'd die. But chances are, I wouldn't get the death penalty. I'm white, middle-aged, with enough connections to hire a good lawyer. People like John DuPont, Erik and Lyle Menendez and others with resources are never the ones strapped to the gurney and offered as victims to soothe our primitive fears. But Kevin Cooper will be. The execution of the 1% is designed to assure us that our criminal justice system is dealing effectively with crime. Except it's not, as the recent rise in the FBI's crime statistics shows. A far more effective punishment for murder is life without the possibility of parole, which has been doled out to more than 2,700 convicted killers in California since 1977. Only two have been released — after being found innocent. But something much more primitive in us reacts to the cues each time an execution rolls around. The crime scene is described again, our blood pressure rises, someone must pay. So get ready. After the tree is down and the menorah packed away, we'll begin the new year with another ritual — the killing of the 1%. Jeff Gillenkirk is a San Francisco writer, and media consultant to nonprofit organizations.
BART Expansion/Use It or Lose It by Mary Anne O'Rorke The future of Bay Area mass transit may depend on it. Public opinion polls show repeatedly that the No. 1 concern of Bay Area residents is transportation. In a recent poll released by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, BART expansion showed up as the top transportation improvement people would like to see — 50 percent higher than the next choice, wider freeways. Yet news outlets have reported that BART's expansion to San Francisco International Airport has not drawn the number of riders expected. Lack of patronage on the new $1.5 billion line, especially at the $76 million Millbrae "mega-transit" center, has prompted speculation that service could be cut — including closing two of the four new stops. While BART management assures us that no such service cuts are in the works, the truth is, no train system will run for long without riders to support it. Any further cutbacks in BART service would create huge hardships for riders and discourage new riders from turning out. This downward spiral of revenues and service will worsen rather than resolve our regional transportation crisis. Without support for expansion, plans for extending BART through Warm Springs to San Jose, and east to Tracy, could be put in jeopardy. As a BART train operator, I'm hardly an unbiased voice on this issue. Every time the new SFO train curves around the beautiful wetlands preserved for the San Francisco garter snake, beckoned by the bright lights and modern structures of SFO's state-of-the-art facilities, I feel a surge of pride. This is a world-class operation for a world-class area. It deserves to succeed. I believe it will — if people will try it. The question is, why is this resource such a well-kept secret? In operation since 1972, maybe BART has become like that old lounge chair in the family room, comfortable and taken for granted. While the average Bay Area car commuter wastes as much as 42 hours a year sitting in traffic, BART commuters enjoy a smooth ride in carpeted trains, speeding past nerve-racking traffic jams. There are no tailgating drivers, no rain-slicked highways, no wear and tear on your car. The advantages of BART to our environment are profound. Taking BART rather than your car every day reduces air pollution by 5 tons a year. As a BART rider, you achieve the equivalent of 250 miles per gallon in transit — more than 10 times the average mpg of today's cars. And you don't have to look for a parking space! Furthermore, BART's fare to SFO is less than $5 from downtown San Francisco. From Rockridge, it is just $5.15. Compared with the cost of taxis, rental cars or shuttles, or driving yourself, that's quite a deal. The BART board recently reduced parking fees for monthly and daily users at the South San Francisco, San Bruno and Millbrae stations. Weekend parking fees have been suspended at all Peninsula stops, and the 24-hour time limit on weekends at the new airport-line stations in Walnut Creek, El Cerrito del Norte and Bay Fair has been suspended. Unknown to many, BART operates longer hours than more-celebrated systems in Paris, London and Washington — from 4 a.m. to midnight weekdays, 6 a.m. to midnight Saturdays and 8 a.m. to midnight Sundays. BART is phasing in state- of-the-art change machines, fare gates and information displays. New ticket- vending machines are especially welcome. Unlike the 1972 models, the new ATM- like machines accept cash, credit and debit cards, allow riders to buy multiple tickets in a single transaction and respond to voice commands. This is not your mother's BART. I hope you will take up the Dutch bank on their offer for a free ride Thursday and see for yourself. The train operators and station agents will be doing everything we can to make your ride a swift, safe and comfortable one. Because the truth is, we want you back. The future of Bay Area mass transit depends on it. Mary Anne O'Rorke is president of Amalgamated Transit Union
Local 1555, which represents more than 830 BART workers.
