#but I’m so proud of how augie came out!!

[rozahline]

Oh it’s youuuuu I watch TV with

[sgreffenius1]

PetNoMore

I received a gift this Christmas that encourages me to write stories that my children and grandchildren will want to read after I am gone. The platform uses simple writing prompts, such as, “Where did your family go on vacation?” You can call up a lot of memories and stories when you answer a question like that. I even kept a journal, now lost, when our family made a two-week trip to Glacier National Park in the mid-1960s. These are the kinds of stories your family wants to read when you can no longer tell people about your life.

Sometimes I ask a friend or family member, “Do you want to hear an Augie story?” Augie is my dog, a large, male black lab. He was born near Turner, Maine, on May 11, 2021. We acquired him on the Fourth of July, seven and a half weeks after his birthday. He spent his first week with us out at Cape Cod, in Falmouth, where dogs are not allowed on the beaches, or in restaurants. One exception: we like to eat at a Mexican restaurant that welcomes dogs in their sidewalk seating section.

Even though I could not take my pup with me to join my family at Coast Guard beach, or clamming, or dinner out, or shopping, or almost anywhere they went, we did have options. Augie curled up between my legs as we took our kayak out for long paddles down the Quashnet River and onto Waquoit Bay. Puppies spend a lot of time sleeping, and I’ll say the sun, wind, and gentle motion of the boat made an afternoon nap mighty attractive for him. That rested him for walks to stretch our legs. When we stepped out of the boat for a walk on Washburn Island, he proved himself as good a navigator as you could want, off-leash and on the trail. He turned off the trail at the precise location we needed to find the kayak on the other side of the island.

Here is a picture of Augie resting next to the trail at Washburn, with a chewing stick at the ready:

This puppy was so well-behaved as a youngster out at the Cape, I applied the same expectations to our neighborhood environment in Westwood, after we returned from our vacation. I liked to let him out into our unfenced yard so he could explore his new property. We live on a corner lot, with ample traffic, people, and other dogs on both streets. I soon realized that if I let him out in the front yard without a leash, I could reach a point of nervous exhaustion in a matter of minutes. Yet I preserved hope that Augie would not get into some kind of mischief every time I turned my head for a second or two.

I was proud of our new puppy, and I wanted to introduce him to the neighborhood, especially other dog owners and their pets. Augie’s approach to introductions proceeds at a faster pace than mine. He is hyper-social, expects to make friends on sight, and runs outbound if he spots an opportunity to play. If I didn’t watch him every moment, he would get into some sort of minor trouble.

So it was on one of our first days back from the Cape. I had Augie out in front, and made some pleasantry or other to another dog walker. It takes two seconds or so to smile and say, “How old is your dog?” or “What is your dog’s name?” In that time, Augie can run twenty yards down the street. That is just what he did that afternoon, as he chased down a woman in a sun hat and loose, cool clothing who had just passed our driveway at the other end of the yard. He probably thought she had a treat hidden somewhere in her skirt.

You know how sharp a puppy’s teeth are, and how quickly they can damage their target. Well my neighbor was not so happy about the small rip in her summer skirt, to say the least. I looked up just in time to see Augie’s head disappear into her garment, and to see her fend him off, a reaction I’m sure mystified and disappointed him for a moment. My sharp cry of “Augie!!” came too late to prevent a small rip in her skirt, not that he would have spared the dress had I called him before he reached his target. When you have possible treats and a new friend in front of you, why should you listen to that nuisance kill-joy behind you?

The woman turned right around and marched back to where I stood in the yard. She scolded me far better than I could ever have scolded Augie for what he did to her skirt. She said, “I��m a dog owner, too, and you have to keep that dog under control!” I apologized, and tried to mollify her, but she would have none of it. You could tell that if this kind of thing happened a second time, that would be it. She would call Animal Control. When I told the story to my wife, I had to call the lady in a sun hat Miss Gulch. All she lacked was a black bicycle with a wicker basket on the back.

I suppose that was my first lesson in neighborhood etiquette for canines and their owners. I did not think I would run into trouble like that so soon. Three months or so after that incident, I think Miss Gulch waved at me from a distance, but I was not sure it was her. If it was, I had to retract the nickname. The fact that I thought of that nickname indicates my anxieties about Augie’s reputation in the neighborhood, and mine.

The next story does not involve Augie’s tendency to get into trouble at all. I planned an errand during the same summer he arrived, 2021, and I wanted to take him with me. So I put him in the front seat of the car, parked in the shade in front of our garage, then ran inside to visit the bathroom one more time, part of my departure routine. When I returned to the car, a woman stood next to the driver’s side. She upbraided me for leaving Augie in the car on a warm day. To give point to her censure, she added, “The next time this happens, I’m going to call the police.”

I thought, “Oh great, a busybody standing on my own property who tells me what a cruel, thoughtless person I am.” Then I thought, “How the hell does she even know the dog is in the car, or how long he has been there?” Then I remembered, “Yes, across the street stood a small group of women, chatting, as I ran indoors. She must have waited to see how long I would take to return to the car, and positioned herself to catch me when I emerged from the house.” I’m not one to keep quiet in many cases, but her threat to call the police made me reticent in this case. I let her retreat back down the driveway.

So now I’m under surveillance because I own a dog. Big Sister watches me, evaluates me, scolds me. I know that sounds discriminatory, but as I become better acquainted with dog owners in my area, I’ve found that female dog owners are more judgmental. They are less likely to admire his strong build, more likely be on guard about his masculinity. I have thought that no one can be afraid of a lab - they are way too friendly to hurt anyone. Yet they don’t want him to come near, especially if they have their own dogs with them.

The incident in the driveway had nothing to do with Augie’s masculinity, of course. He was still a lightweight at that point. The incident did give me the sense that I was watched. If I leave my dog in the car for a few minutes before I do an errand, that is not any neighbor’s business, until they make it their business. I have not seen the woman on our street since then, thus I wonder if she even lives in the neighborhood. Where she lives does not matter, though she has fewer opportunities to call the police if she decides she does not like my behavior.

Miss Gulch did not threaten to call the police, but in both encounters, I felt that I had been given a chance, but would not be given a second one. Anxieties bury themselves after a while, and as psychologists say, submerged anxieties sometimes come out in our dreams. Our worries as students, about completion of assignments and course requirements, remain with us for a lifetime as we sleep. A few nights ago, I had my first Augie dream. Let me tell you about it.

The setting is Des Moines, Iowa, where I spent my middle and high school years. The people in the dream have no identity, nor do the events appear to have any connection to Westwood, Massachusetts, where we live now. We lived on 42nd Street in Des Moines, at the corner of Woodland and 42nd. In the dream, I am on my bicycle at the other end of the block, toward the high school. I straddle the bicycle, feet on the ground, as I talk with a small group of men, also on bicycles. We must be making a decision, as we all mount up at the same time, and head down the block together, toward my house at the other end.