Generous to a Fault By Amy Domini and Thomas Van Dyck After a 20-year economic boom during which the assets of American private foundations grew by more than 1,100 percent, a battle is roiling over the amount of money foundations should be paying out. The big winners or losers will be the taxpayers, who subsidize the formation and operation of these organizations. Bill Gates may be one of the greatest philanthropists of our time, but remember that when he put $17 billion into the Gates Foundation last year, his gift was not entirely free. It cost taxpayers $3.4 billion in lost capital gains taxes, because foundations are virtually tax-exempt. This tax subsidy is meant to encourage giving. But is it accomplishing that goals? Under federal law, private philanthropists must spend a minimum of only 5 percent of their foundations’ assets per year — a figure set in 1981 to help foundations rebuild their asset base after a decade of poor investment returns. This 5 percent includes not only grants, but also capital expenses (like new buildings) and administrative expenses (including often-handsome salaries and travel expenses for foundation officials), bringing the actual giving of many foundations to just 3 or 4 percent. Over the last 20 years the Standard and Poor’s 500 has returned 17.6 percent a year on investments — and returns are tax-free for philanthropies. Thus with assets of foundations now inflated to a total of more than $330 billion, the charities look more like investment banks than groups established to give away money. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation saw its asset base grown more than $1 billion, or 16 percent, in 1997 alone. The C.S. Mott Foundation’s assets have grown 176 percent, from $838 million to $2.3 billion, in the past decade. The Ford Foundation has had portfolio growth of 15.3 percent over the past three years. Yet the Council on Foundation, the umbrella group that includes these three foundations and most of the wealthiest philanthropic organizations, wants to keep the rule allowing them to keep 95 percent of their money. Another group, the National Network of Grantmakers, recently said the 5 percent rule on spending as too low and called on foundations to voluntarily pay out at least 6 percent of their assets in grants. But even that would fall short. A required payout rate of only 8 percent would release billions to nonprofit groups helping with education, early childhood development, job preparedness and other needs. Many foundation leaders agree with us. At a recent meeting of the Environmental Grantmakers Association, Ted Turner said that his foundation would be giving away 10 percent, and he called on others to follow his lead. The Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation has paid out over 7.3 percent of net investment assets for the past three years. The Needmor Fund, a Colorado foundation that aids poor communities, has an annual payout rate of 11.1 percent. In his recent budget proposal, President Clinton called for simplifying the tax rules for foundations — a long-needed change. But hand in hand with granting this benefit, Congress should increase foundations’ payout requirement to at least 8 percent a year. It’s time for private foundations to begin to give away an amount that reflects their share in the economic boom and provides the taxpayers with a fair return on their investment. Amy Domini is the founder of Domini Social Investments. Thomas Van Dyck is the founder of As You Sow, an environmental foundation in San Francisco. Medical Neglect, Abuse Lie in Wait for State’s Women Prisoners By Ellen Barry The spotlight now on widespread sexual abuse of women by guards and staff in California’s women’s prisons is long overdue. The Department of Corrections has managed to contain exposure of sexual exploitation for years, despite repeated attempts to bring it to light. Still hidden from the headlines, however, is the life-threatening and widespread medicalneglect and abuse in those same prisons. More than 11,000 women prisoners are subjected to seriously deficient medical care every day. A few examples illustrate the depth of the problem. In the spring of 1997, Mia Doiron entered the Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF) in Chowchilla to serve a one-year sentence for drug possession. By Feb. 20, 1999, she was dead. What happened to her is a tragically common story of medical neglect and gross malfeasance in California’s women’s facilities that compound the already glaring deficiencies of our state’s correctional system. Doiron first requested medical attention in September 1997 for severe pain in her leg. She did not obtain the correct diagnosis of bone cancer for another five months. Had she been diagnosed and treated properly in the early stages of her illness, her survival rate was estimated by a medical report to be about 90%. By the time she left prison, however, and was able to seek treatment on her own, her cancer was so aggressive that her chances for survival were just 10%. Doctors amputated Doiron’s leg to try to save her life, but it was too late. Her short prison term for drug possession had turned into a death sentence. Tina Balagno was sentenced to four years in prison on drug charges in June 1998. While in custody at CCWF, she discovered breast lumps and was diagnosed with breast cancer. As with Doiron’s case, a series of delays in medical care resulted in receiving no treatment for five months, when Balagno finally had a mastectomy. But it was too late for her as well. The cancer had metastasized to her bones, leaving her in excruciating pain. While in the prison system’s Skilled Nursing Facilty, Tina was never given sufficient pain medication to keep her comfortable. She received no assistance with eating or bathing, even though she was too ill to move. In February, 1999, she was granted “compassionate release.” She died one week later. These cases are not isolated incidents but indications of a penal system in severe crisis. As an advocate for women prisoners for almost 25 years, I have interviewed thousands of incarcerated women, and their stories paint a consistent picture of systematic medical neglect that would horrify the average citizen if he or she knew that it were happening in the “free world.” Medical neglect, as much as physical and sexual abuse, endangers, dehumanizes and in some cases kills prisoners who are thoroughly dependent upon that system for medical care. Yet California’s Department of Corrections has shown itself unwilling or unable to effect the kinds of changes that would bring the system up to the most basic standards of health care for prisoners established by both the U.S. Constitution and international human rights law. But it’s not just a question of neglect. As the cases of Balagno and Doiron show, there is active harm done to women denied medically necessary treatment — a harm that is often totally preventable. Gloria Johnson, a 45-year-old grandmother, recently was released from CCWF. She had multiple sclerosis, and while under the care of prison doctors, lost the use of both arms and legs. House in the Skilled Nursing Facility, a facility condemned by our own California Deparmtnet of Health Services for its failure “to treat each patients as an individual with dignity and respect,” Johnson was denied assistance with her food and personal hygiene. She described needing to “eat my food like a dog when it was put in front of me.” Staff left to lie in menstrual blood for up to eight hours at a time. So much for the Hippocratic Oath, which reads in part, “to help the sick, and abstain from … abusing the bodies of man or woman, bond or free.” With the last two years, health care in California’s women’s prison has been condemned by the United Nations and two international human rights agencies, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. It is abundantly clear that the Department of Corrections needs even more pressure from the outside to put its house in order. I welcome the call by State Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles) for legislative hearings into conditions inside California’s women’s facilities. Only by bringing the truth to light can we as a society be moved to encourage basic standards of medical treatment for women prisoners, and close this shameful chapter of California’s history. Ellen Barry is founding director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children and a 1998 recipient of the MacArthur award for her advocacy for women in prison.
Manufacturing Christmas: By Heather Hiam-White Shoppers have reason to be confused this holiday season. Sure, most of us are interested in finding a good deal, but the growing awareness of sweatshops and child labor has heightened concerns about how the good we buy are manufactured. What we lack now are clear guideposts to help us make informed decisions about our purchases. It’s because of such concerns that I became involved in investigating manufacturing practices overseas — in the hope of bringing up to standards that are acceptable to concerned shareholders and company employees. Polls, such as the one conducted in 1996 by Marymount College in Virginia, show that Americans are willing to pay more to be sure that the goods they buy are not produced at the expense of basic human rights. As any shopper knows, the goods available today in stores — ranging from exclusive boutiques to discount chains — are often made somewhere other than in the United States. But while they label may say “Made in China” — or the Philippines or India — the route that a particular ski jacket, or child’s toy, or woman’s purse takes on its way to the racks and shelves of U.S. retailers is often as complicated and as harrowing as Gulliver’s travels. Most major merchandisers now use hundreds of suppliers and vendors — so many, in fact, that companies themselves often have little or no knowledge of the exact course of their supply chains. The soles of a particular line of shoes, for example, may be made in China, the laces in the United States and the uppers sewn where the shoe is assembled in Indonesia. This recent separation of functions has enabled young companies such as 17-year-old Nike to become world industry leaders. Unlike the old days, when companies generally owned their manufacturing facilities, practically anyone today can start or expand a company by contracting out the factory work. Most of hese companies rely upon middlemen — contractors, agents, trading companies and others — to broker or facilitate their overseas operations. It’s a system that allows companies maximum flexibility — with minimum responsibility for what happens in host countries. Hoping to become long-term suppliers to a big American corporation, foreign manufacturers are often willing to accept deals that foster the abuse of their employees. In many producing countries, wages are set to help local factories attract foreign investment rather than to provide a living wage