After we pick up a bit of speed, who appears but Augie, a few months old and before his main growth spurt, trotting along with the group, between us and the curb. He’s a bit in the lead. I think, “What’s he doing here, and what trouble has he been in while I’m out on my bike?” When we reach our driveway on 42nd, Augie turns in and heads toward our carriage house in the back. I turn in to follow him. The driveway is long but not too long, so we have a quick scene shift, to an open, concrete-covered area, where a short driveway gives access to the carriage house from the back alley.

Parked in the short driveway is a medium-size, commercial white truck, with the letters PetNoMore painted in large letters on the side. Now the action happens fast. With no warning or introductions, a person in a white lab coat emerges from the driver’s side, rounds the hood, and approaches Augie and me. I see she has a syringe in her right hand. I have my arm over Augie’s back, in a rather protective pose. I don’t understand yet why the truck is parked in our driveway, nor do I understand the situation. Lab coat woman drops to her knee, thrusts her needle into Augie’s right fore-leg, jiggles it around to make sure the serum enters his body, then disappears.

Throughout this sequence, I don’t recognize a threat. As in military operations, surprise lies at the heart of success. I look at the needle as it jiggles, and think, “There must be some reason for this.” My blank mind goes no further.

Then I start to wonder. Augie appears to have trouble staying awake. His head droops a little. He has strong will and aubundance of energy, so he raises his head back up. The next time his head droops, his eyelids droop as well. Again he raises his head, and opens his eyes. By now I realize my dog is dying in my arms, a strong dose of pentobarbital in his veins. The dream ends as he falls asleep.

This dream occurred the second and last night of a holiday ski trip to Vermont. The day we returned, I drove to Dorchester, where Augie stays with a friend and her dog when we travel. Traffic to and from Dorchester was slow and slower, so I had plenty of time to listen Van Morrison and think. On the return trip, the freeway molasses had thickened to the point where the car is either stopped, or rolling at some immeasurable slow speed. Augie is in the passenger seat next to me. The dream is still so vivid, I reach over to touch and gently press the place on his right fore-leg where the needle went in. I feel grateful he sits next to me.

I look up from my traffic-jam reverie just in time to see the distance between my old Subaru and the back of an Infiniti closing fast. I have not had my foot firmly on the brake! My car hits the Infiniti’s rear bumper at two to three miles an hour. When two vehicles that each weigh two tons or more collide, it feels bad. I can’t believe what I’ve done, as I try hard to pay attention in every traffic jam, to make sure I don’t rear-end the car ahead of me, no matter what the speed.

I’m happy to see no damage to the other car, but the owner detects a couple of scratches on the bumper’s right side. Neither of us wants to negotiate in the left-side breakdown lane, nor do we want to go through insurance. We settle up with the cash in my wallet, which will not go far if she goes to a body shop. It does count as guilt money for me, a small present for her.

So that’s the epilogue for this story about a new puppy, neighborhood disapproval, Freudian dream interpretation, and how not to drive on a crowded freeway. No one will reveal to me who called PetNoMore in Des Moines. I imagine it’s significant the dream occurred in a place I have not lived for fifty years. We have no control over our brains as they rest. We only know that we remember some dreams more vividly than others. The vivid ones usher into our vision the fears and hopes that embed themselves most firmly in our memories.

[britishsass]

No Astrolathe AU

Time for another of those aus I came up with and then forgot to ever talk about

I used to call this the “Happy Ending” au, but looking closer, it... Really isn’t a happy ending, so I’m renaming it to "No Astrolathe AU” or “NA AU” because it’s more fitting.

Basic idea: What if Ford asked for help instead of just using the astrolathe on 3 different people? 

If he asked for help with it, they could all manage to do what they were intending to do in PN2: Taking care of Maligula and getting Lucy back. The seven go in together, and they help her with the problem, ending up with Lucy safe and sound. However, now they have a few other problems:

They have to hide Lucy as much as they can.

Helmut’s body is still in Grulovia, and there’s no way they can go to Grulovia to search for it in this time of turmoil.

Lucy is terrified of what’s going on with her nephew, Augustus, and really wants to make sure he’s safe and sound.

They’re trying to avoid all press because they’re harboring a war criminal and they’d have to lie so much about how they defeated Maligula.

So eventually, they decide the best option is to send someone to go get Augustus and then set up even more illusions and such to keep others away. The Psychonauts become a story told of people who defeated Maligula, then faded away as quickly as they appeared. Someone gets Augustus and brings him to GNG, where the others are, and they decide to take care of him.

The thing is, Augustus is still traumatized. He’s a big ol’ mess. And these dudes don’t know how to handle this kid.

As well, they seem to attract more people in need of help or a place to hide-- A kid looking to run from his parents who hate him as he longs to sail. A young boy who’s harboring a bunny who just really wants a friend to talk to. A little girl who hasn’t been able to sit still after her house burned down. They’re all lost and alone, and somehow they found their way to the Gulch. The Psychonauts are a group of misfits, lost and confused, and they’re doing their best to help each other. 

Eventually they hear about all that Psitanium in Shaky Claim and how that place was shut down, leaving just the tower. And of course, them being stupid and weird, they decide to go on a rescue mission there to see if those guys are psychic too. Leading to more trouble for the group, and a massive cast of weirdos. Speaking of, here’s the cast.

Characters:

Kids: 

Augustus “Augie” Aquato - The main character. A traumatized mess of a boy, mostly mute, and he has issues forming new connections with people. He works with hydrokinesis and circus tricks, forming his own ways of doing things as he avoids getting close to people and tries to figure out what on earth he should do.

Sasha Nein - A nervous geek who can infodump whenever he feels like it. He still works a lot with his hands, making things and trying his best to be self-sufficient. He’s very quiet about what happened to his family, and avoids talking about how he made his way to America. He still has a heavy accent, and speaks in German when he’s nervous.

Camilla “Milla” Vodello - A happy-go-lucky girl who’s usually got a song in her head and a smile on her lips. She watched her house burn down, but she doesn’t really know how to handle her sadness, so instead she pushes it all down and hides it behind a smile. She still misses her family, and paints when she can.

Truman Zanotto - Only shows up sometimes, but he loves his uncles. He’s got a mild crush on Hollis, not that he’d admit it, and he enjoys getting to hang out with the others. He’s basically a lot like Adam, but more likely to be dragged into things. He’s also likely to sprout poison ivy when he’s in a bad mood.

Hollis Forsythe - A hard worker, one who pushes herself a bit too hard. She’s very vulnerable to burnout, but she’s working hard to learn everything she can and to make others proud of her. She wants to be a doctor when she gets older. Or a teacher.

Caligosto “Cal” Loboto - A very polite young boy who longs to sail. He’s almost always holding Lucy’s hand, and he always wants to show the others things he’s doing. Otto cheers him on a lot. He should not do that. Cal’s got a habit of going a bit too far, and he’s an incredibly strong psychic, but he’s also known to cause trouble for the group on accident because of it.