for workers, the majority of whom are women and young girls. The process begins when the U.S. buyer meets with a broker, say in Hong Kong, and signs a purchase order set at a particular price, The broker then works through yet another set of intermediaries — as many as five or six — who set out in search of a factory that will meet the contracted price. So most buyers for U.S. companies will not even have visited an overseas factory before placing an order. To further complicate matters — and confuse consumers — add to this the phenomenon known as “triangle manufacturing.” Contractors in economies that expanded rapidly such Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea shirt their most labor intensive production into even lower-wage nations such as the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and China as well as Central American, Caribbean and Eastern European countries. Firms in Hong Kong, fore example, have been relocating across the border to Guangdong province in China since the 1980s. Today, more than 3 million people in Guangdong work exclusively for Hong Kong firms. South Korea has focused more on Indonesia, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic, while Singapore firms have become leading investors in Malaysia. Although some companies claim to care about the conditions of their workers, most don’t do much to follow through. “These [multinational] companies adopt codes of conduct, some of them in very nice language, but then they negotiate deals which make it impossible for their contractors to honor the codes,” says Neil Kearney of the Belgium-based International Textiles, Garment and Leather Workers Federation. “The companies say to the contractor, ‘Please allow for freedom of association, pay a decent wage.’ But then they say, ‘We will pay you 87 cents to produce each shirt.’ This includes the wage, fabric, everything.” Sparked in part by increase public concern, and in part by the headline-making revelation that Kathie Lee Gifford’s apparel line was being produced in sweatshops overseas, a growing number of companies have begun looking more carefully at their production operations. When Verite began doing business three years ago, we were routinely shunted off to the public relations departments at major apparel companies. But as consumer awareness has grown, companies have realized that staying alert to how and where their products are made can actually pay off. Today, monitoring labor conditions has moved from the PR realm to the bottom line. Reflecting this trend, a few companies have joined a White House task force, the Apparel Industry Partnership (AIP), which was launched in 1996 in the hope of establishing new ways to address unfair labor practices. That group’s recently released “code of conduct” is a step toward ensuring that the factories that manufacture goods for U.S. companies will be prohibited from using child or forced labor, required to abide by a maximum 60-hour workweek, and to pay whichever is higher — the local minimum wage or the prevailing industry wage. Unfortunately, the move is more symbol than substance. What we’ve learned at Verite is that effective monitoring takes much more than a perfunctory tour of the factory floor. We have to engage the help fo local advocates and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who have gained the trust of workers who might otherwise be wary of losing their jobs by sharing information with outsiders from the United States. We’ve developed a network of coordinators and factory auditors around the world and have now conducted inspections in 30 countries. These factory inspections — from Saipan to El Salvador — have demonstrated that 80 percent of factories that claim to abide by their U.S. clients’ codes of conduct, don’t. Consider this: In China, where the average wage is 30 cents per hour, the highest overtime wage paid to workers in factories we inspected in 1997 that claimed to be complying with these codes of conduct was just 4 cents an hour. As discouraging as those results are, we’ve been able to have a positive impact by identifying and responding to problems — even those that appear to be minor. In several Asian countries, we’ve helped obtain fire safety equipment and trained workers how to use it; elsewhere, we’ve made sure stools are provided for workers who used to stand for eight-hour shifts. Major problems — compulsory overtime (forced labor), workers being locked inside factories, physical abuse and working several hours a day unpaid — are much more difficult to identify and correct. Bringing about change involves close scrutiny, factory by factory, listening to workers and maintaining a presence to ensure that the improvements they need are actually made. Our findings at one factory in Saipan, where we discovered that workers were living in spaces smaller than allowed in U.S. federal prisons, led to the construction of additional buildings to house workers. At another, in India, our interviews with women workers revealed that many of them would faint before their lunch breaks because most of them came to work without having eaten breakfast. The simple remedy we suggested was to introduce a morning tea break with snacks, and follow-up inspections have show that the problem has abated. For the AIP agreement and other monitoring efforts to bring about real change — as well as provide real guidance for consumers — we must develop much stronger criteria for how private monitoring firms conduct their investigations. All to often these firms are branches of the manufacturers’ accounting firm and have no training in oversight and investigation of work practices. Most of these private firms do not interview workers in private, or at off-site locations, for example, where they can speak candidly. Without that sort of attention to detail, it is easy to overlook a host of abuses, such as overly long work hours and “piece” rates that violate minimum-wage laws. Workers need access to monitors they trust and who will transmit the workers’ reports back to U.S. manufacturers accurately. In addition, the whole process needs aggressive monitoring. Under the AIP code of conduct, companies can be certified “sweatshop free” by monitoring conditions at as few as 10 percent of their subcontractors. But the vast web of global manufacturing demands much more to provide a meaningful review — ideally 75 percent. In the age of global manufacturing, merchandisers should be responsible for which factories produce their products and under what conditions. Acquiring this information should be considered part of the normal course of doing business. Americans don’t want the imported products they buy to come as the result of abusive and unfair labor practices overseas. Consumers must keep up the call to action, but it is only the companies that can make exploitative labor practices truly a thing of the past — one factory at a time. Heather Hiam-White is executive director of Verite, a nonprofit organization based in Amherst, Mass., that provides independent monitoring form manufacturers worldwide. COMMENTARY Forgo the Monster Test for True Justice By Mike Farrell Daily the sordid spectacle unfolds at its soap opera worst: Will it be suicide by underwear? Are attorneys to be banished lest they expose paranoid beliefs and delusional ramblings? Can the betrayed and suffering family maintain? And now, what will the shrink think? Is this decent? Is this necessary? Is this justice? In a word, no. The U.S. Justice Department’s decision in December to refuse the offer of allege Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski to please guilty in exchange for a sentence of life in prison without parole had only four things wrong with it. It was stupid, inhumane, unnecessary and sentenced us all to this multimillion-dollar sideshow that will further dehumanize America while giving a sick man the opportunity to spread his demented word to a wondering world. One stands swe-struck at the level of legal genius capable of reaching this decision to pursue the death penalty. Imagine the debate: If not this bastard, who? If not now, when? Use it or lose it! We’ve got to be tough on crime! The politics can cut only one way — you kill. It’s the same sad story, the Monster Test. Demonize and destroy. McVeigh yes, Nichols no. George Bush the Lesser wrestles with Karla Faye Tucker’s Christianity in the same way presidential candidate Bill Clinton did Rickey Ray Rector’s brain-damaged, howling soul. But they mustn’t be wimps. What choice do they have? We’ll, here’s one. In California alone, more than 2500 convicted murderers have received a sentence of Life Without Possibility of Parole since 1977. Not one has been released. In mot California counties, the total cost to the state of a capital trial is now more than $2 million — and that’s for a noncelebrity defendant — while a noncapital trial is a little more than $600,000. The added expense of a capital case comes from having hold two trials (one to establish guilt or innocence, the other the so-called penalty phase); a more extensive process to find a “death qualified” jury; more motions, more emotions, more lawyers, more investigators and expert testimony, and then the automatic, constitutionally mandated appeals. Leadership, that longed-for but rarely seen commodity, would have recognized that both justice and considerations of public safety would be served by the acceptance of Kaczynski’s offer. A quick court appearance to enter a guilty plea and the subsequent incarceration of this obviously deranged hermit in a place where he can do no further harm during the rest of his life would have been in the best interests of all involved. And it would then have been, for all intents and purposes, over. Today’s juries are fortunate to have the option of giving a life sentence without parole. At least some are. Juries in Texas, which set a record for killing 37 prisoners last year, do not and are thus forced to choose between death and the prospect of eventually letting murderers loose. But Kaczynski’s prosecutors had the option, and by rejecting his plea, officials have guaranteed a spectacle of human misery, grotesque expense and mind-numbing confusion as our government once again gropes for a rationale to do further violence — not in the interests of justice but in the pursuit of politics. Political cowardice — a term teetering precariously on the brink of redundancy — prevails. The power-that-be have so long claimed that the American public wants people to be killed in is name that they find themselves trapped in a vise of their own creation. In fact, as reactions to the Oklahoma City bombing trials and the prospect of women in the execution chambers show, a profound ambivalence about capital punishment is now loose