Morceau “Morry” Oleander - He’s known to be a really soft kid, and he’s always hanging out with Mr. Bun. Though he’s usually pretty friendly and a big crybaby, Mr. Bun is not held back by human customs, and has been known to bite if someone is mean to Morry.

Adults:

Ford Cruller - A bit of a mess, but still working to keep the group safe. He and Lucy are dating, but it’s kind of confused because of everything that happened. He and Otto are very, very close as well, and haven’t found a label for their relationship. He tends to push a bit hard, especially on Augustus, but he steps off when he realizes it.

Robert “Bob” Zanotto - Not much changed after the battle for him, though he does drink a bit more than he should because he misses being able to hold his husband’s hand. He’s one of the first to say he’ll forgive Lucy.

Otto Mentallis - Mostly keeping it together, since the others are still around. He can be overdramatic and cause a lot of explosions, but he enjoys working with Sasha, and he trusts that these kids will be good.

Helmut Fullbear - Stuck as a brain in a ball, he’s not exactly having the best time, though he pretends everything’s okay. He tends to keep using clairvoyance on Bob, so if someone’s with Bob, it’s almost certain that Helmut’s there, sensing the same things.

Cassie O’Pia - She’s doing well, since everyone is together. She enjoys spending time with the younger kids and reading to them, and she loves getting to teach them about the world around them. She still has issues with how to deal with everything that happened, though.

Compton Boole - Still a bit anxious, still sets off extra explosions, but he’s happy to cook for the group and make sure everyone’s okay and well-fed. His kid comes to visit sometimes as well.

Lucrecia “Lucy” Mux - Lucy’s still mostly the same person, though she’s dealing with a lot of trauma. She tends to keep away from others a bit more, since she worries about them being hurt as well. Even so, she returns to them with time, and she does her best to help her nephew.

Young Adults/later additions:

Fred Bonaparte

Boyd Cooper

Edgar Teglee

Gloria Von Gouten

Penelope Delucca (Sheegor)

(Maybe Crispin Whytehead, if he’s lucky)

Other than that? Anything goes. I’d imagine that the kids are around intern age, and the TT crew are about 10 years younger than the Psychic 7 because i refuse to accept the insanity of the timeline in this au. 

But yeah! Hope you guys enjoyed reading :)

[writingtoforgetreality]

Forever & Always An Outsider (Cordell Walker x Daughter!Reader)

[Walker-Masterlist]

Summary: Your dad came back. Finally. But what would he do if he found out how you had been treated? That his family failed to accept your rightful place with them. Your life needed change before you were too far gone.

Words: 2,495

Warnings: language, angst, feels, suffering in silence, losing yourself, most of the Walkers are assholes (I love the actors & their characters, this is just fiction!), I’m incredibly proud of this one (pls tell me what y’all think - requests for Walker & more are open!), (Y/A) = your age, (Y/E/C) = your eye color

If you like my work & wanna support me: a coffee would be highly appreciated ❤

You were (Y/N) Walker. Through & through. Worthy of that last name. Emily not being your biological mother should not matter, right? It was her who raised you with Cordell. It was her who tucked you in at night. It was her who was there when you woke up in the middle of the night, screaming, because nightmares invaded your peaceful slumber. It was her who you called mom. So why the hell were you different? Why were you not treated the same way Stella & Augie were?

It was not your decision to be the child of one of Cordell’s one night stands. Neither was it your decision to be abandoned by the same woman who had carried you inside of her body for nine months. And it sure as hell was not your decision to be laid at the front porch of the Walker property. A note the only explanation who you were & why you were brought here in the middle of the night. A paternity test later & it was confirmed. You were Cordell’s daughter. Not even once did Emily think any less of you. The same thing for Cordell. Because you were their daughter. Fully. You were their child, as much as Stella & August were. You cried when you received the news of your mother’s passing. Just as much as the rest of the family. Cordell’s decision to leave was just as hard for you as it was for everyone else.

Daily calls had been left unanswered. Who could you possibly talk to if not your dad? Who would listen to your complaints, your pain, your grief, if not him? The years growing up had never been easy for you, there was no denying that. Yet, the second you were left alone with Cordell’s parents & your siblings, your life turned into living hell for you. It had never been kept secret that you were not Emily’s biological child. From early on, the both of them tried to explain your situation to you so you did not feel like they were keeping important information from you. Acceptance was what you needed. But it also was what you did not get. As a kid, of course you would never mention being treated differently. After all, it was your normal. It was something you got used to. Your parents seemed oblivious to the dirty glances that your grandparents threw your way. They did not notice that they spent more time with your siblings. Growing up in such a household, where support was only partly given, changed you as you got older. You were (Y/A) years old now. Old enough that the realization had kicked in. The reason why they treated you like an outsider was simple. Because you were one. An outsider.

You could not hide the disappointment you felt towards your dad when he returned. He left you. During a time where it felt like your head was underwater. Where you felt like you were drowning. And everybody watching you did not lift a finger to help you out of the dark & endless water surrounding your weak & broken body. No. They were busy dealing with everything on their own. Leaving you out entirely. Your dad was back. Finally. And as much as you hated him for leaving, your relief was bigger than the negativity that had been eating inside of you. Again, a person you connected to on a deeper level was with you. The only soul who accepted you. As you were. No friendships ever ended working out. The relationship with the rest of your family did not need any more discussing.

All those months of you keeping to yourself did not change a single thing. Your voice had only been used when someone had explicitly directed their words at you. Why bother talking to them? The only thing you had ever received was weird look after weird look. Hell, you had months alone to grieve. The hours you had spent crying in your room, all alone in the middle of the night, had not helped dealing with your loss. It was true, you were not the only one in this family who had lost someone. The difference was that you were the only one who had been left alone. Because the moment Cordell left, your support system went with him. The one thing you had never learned was being alone & staying alive.

An unnatural feeling was inside your home the day your dad arrived here. If you took a sharp knife, you could cut the tension precisely. But Cordell tried. His efforts did not go unnoticed by you. A small smile, a simple touch. Your way of acknowledging his attempts. The change in your family was noticeable. Connecting with his parents, with Stella & Augie, was not easy. Not at all. You, on the other hand, you were a changed person entirely. Not the funny, joyful girl you had once been. More like a closed book, encrypted with a lock. The key long gone, getting rusty at the bottom of a deep, lurid river.

Conversations over dinner were held briefly. Your dad being the only one to start them by things he remembered you guys liked. The burning need inside of you to talk to him was pushed down further. The looks you would receive were not really what you anticipated. But nobody knew. The silent battle you had been fighting for the last months had been ignored. Had your dad been here, he would have noticed something was off. Right away. A look in your (Y/E/C) eyes was all it took. But that was the past. This person had died a long time ago. Worrying was all that could be done for the time being. If you were to talk, you would come to him yourself. No need for him to force you into a situation you were highly uncomfortable in.

The bags under your eyes were present. The light in your eyes completely gone. Like the last ounce of strength had been sucked out of your body. Your clothes did not fit the way they used to. Loose hoodies, even looser pants. Your form slowly disappearing. Not only feeling like you were unseen, but actually becoming invisible. There was not a single moment of the day where you were fully awake. You had not been sleeping much. Something your dad could relate to. Most nights, he spent in company with a bottle of whiskey. The only friend to numb the pain for a little while. Alcohol was not your solution. Did not mean that yours was any healthier.

It had become a routine for you. Waiting until the house was sound asleep. Your mind the only one being awake. Your thoughts the only ones running miles & miles per hour. Eventually, you always found yourself seated outside, on top of the roof. Being a bit closer to the stars aligning the night sky. Being a bit closer to her. Others might find it silly. You talking into the night, waiting for some echo of the past. Waiting for a sign that she heard you. Your complaints. Your pain. Your grief. Your love. Spending hours crying. Begging for her to make it stop. Begging for them to love you the way she used to.

The cold breeze hit your exposed skin. A sign that your body still reacted to certain things. Texas nights were chilly. A nice contrary to the heat that dragged itself through most days. A hoodie would do. Some sweatpants. But you needed the goosebumps. Needed them to remind you that you were still here. Still breathing. You owed it to your mom. To keep fighting. Because she did not have the chance to anymore. Tears were threatening to escape your glossy eyes. You would not let them fall. Deep down, you knew she would want you to be strong. Not to cry over her. Because of her. But it was so hard. Each day, the weight got heavier. Each day, you lost yourself a bit more. There was only so much a single person could take. To you, it felt like the limit was almost reached. Soon, you would overflow. Who knew what would happen if you let it get that far?

“Your mom used to love that place.” a soft but deep voice interrupted the peaceful silence that encircled your body. Looking over your shoulder to find your dad standing only mere feet away from you.

“Really?” the pain could be heard through your small voice. Broad shoulders touched yours.

“She was up here when she needed time to think.” elbows propped up on his knees. You could brush him off. Pretending to be fine. Explaining that fresh air was all you needed. That you would head inside in a minute. Truthfully, you did not want to do any of this. The fight had been going on for too long. You were close to losing it. This was a sign that, maybe, you were not yet at the end. That, maybe, there was still enough time to get up & start anew. Talking alone felt like too much effort. It required too much strength. Strength that you did not have. Not anymore.

“Something happened to you while I was gone.” the statement left a tension between you. “I feel like I don’t even know you anymore.” his eyes took in your side profile. You did not dare to look at him. It meant risking to break into tears. The tears you had been holding in for so long.

“I don’t even know myself anymore.” as a father, hearing your child say such words, it broke his heart. Into a million pieces. The universe did not give him a break. First Emily. Now you. Yes, you were alive. But watching you disappear right in front of his eyes hurt just as much.

“Talk to me.” his words were not an order. If you wanted to, you could up & leave. Right this instant. Something told you to stay. He was here, after all. Your dad. And he cared enough to look out for you. More than the others had done these past few months.

“I always wondered if mom & you noticed.” your eyes were focused on a branch that wavered in the far distance. The leaves pushed from one side to the other, controlled by the wind. There was no interruption. If you needed to get something off your chest, then the most Cordell could do was listen. Making you feel as if you were not alone. As if he was not leaving you. Not again. Because he was not.

“Grandma & grandpa have never looked at me the way they look at Stella. At Augie. To them, I was never their grandchild. I was just there. I was never an equal. And I was fine with it, you know? Because I had mom. I had you. And that was all the support I needed. Then mom died. And you left. And suddenly, it felt like there was nobody I could talk to. Nobody who could hug me to make me feel at least a tiny bit better. They were this tight-knit group. And I was alone.” the steadiness, the monotony in your voice was scary. To you, it had been your normal for the longest time. Cordell knew that it was partly his fault. Leaving you during one of the hardest times in your life was plainly wrong. No apology could ever bring back the time you had lost.

“I’m sorry.” it was not much. Definitely not enough. Definitely not what you deserved. Yet, it was all that could be given to you in this moment. A strong, muscular arm wrapped around your shoulders, pulling you closer to his warm body. The heat of his form immediately transferring to your skin. His embrace was a safe haven. His cologne so familiar. You had missed him. So much. Only when he touched you were you overwhelmed by every single emotion you had ignored for the last couple of months. Silent tears made their way down your cheeks, leaving a salty taste at the corners of your mouth.

“It’s fine.” one thing had not changed. Always making sure that others would not worry about you. People knew you for your fierce & strong personality. It was not too late to get the old you back. With much work, much love & support, you could change for the better again.

“It’s not.” Cordell knew you were one to carry everything on your own. That trait was given to you from him. He recalled how Emily had mentioned it when you were a small child. The one thing you always did was putting others first, forgetting about yourself in the process. That was something the both of you had to work on. Something the both of you needed to improve. The start would make him talking to the rest of the family. Now that he knew about your daily struggles, he made it his job to do everything to change it. For your sake. Because that was what Emily would have wanted. It was what he wanted for you. All of your years, you had been nothing but kind & loving towards his parents, Stella & August. The kindness you shared with them was not necessary. You had been treated wrongly for years & Cordell blamed himself for being too blind to see clearly.

Again, silence enveloped you & neither of you talked. It was comforting. Him being back. Him wanting to help. He hugged you close to him. Squeezing your shoulders every now & then. A simple sign of letting you know that he was still here. With you.

“I’ll talk to them.” if it were not for the night to be so calm, you would have missed his words entirely. “I’ll make this right.” this was a silent promise. A promise that he would stay. A promise that you no longer had to keep your grief locked inside. A promise that your family would be just that. A family. A family who treated each other equally. Loved each other endlessly. Supported each other whenever it was possible. Maybe it was the scene you found yourself in. The almost black night sky, illuminated by the moon, by thousands of little stars. Showing you that there were a million small reasons for a light in a mass of darkness. Bits & pieces of hope. Maybe this was your sign. The sign you had waited for every night. The sign from your mom. Telling you that it was worth fighting for. Worth fighting for the little things. Because each of those were beautiful in their own way. Each of those deserved appreciation. Each of those could brighten up the dark life you found yourself in. And light was all you needed right now.

Published (03/26/2021) by Cathy

Tags: @fofisstilinski, @geekgirl007, @spnwoman, @acklessnackles, @the-soul-witch, @multifandomlover121, @missmaam123, @delicatecelebritiesarthairdo (thanks for your support <3/sorry if I mistakenly tagged you, please let me know if I did)

[twdmusicboxmystery]

FTWD 4x16: Analysis

So, who watched the finale of FTWD? I really liked it, even though it ended differently than I thought it would. But I’ll get to that in a minute. Let’s get to all the awesome parallels and symbols.

***As always, spoilers abound for FTWD 4x16. Don’t read until you’ve watched!***

So, we had Al escape the hospital at the beginning. I first want to say that it struck me as a possible parallel to how Madison survived. All was surrounded by a horde of walkers, coming at her from all sides, and she just kept looking around until she found a means of escape. In this case, a gated alley. I was just thinking that there were tons of chairs, doors, passages, and steps in that stadium, so something very similar could have happened with Madison.