in the land. In a California Field Poll on the subject, fully two-thirds of the respondents said they preferred a life sentence without parole to the death penalty if the murderer were also required to work in prison and give part of the money earned into a fund earmarked for families of victims. Similar responses have been given from Nevada to North Carolina. In the Unabomber case, the people were given that choice — by Ted Kaczynski. But federal prosecutors snatched it away. In doing so, they have shown themselves to be just as confused as Kaczynski, but without the benefit of having ideas implanted in their minds via satellite. Now we hear that the government is rethinking the plea. Put the poor man away, and let’s get on with the struggle for real justice in our society. Mike Farrell is an actor and producer in Los Angeles, president of Death Penalty Focus of California, a statewide abolitionist group, and co-chair of the California Committee of Human Rights Watch. My Father’s America by Jeff Gillenkirk People judging our country today by the likes of Enron’s Ken Lay, Adelphia’s Rigas family, Global Crossing’s Gary Winnick or Halliburton’s Dick Cheney might cast their gaze further down the corporate food chain — to Marvin Gillenkirk, my father. This American never cashed in millions of dollars in stock options just days before the collapse of his enterprise. He never built a $7 million seaside mansion with severance pay from a corporation that couldn’t honor its workers’ pensions. While America’s Crookedest CEOs were stuffing their lifeboats, my father was quietly going through the last of his savings at a nursing home in Rochester, N.Y. On the morning of July 10, 2002, he died in a state of advanced Alzheimer’s with $1,500 left in his bank account. And therein lies the key to one of the most spectacular economic success stories in world history. Marvin Gillenkirk graduated from high school in 1933, at the onset of the Great Depression. With his father demoted to part-time status at Rochester’s Hudson Dairy, my father went to work rather than pursue his dream of a college education. He walked through the iron gates of Gleason Corporation in 1935, and walked out for the last time in 1978 — after 43 years of service. Gleason specializes in making machine tools and gears — an apt metaphor. My father helped provide the gears that turned America’s wartime and post-war economies, one of the largest and most sustained economic booms in the history of the world. Business schools and publications glorify the genius of CEOs whose shrewdness and vision helped create jobs, but it was millions of people like my father working those jobs, day in and day out, who created the vast wealth that so many CEOs have either stolen or frittered away. My father was very much a man of his generation and class: stoic, humble, hard-working. His mantra was “work hard, play by the rules, keep your nose clean” — and he lived by it. Insider trading to him meant swapping one of his bologna sandwiches for a roast beef or ham, or giving a lift home to a co-worker whose wife had to take the kids to the doctor. He was almost never sick, and he took sick days only when he actually was. He paid his taxes on time, gave the traditional tithe — one-tenth of his income — to the Roman Catholic Church, and provided steadily and adequately for his wife and four children. That’s not to say he was a flawless man. He was intolerant of others’ failures, and too spare with praise. Like most men of his time he was more wallet than heart, with the emotional range of a boulder. He occasionally drank too much, and smoked Chesterfields well into his 40s — but then, he lived till 85, so what? He played golf more often than my mother wanted, and forced his children to sit in straight-backed chairs for an hour on Sunday if we talked at Mass. But his integrity was unassailable. My father died just days before intensive nursing home care consumed his savings and Medicaid was scheduled to kick in. I don’t suggest that he timed his death because he knew that his own money was nearly gone; but that it worked out that way seems another fitting metaphor. Other than Medicare and Social Security benefits he received after paying into the system since its inception in 1935, my father never depended on anything except his own labor for his livelihood. He paid his own way until the end, and left behind many admiring family members and friends, a personal legacy built on hard work and honesty, and a nation wealthy from the fruits of his labors. I grieve for the hundreds of thousands of workers and investors who have lost their savings through the collapse of Enron, World-Com and other plundered corporations. But I grieve more that the ethic of this country has evolved so far from what my father taught me. From Enron’s spectacular looting to President Bush’s failure to recall the details of a questionable $848,560 stock sale, the prevailing ethic of America is about getting rich at all costs — rhetoric to the contrary nothwithstanding. The dividends that allowed men like Ken Lay to look like geniuses and live like kings were created by workers like my father. While many in this country up to now have conceded corporate larceny and fraud to “the way business is done,” that’s not the way my father worked, nor the way he expected me or anyone else to. My father’s America was a hard-working America, a modest America, an honest America. I pray that his version of this country didn’t die with him. Jeff Gillenkirk is a freelance writer living in San Francisco.