Beyond that, Al left the HOSPITAL in a POLICE CRUISER. Really? Once again, the parallels are so close, it’s ridiculous. Remember that Emily was seen driving a police cruiser (one of the Grady cop cars) out of the hospital. That’s part of the footage they shot in S5 that we’ve never seen. So we’re relative sure that when she leaves Grady for good, it will be in a police car. Now we have Al doing the same here. I’ll leave analysis of the squad car’s license plate for @wdway, who’s the master at that.

In the opening credits, we see a lot of water and what I thought was a hospital in the background. By the end of the episode, we realize it’s not the hospital. It’s the denim factory where they’re setting up shop.

The group finds Al—oh, she’d passed out from being hit in the head, btw—and are deciding to get on the road to Virginia the next day. 

When Al woke up, they even did a close up shot of her eyes fluttering open, just like they did with Beth at Grady. 

They actually use the phrase, “we hit the road at dawn.” (New Dawn Theory).

Morgan decides he wants to go find Martha and try to save her. He promises he’ll meet them at Alexandria, but John says they’ll wait for him at the truck stop, and Morgan says he’ll be there. I made note of these statements because they’re dialogue foreshadows. Morgan promised he would get back to the truck stop…and he did. Dialogue foreshadow fulfilled. Because of that, it’s also very important that they first talked about meeting in Alexandria. They could have just left that bit out and decided to meet at the truck stop, you know? I’ll come back to that.

I loved when John said to June, “It doesn’t take a whole day to recognize sunshine.” Not only was it sweet and romantic, the sun is definitely a Bethyl theme. They said on TTD that Garrett Dillihunt actually wrote/improvised the line. When they said that, the entire audience “awwwwed.”

Then comes the next major round of parallels. He finds Jim in the back seat of the police cruiser. 

Think about that. Jim is a dude who died back at the hospital, but of course reanimated as a walker. Then Morgan finds him in the back of a Grady-like police car. That’s pretty much what I’ve ALWAYS thought happened with Beth: that Morgan found her and took her back to Grady. To extend the metaphor, he finds an injured Martha and takes her (or starts to) take her to where she can get medical treatment.

Then we have the antifreeze stuff at the truck stop. This was GREAT! I still haven’t done a coolant post, though I reblogged @frangipanilove’s post that talks about it.

So the antifreeze first caught my eye. Then we find out that Martha put antifreeze in the water, poisoning them. (I talked a little about the poisoned water theme HERE.) And THEN it turns out that the antidote for the antifreeze poisoning is ethanol, or just an alcoholic beverage. Guys, this is a perfect example of the Daryl = Fire, Beth = Water theme. The coolant represents water, and the thing that levels out its negative affects is alcohol. Which burns. Which Beth and Daryl used to burn the moonshine shack. I love it!

Martha purposely gets herself bitten so that Morgan can’t save her. Yeah, that woman is crazy. He ends up handcuffing her to the car so that when she turns, she can’t go off and bite people. That caught my eye at first because cuffing her by one hand is a parallel to Merle in S1 on the rooftop, as well as to the empty handcuff Daryl found in S8.

Then, when Morgan goes back after rescuing the others, he finds that her arm has ripped off. Can we all say Merle? Okay, he purposely cut his arm off because he was trying to stay alive, where she died and her arm got ripped off because she was a walker, but still. The parallel is there.

We see Morgan on a bridge briefly. He gets Jim’s Augie’s Ale truck and saves the day. I thought that was interesting because Jim saved them twice. Even though he died, and wasn’t on the show long, he had a huge impact on the plot.

Near the end, Luciana says, “I get it.” Beth line.

We also saw Morgan go into the bathroom to wash Martha’s words off his forehead. They talked on TTD about how it was symbolic of him finally becoming “unstuck” from his way of thinking. He’s finally free of his psychological barriers and can move forward in a positive way. 

I think that works well with the bathroom/toilet paper theory because the bathroom stuff often has to do with escaping prisons. This was just a psychological, rather than physical prison.

Martha is buried. Once again, everyone gets a burial except Beth.

Morgan did find his way back to people, so as I talked about before, that dialogue foreshadow (which came from Rick, btw) came true.

In terms of the plot, they didn’t head to VA at the end. Rather, they decide to stay and set up shop where they are. 

Now, that does explain the fact that they’ve already green-lighted a 5th season. And I almost seems like maybe Morgan won’t go back to Alexandria, but I think he will. Eventually. Remember what I said earlier about how they talked about meeting in Alexandria. I think that was a foreshadow and it just may take a few seasons to actually happen. I did enjoy this episode, though. It ended on a hopeful not.

TTD was kind of interesting. 

I don’t have a lot to say in terms of the episode of specifically TD stuff, but there were still some interesting things.

First, Gimple clarified his job. He said a lot of people think he lost his job, and that’s definitely true (that people think that, I mean). I can’t tell you how many people were happy he was “fired” and claimed AMC got rid of him because he killed off Carl, lol. It’s an absurd claim anyway, but they simply wouldn’t listen to reason. So I’m glad Gimple clarified that he actually has been promoted. He works on both shows and also other aspects of the TWD universe.

Plus, he teased that something else big is coming soon. Hmm.

The only other thing I found interesting was that he was talking about how they (the writers) are purposely vague when they’re on TTD and when they give interviews and such. He made the joke that he’d just heard the FTWD show runner be very vague and was so proud of him, lol. (Btw, the thing he was vague about was whether or not we’ll see more of Al’s interview tapes, so obviously we will.) But the point is that he admitted they have to be as vague as possible and they strive to do that so they aren’t giving anything away, even though they know absolutely everything that’s coming.

Just saying. ;D

I think that’s all I have. Anyone see anything I missed? Can’t wait for the TWD premiere next week!  

[wineanddinosaur]

Anchor Union, One Year In: Lessons Learned at the Legendary Brewery

“Yes… yes… yes… yes…”

On Dec. 20, 2019, workers at Anchor Brewing Company, a venerable Bay Area icon that brewed its first beer for thirsty San Franciscans nearly four decades before the Golden Gate Bridge was built, gathered in the brewery to ratify their first-ever collective bargaining agreement. It was a union contract years in the making — the product of methodical organizing that began in 2018, followed by a contentious public drive and negotiations that spanned the entire 2019 calendar.

Now, it was up to the rest of the workforce — about 70 employees across the brewery’s production facilities, taproom, and tour guide corps — to sign off on the deal. A worker in white coveralls pulled ballots from a cardboard box jerry-rigged to purpose.

“Yes… yes… yes…”

All told, 94 percent of eligible Anchor workers voted in favor of the contract that day. The deal was done; Anchor Union had its first contract. It was a monumental moment for the American brewing industry, and particularly the craft beer business within it. After all, though Anchor had been acquired by the Japanese conglomerate Sapporo in 2017, it still holds a revered place in hagiographies of the American craft beer movement. That workers at Anchor had successfully organized a union, won their drive and election, and ratified a contract — and did it all without getting summarily laid off or unceremoniously abandoned for a cheaper labor market elsewhere — was a signal that it could be done in other craft-oriented businesses.