Single fathers are finding joy by Jeff Gillenkirk The first American Father’s Day was celebrated on June 19, 1910, at the instigation of Mrs. John. B. Dodd to honor her father, who single-handedly raised six children on a farm in eastern Washington after his wife died in childbirth. In choosing to celebrate a single dad, Mrs. Dodd proved to be far more prescient than anyone possibly could have thought at the time. Quietly, a revolution is taking place in the U.S. family. Census figures for 2000 show that the number of single-father households soared by 62 percent over the past decade — 10 times faster than traditional homes and 2 1/2; times faster than single-mother households. Fully one-fifth of single parents today are single fathers — more than 2 million of them. This is up from 1970, when single-mother families made up about 90 percent of single parent families. And while almost everyone thinks of mother when portraying working single parents, nearly 30 percent of working single parents today are men. Times clearly are changing. In many respects, they had to. The startling failure rate of American marriages, with more than half still ending in divorce, means an equally startling rise in the number of single parents and couples sharing custody of children. That a large number are turning out to be single fathers is perhaps due to some law of averages, though research shows that it has as much to do with the changing nature of family and nurturing in this country as anything else. With more women in the workplace than ever — almost 70 percent of women with children under 18 — more men are stay-at-home dads (as many as 2 million, surveys show). Urged for years to take more of a hands-on role within their marriages, many fathers have done just that, and it’s changing the way men act after their marriages end. Through some critical mass — by choice, by court order, by circumstances — more fathers than ever are becoming hands-on fathers. I am one of them. I was the principal caregiver as my then-wife completed her medical residency. I took our son to parks, hiked, shopped, cleaned and read with him. I put him down for his nap, changed him, fed him, burped him, giggled and galloped with him. I took him to the pediatrician for his first shots, and held his sobbing body after the deep shock of needles. Over the past five years as a joint-custody father on my own, I have been just as involved in his upbringing. It’s hard work, for sure. The lack of time, adult stimulation and loss of income all speak strongly against it. But the inner rewards of a day-in, day-out relationship with our own children has no parallel — a secret more men are discovering. A recent Gallup Poll found that 59 percent of American men derived a greater sense of satisfaction from caring for their family than from a job well done at work. Another poll this year by Harris Interactive found that more than 70 percent of men in their 20s and 30s would be willing to give up some their pay in exchange for more time with their families (now if only American business would allow them to do it). What Mrs. Dodd caught a glimpse of almost a century ago in her father is coming to fruition today — the hearts of men and the face of American parenting are changing. And just in time. A recent report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services showed that girls without a father in their life are 2½ times more likely to get pregnant and 53 percent more likely to commit suicide. Boys without a father are 63 percent more likely to run away and 37 percent more likely to abuse drugs. Both girls and boys are twice as likely to drop out of high school, twice as likely to end up in jail and nearly four times as likely to need help for emotional or behavioral problems without a father in their lives. Children need fathers, just as fathers need their children. So to the millions of men already acting as hands-on, hearts-on fathers — happy Father’s Day. And to the rest of you still waiting to emerge, come on home. Your children are waiting. Gillenkirk, a former Rochesterian, is now a San Francisco-based writer and author of the forthcoming novel, Real Men. Human Rights Begin With a Good Meal By Anuradha Mittal Rufus Herold doesn’t know much about theories of human rights, but he does know about hunger. A formerly homeless senior, Herold could fill a large book with descriptions of his experiences looking for something to eat. Like many of the Bay Area’s poor, Herold knows the problem is bigger than his personal struggle. “I have really seen hunger, especially in the faces of children,” he explains. “I know it was hard on them. It was hard on me.” Herold is on the staff at St. Mary’s Center in Oakland, where he helps other seniors find their way out of hunger, poverty and homelessness. He wishes those who have never known hunger could get a close look at the people waiting in food lines for something to eat. Then, maybe, they would understand — and maybe they would help change things. While Herold ladles out soup, our economy is booming with low unemployment, rising incomes, a galloping stock market and shrinking welfare rolls. But more and more people are sliding through the cracks. Facing hunger last year were an estimated 30 million Americans, including 5 million Californians. Some 63 percent of the elderly are at moderate or high nutritional risk. In San Francisco, about one in seven residents lives below the poverty line, often struggling to meet basic nutritional needs. In Alameda County, almost half of households receiving emergency food aid had at least one employed family member, but still lacked enough money for food. If trends continue, 8.4 million Californians will face hunger by the year 2000, one-third of them children. Fifty years ago, the United States and most other natoins in the world signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, committing our government to provide a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of everyone. These commitments include food, clothing, housing, medical care and necessary social services, and the right to social security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability or old age. A widely supported statement at the time, the promises of the declaration today seem outrageous to many in the age of “personal responsibility” and welfare reform. But when you really look hard, what’s more outrageous? A broad and sturdy safety net for all members of our society? Or one out of four children hungry in the richest country on Earth? With the 50th anniversary of the Human Rights Declaration upon us, it is time to strengthen our human rights record at home. On Saturday, a long list of Bay Area officials, including Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson and Green Party gubernatorial candidate Dan Hamburg, will join a panel led by Rep. Earl Hilliard, D-Ala., Rep. Bob Filner, D-San Diego, and other members of Congress for a local hearing at the Federal Building in Oakland on the state of human rights at home. Rufus Herold will be there to share his story along with dozens of other California residents who long have waited for this opportunity to be heard. Congress’ interest signals that human rights violations in the United States are a serious matter. A September follow-up hearing is being planned in Washington, D.C., and pressure on the Senate is growing to renew America’s commitment to human rights by ratifying the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Spearheading this effort is the Food First Information and Action Network, which is organizing a national campaign — Economic Human Rights: The Time Has Come. With the Covenant ready for action, and the economy continuing to boom, there is still time to make good on our promise of human rights for all. Every citizen who has been in Herold’s shoes, both young and old, deserves as much. Anuradha Mittal is policy director of the Institute for Food and Development Policy/Food First, a policy think tank based in Oakland, California Other Op-eds produced by Jeff Gillenkirk Los Angeles Times, Sunday, December 22, 1999, Executions Put State and Nation on the Killing Stage, by Mike Farrell Foundation News & Commentary, May/June 1999 Who’s Afraid of Increasing Payout? We say — make more, give more, by Teresa Odendahl and Diane Feeney San Jose Mercury News, February 15, 1988, Media Dissects Nicaragua While Ignoring Her Neighbors, by Jeff Gillenkirk San Francisco Chronicle, May 26, 1997, The Worst Execution of Justice: Five reasons why the death penalty isn’t the answer, by Danny Glover Sacramento Bee, May 1, 2000, California Needs a Moratorium on the Death Penalty, by Richard J. Garcia, Catholic Bishop; Donald Brown, Episcopalian Dean; David Thompson, Presbyterian Pastor Foundation News & Commentary, October/November 2000, Paying Out More in Times of Plenty, by Rob McKay San Jose Mercury News, October 3, 2003, Time for a Time Out on Executions, by Robert Sanger Los Angeles Times, Sunday, December 6, 1998, Make Them Work and Pay: Most Californians support prison without parole over death penalty, by Jeff Gillenkirk San Francisco Chronicle, June 7, 1997, U.S. Aid in Mexico War Follows El Salvador Model, by Jeff Gillenkirk and S. Brian Willson San Jose Mercury News, July 15, 1984, Bedlam-by-the-Bay: An Insider’s Guide to San Francisco Politics, by Jeff Gillenkirk San Jose Mercury News, October 13, 1991, In ’92, Presidential Candidates Really Will Wrestle with the Issues, by Jeff Gillenkirk San Francisco Examiner, March 17, 1994, How to Get Their (Bang!) Attention, by Jeff Gillenkirk San Francisco Examiner, June 3, 1992, We Do Need a New Ballpark, Just Not There, By Jeff Gillenkirk San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, February 24, 2000, Death Penalty Thrives in Climate of Fear, by Mike Farrell San Francisco Chronicle, March 31, 2000, The Speech Governor Davis Should Make, by Jeff Gillenkirk Sacramento Bee, February 1, 1999, A Plea for Life to Governor Davis, by Bishops Jerry Lamb, Robert Mattheis and Melvin Talbert San Francisco Chronicle, July 11, 1996, Would Polly Klaas Want This Trial? by Jeff Gillenkirk San Francisco Chronicle, April 13, 1998, The Death Penalty is Insanity, by Lance Lindsey San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 9, 1998, How to be Earth’s Top Executioner, by Jeff Gillenkirk San Francisco Chronicle, October 20, 1997, Death-Row Defense Bill Would Speed Executions, by Lance Lindsey San Francisco Examiner, April 30, 1999, Governor’s ‘Awesome Power’ is Just the Power to Kill, by Lance Lindsey |
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