As one Anchor worker told me in the early stages of the 2019 drive: “Young working people will be able to see us and be like, ‘if these fucking drunk guys can do it, like anybody can.”

Can they? To be sure, in the year-plus since Anchor workers gathered in Potrero Hill to ink their inaugural deal, the craft food and beverage industries have seen a spate of organizing. Just a couple months later, in February 2020, 140 workers at San Francisco’s Tartine Bakery & Manufactory went public with their own union drive. As the pandemic took hold, organizing efforts popped up at craft food-service and -production shops across the continent: at Southern California’s Augie’s Coffee locations in June; in Colectivo Coffee’s Chicago locations in August; and at Vancouver’s Turning Point Brewery, owned by Labatt Brewing Company and better known for its Stanley Park brand, in October; and so on.

But while organized labor has made inroads this year with the baristas, distillers, and cheesemongers (et al) that produce the food and drink we love, it has stumbled on the path, too. For a showcase of labor organizing highs and lows in the craft F&B space, look no further than Minnesota’s Twin Cities.

Union drives at Minneapolis distilleries Tattersall (announced July 2020), and Stilheart and Lawless (September) yielded recognition from owners of those shops; as did the push at the city’s Fair State Brewing Cooperative that same month. But drives at Spyhouse Coffee Roasters and the Beer Hall at Surly Brewing Company (both organized with United HERE’s Local 17, which handled the other Twin Cities efforts mentioned here) came up short, victims of the turnover, apathy, and management pressure tactics that so often stop union campaigns in their tracks.

“I think I needed more knowledge,” lamented Taylor Roth, a former Spyhouse barista, speaking with me in November 2020, a few weeks after the drive at the twee chain had been defeated. “I knew what good the union would do, but I think if I had more specifics on what our jobs would look like after the vote, then maybe it would have been easier to talk to people about the benefits of the union.”

As Roth and other pro-union workers have discovered, that ambiguity can make it difficult to get buy-in from skeptical colleagues, most of whom have joined the workforce in a period of almost unmitigated decline in union density in America. In the hospitality sector, where language barriers, wage theft, and on-the-job harassment (from both customers and colleagues) have fostered a culture of transience, getting coworkers to see upside worth organizing for is especially challenging, with few positive examples to point to.

In December 2020, Anchor Brewing workers celebrated the one-year anniversary of their ratified contract. It’ll remain in force for another two, during which time they’ll begin bargaining for the one that’ll replace it. It’s an ideal moment for Anchor Union members to reflect on how the past year of unionized work went, strategize on what the future holds for organized labor at the storied San Francisco brewery, and evaluate what their union has done for them.

“I probably would be out of a job right now if we didn’t have our union contract,” Blake Dahlstrom, a brewery lab technician and one of Anchor Union’s four shop stewards, says. (Shop stewards are employees who have volunteered to represent the broader workforce to management when issues arise.)

VinePair asked Dahlstrom and her fellow stewards to share their experiences from Year One of Contract One, to learn what unions can — and just as importantly, can’t — do for the production and hospitality workers that produce consumable “craft culture” in this country.

Below are excerpted phone interviews with all four Anchor Union shop stewards. They have been edited, condensed, and organized thematically. Anchor Brewing Company did not respond to repeated requests for interviews with management to provide the company’s perspective for this piece.

1. What has your relationship with the company been like since ratifying the contract last December [2019]?

Blake Dahlstrom, lab technician, 2.5 years at Anchor: The company sees value in the unionization effort. Every single can and bottle that is being produced in 2021 says “Union-made in San Francisco.” Our job as shop stewards is to hold their feet to the fire. If they’re going to brag about the fact that they’re union-made, our job is to make sure that our workers are being treated [with as much care] as the marketing is.

At the end of the day, all I want is for workers to get compensated and treated fairly. I know it’s a hard balancing act on management’s part. … The people who are making decisions are not necessarily on the floor seeing what’s happening. So as shop stewards we have an opportunity to explain to them … that there are tangible solutions.

I’m proud of the fact that we have a positive working relationship with management. It’s not perfect, but it could be worse. But I’m not trying to sugarcoat it; I’m not trying to be friendly with management. I will bring out my fists when I need to bring out my fists. … It’s not there yet. We’re going down every single avenue we possibly can before we get to that option.

Alex Wilson, filtration worker, 5.5 years: As someone who has been at Anchor for a number of years and has seen the situations that led to the push to unionize, I thought that getting everyone voting in favor of the union, making it happen, and negotiating our contracts, was kind of going to be a clean break, and that moving forward, things would be different. Everyone would be able to express the issues we were facing as a workforce, and then we were going to move past that. So the fact that we’re not really past those issues at this point is surprising to me.

This upcoming year, it’s going to be really interesting to see where this relationship between management at Anchor and the union at Anchor goes. With Covid, everything got sidelined and crazy. It’s going to be really interesting to see how much our contract does for us this year.

2. Pay was an issue that you organized around at Anchor. How did you handle pay in the contract, and how has it played out since?

Patrick Machel, packager and bartender, 3 years: When we started [negotiating] the contract, we saw people getting paid really weird rates. So we were like, “Nah, we’re going to have something completely new, a tiered system.” The first tier is the entry tier, like packaging, tour guides, receptionists. … Second tier is a little more in-depth roles, like lab technicians, shift supervisors, specific machine operators. … Tier three is the lead brewers … and tier four is usually the warehouse [workers], like forklift drivers [and] maintenance workers.

There’s a minimum amount [of pay] that everybody in each tier is getting. That way, no one is getting less than that specific number. We wanted to make [pay] more uniform, because before there was no real way to show why [one worker was] getting paid this amount of money, compared to somebody right next to [them.]

Wilson: The raise structure in the contract is staggered, so we got part of our raise this year [2020], and part of it at the beginning of next year [2021]. Then it [will] continue to go up. So I think starting January, [average pay] will have gone up 20 to 25 percent [since the contract went into effect.]

[In a follow-up message, Machel provided more specific figures: The contract provides Anchor’s brewery workers with an across-the-board average raise of 21 percent over three years. For workers at the Public Taps, the bump is 28 percent.]

Robert Salgado, taproom supervisor, 3 years: In my position, I don’t receive tips. So I just get paid an hourly wage. Sometimes, that would be a little discouraging, watching [tipped employees] do less work and make more money. So for me it was more beneficial, because I got a pay raise. … I think it helped out a lot of my coworkers too, because a lot of them were making $15 to 16 an hour. [San Francisco’s minimum wage is $15.] Now they actually have a little bit more money in their pockets. I was making $22 [per hour, before the contract], and then it got raised to $23, and it will be ending at $25 by the end of the contract.

I think it helps. It’s on its way to being enough, With future contracts in the years to come, it will get to being enough. I can say [the pay increase] has made life easier, and more and more attainable.

3. What happened when the pandemic hit? Did the contract’s provisions have an affect on your day-to-day work at Anchor?

Machel: None of us would have a job, I’ll tell you that. We actually did layoffs, but way later [than many other companies in pandemic]. And we bargained with management over that, and actually [won] a pretty decent severance package for everybody [who’d been laid off]. Just having that kind of protection in there [allows us to say], “We’re not gonna back down, we’re gonna get our workers paid.”

Also, half of those people that [were] laid off are working there now because we have something called callback rights, where if you lose a job, and you’re in good standing, you have about two years to get back into that same position before they hire anybody else [if that worker wants to return]. So whenever things started opening back up again and more production was happening, they brought back people based on company seniority through those callback rights.

Dahlstrom: I probably would be out of a job right now if we didn’t have our union contract. It’s been a rough battle because, you know, nobody has a pandemic clause in their contracts. So we’ve had to roll with the punches, work with management, and push where we can push. Our No. 1 thing is we want to make sure our workers are safe, and that they don’t have an onerous workload.

I think the most fascinating news that can be reported is the fact that we had our first and only [pandemic-related] layoff in August: We laid off eight people, almost all of which have either been brought back, or have been offered to be brought back.

Wilson: I continued to work at reduced hours through most of the last number of months, and I recently returned to work full time. There are people who got laid off, for example, and for them, the union contract was a much, much bigger deal, because that situation was [governed] by the contract.

But I mean, there’s no question in my mind that having our contract has been a benefit in every way. There’s no drawback.

4. A typical critique of unions is that they’ll implement a layer of bureaucracy that will hamper innovation and communication. Have you seen that happen at Anchor?

Wilson: Management is now acknowledging that they are bound by the contract in certain ways so they can’t just do anything they want at any time. So in a sense that has improved communication. Now if there is something that’s not going the way it should be, [workers] have a venue to actually express that to management and expect to get a reply. Whereas before, you could complain, but that was gonna fall on deaf ears. That being said, I don’t think that communication has improved to the extent that I had expected that it would.

Having that third party [the ILWU] has only improved things. The company can say “that’s going to make it harder for us to get stuff done, we won’t be able to just come to agreement between the two sides because there’s going to have to be this extra barrier.” But if they were interested in fixing the problems that led to this situation they would have.

Dahlstrom: I think if you asked management, they would say [the union has hindered communication]. But I think the union has offered more solutions than problems for management. The reason why we unionized is because we had X amount of problems for X amount of years, and now with the union, we have a seat at the table. We meet with management every two weeks. There’s been a long-term disconnect between the fourth floor [management], and the first, second, and third floors [production]. That’s been an ongoing issue, and one of the reasons why we unionized. At the end of the day it’s all about communication. And that’s something that we’re fighting for every single day.

5. How much of the gains you’ve made this year do you attribute to your contract, as opposed to the company just being decent?

Machel: We were gearing up to actually open up the bar [when restrictions were lifted in San Francisco], and one of the questions I was bringing up to my manager was, “Are guys going to give us a little bit of backup if we get people that don’t want to wear masks and stuff like that?” She basically was like, “we would much rather our workplace be as strict as possible, so that nobody gets Covid and everybody’s safe, versus getting money from people.”

I want to say that [this] was out of the goodness of their hearts. But in my mind, the contract solidified that — [especially] because we also had a lot of vocal interactions with management. If I worked at another restaurant or another bar that wasn’t unionized, I highly doubt that they would [take those concerns seriously]. They’d be like, “Eh, this is how it is.”

Wilson: The “bureaucracy” that I’m involved in right now is trying to resolve an issue that, if we didn’t have this system in place, wouldn’t get resolved. So [the contract] is just an overall good thing from my perspective.

Salgado: Because we worked hard [on management], we were able to get hazard pay. Anchor wasn’t going to do that naturally, but because we were able to bring it up [to management through the union], we were able to get this because it was in our contract.

We still had to fight with them to get them to [re]hire people. They would try to have a skeleton crew do production on stuff that a normal crew [would be] doing. So because of that, we fought with them: “Look, you need to hire people back, we’re getting complaints from people who are getting way too much of a workload.”

It’s one of those things where they [might] have done it anyway, but we were able to bring it up several times, so they did it before it was too little, too late.

6. What would you tell workers at other craft breweries who are thinking about unionizing?

Dahlstrom: Open up your mind, and be imaginative. You can break the status quo, that’s what that’s what did it for me. If you imagine a world where you can solidify the benefits that you like from your job, whether it’s meal periods, shift beers, “safety doughnuts …” whatever you like about your job you can solidify, and whatever you don’t like you can bargain over and change.

Would you like healthcare? Would you like higher wages? Would you like paid holidays? I mean, when you’re bargaining, you’re gonna have to give up some of those things, but just imagine a world where you could potentially have some of these things.

Salgado: People need to believe in the power of the contract. Believe in the power. For those who believe in it, it does change. If people work hard and they talk to each other, you know, things will change. I think it does work for people who are willing to give a union a shot.

Wilson: It was an unfamiliar situation and we went for it. It’s a learning experience for everyone. But, I mean, frankly, we’re better off now than we were before. I think it was worth it, for sure.

Machel: For a lot of people, this is their first-ever experience with the union, and with this specific union [ILWU Local 6], it’s a little bit hands-off. … It’s mostly based on the workers figuring out what to do next. That can be scary, and it was scary for a lot of us. But we’ve learned through mistakes and victories, and we’re getting better and better at this. And it’s created an even more prideful place of work. It’s created relationships with [coworkers] that would have never happened before. If we have an issue, let’s bring it up. Now, we can actually say something. Instead of just coming to work at a dope company, we’re coming to work at a dope company at a union that we created ourselves.

The article Anchor Union, One Year In: Lessons Learned at the Legendary Brewery appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/anchor-brewing-company-union/

[johnboothus]

Anchor Union One Year In: Lessons Learned at the Legendary Brewery

“Yes… yes… yes… yes…”

On Dec. 20, 2019, workers at Anchor Brewing Company, a venerable Bay Area icon that brewed its first beer for thirsty San Franciscans nearly four decades before the Golden Gate Bridge was built, gathered in the brewery to ratify their first-ever collective bargaining agreement. It was a union contract years in the making — the product of methodical organizing that began in 2018, followed by a contentious public drive and negotiations that spanned the entire 2019 calendar.

Now, it was up to the rest of the workforce — about 70 employees across the brewery’s production facilities, taproom, and tour guide corps — to sign off on the deal. A worker in white coveralls pulled ballots from a cardboard box jerry-rigged to purpose.

“Yes… yes… yes…”

All told, 94 percent of eligible Anchor workers voted in favor of the contract that day. The deal was done; Anchor Union had its first contract. It was a monumental moment for the American brewing industry, and particularly the craft beer business within it. After all, though Anchor had been acquired by the Japanese conglomerate Sapporo in 2017, it still holds a revered place in hagiographies of the American craft beer movement. That workers at Anchor had successfully organized a union, won their drive and election, and ratified a contract — and did it all without getting summarily laid off or unceremoniously abandoned for a cheaper labor market elsewhere — was a signal that it could be done in other craft-oriented businesses.

As one Anchor worker told me in the early stages of the 2019 drive: “Young working people will be able to see us and be like, ‘if these fucking drunk guys can do it, like anybody can.”

Can they? To be sure, in the year-plus since Anchor workers gathered in Potrero Hill to ink their inaugural deal, the craft food and beverage industries have seen a spate of organizing. Just a couple months later, in February 2020, 140 workers at San Francisco’s Tartine Bakery & Manufactory went public with their own union drive. As the pandemic took hold, organizing efforts popped up at craft food-service and -production shops across the continent: at Southern California’s Augie’s Coffee locations in June; in Colectivo Coffee’s Chicago locations in August; and at Vancouver’s Turning Point Brewery, owned by Labatt Brewing Company and better known for its Stanley Park brand, in October; and so on.

But while organized labor has made inroads this year with the baristas, distillers, and cheesemongers (et al) that produce the food and drink we love, it has stumbled on the path, too. For a showcase of labor organizing highs and lows in the craft F&B space, look no further than Minnesota’s Twin Cities.

Union drives at Minneapolis distilleries Tattersall (announced July 2020), and Stilheart and Lawless (September) yielded recognition from owners of those shops; as did the push at the city’s Fair State Brewing Cooperative that same month. But drives at Spyhouse Coffee Roasters and the Beer Hall at Surly Brewing Company (both organized with United HERE’s Local 17, which handled the other Twin Cities efforts mentioned here) came up short, victims of the turnover, apathy, and management pressure tactics that so often stop union campaigns in their tracks.

“I think I needed more knowledge,” lamented Taylor Roth, a former Spyhouse barista, speaking with me in November 2020, a few weeks after the drive at the twee chain had been defeated. “I knew what good the union would do, but I think if I had more specifics on what our jobs would look like after the vote, then maybe it would have been easier to talk to people about the benefits of the union.”

As Roth and other pro-union workers have discovered, that ambiguity can make it difficult to get buy-in from skeptical colleagues, most of whom have joined the workforce in a period of almost unmitigated decline in union density in America. In the hospitality sector, where language barriers, wage theft, and on-the-job harassment (from both customers and colleagues) have fostered a culture of transience, getting coworkers to see upside worth organizing for is especially challenging, with few positive examples to point to.

In December 2020, Anchor Brewing workers celebrated the one-year anniversary of their ratified contract. It’ll remain in force for another two, during which time they’ll begin bargaining for the one that’ll replace it. It’s an ideal moment for Anchor Union members to reflect on how the past year of unionized work went, strategize on what the future holds for organized labor at the storied San Francisco brewery, and evaluate what their union has done for them.

“I probably would be out of a job right now if we didn’t have our union contract,” Blake Dahlstrom, a brewery lab technician and one of Anchor Union’s four shop stewards, says. (Shop stewards are employees who have volunteered to represent the broader workforce to management when issues arise.)

VinePair asked Dahlstrom and her fellow stewards to share their experiences from Year One of Contract One, to learn what unions can — and just as importantly, can’t — do for the production and hospitality workers that produce consumable “craft culture” in this country.

Below are excerpted phone interviews with all four Anchor Union shop stewards. They have been edited, condensed, and organized thematically. Anchor Brewing Company did not respond to repeated requests for interviews with management to provide the company’s perspective for this piece.

1. What has your relationship with the company been like since ratifying the contract last December [2019]?

Blake Dahlstrom, lab technician, 2.5 years at Anchor: The company sees value in the unionization effort. Every single can and bottle that is being produced in 2021 says “Union-made in San Francisco.” Our job as shop stewards is to hold their feet to the fire. If they’re going to brag about the fact that they’re union-made, our job is to make sure that our workers are being treated [with as much care] as the marketing is.

At the end of the day, all I want is for workers to get compensated and treated fairly. I know it’s a hard balancing act on management’s part. … The people who are making decisions are not necessarily on the floor seeing what’s happening. So as shop stewards we have an opportunity to explain to them … that there are tangible solutions.

I’m proud of the fact that we have a positive working relationship with management. It’s not perfect, but it could be worse. But I’m not trying to sugarcoat it; I’m not trying to be friendly with management. I will bring out my fists when I need to bring out my fists. … It’s not there yet. We’re going down every single avenue we possibly can before we get to that option.

Alex Wilson, filtration worker, 5.5 years: As someone who has been at Anchor for a number of years and has seen the situations that led to the push to unionize, I thought that getting everyone voting in favor of the union, making it happen, and negotiating our contracts, was kind of going to be a clean break, and that moving forward, things would be different. Everyone would be able to express the issues we were facing as a workforce, and then we were going to move past that. So the fact that we’re not really past those issues at this point is surprising to me.

This upcoming year, it’s going to be really interesting to see where this relationship between management at Anchor and the union at Anchor goes. With Covid, everything got sidelined and crazy. It’s going to be really interesting to see how much our contract does for us this year.

2. Pay was an issue that you organized around at Anchor. How did you handle pay in the contract, and how has it played out since?

Patrick Machel, packager and bartender, 3 years: When we started [negotiating] the contract, we saw people getting paid really weird rates. So we were like, “Nah, we’re going to have something completely new, a tiered system.” The first tier is the entry tier, like packaging, tour guides, receptionists. … Second tier is a little more in-depth roles, like lab technicians, shift supervisors, specific machine operators. … Tier three is the lead brewers … and tier four is usually the warehouse [workers], like forklift drivers [and] maintenance workers.

There’s a minimum amount [of pay] that everybody in each tier is getting. That way, no one is getting less than that specific number. We wanted to make [pay] more uniform, because before there was no real way to show why [one worker was] getting paid this amount of money, compared to somebody right next to [them.]

Wilson: The raise structure in the contract is staggered, so we got part of our raise this year [2020], and part of it at the beginning of next year [2021]. Then it [will] continue to go up. So I think starting January, [average pay] will have gone up 20 to 25 percent [since the contract went into effect.]

[In a follow-up message, Machel provided more specific figures: The contract provides Anchor’s brewery workers with an across-the-board average raise of 21 percent over three years. For workers at the Public Taps, the bump is 28 percent.]

Robert Salgado, taproom supervisor, 3 years: In my position, I don’t receive tips. So I just get paid an hourly wage. Sometimes, that would be a little discouraging, watching [tipped employees] do less work and make more money. So for me it was more beneficial, because I got a pay raise. … I think it helped out a lot of my coworkers too, because a lot of them were making $15 to 16 an hour. [San Francisco’s minimum wage is $15.] Now they actually have a little bit more money in their pockets. I was making $22 [per hour, before the contract], and then it got raised to $23, and it will be ending at $25 by the end of the contract.

I think it helps. It’s on its way to being enough, With future contracts in the years to come, it will get to being enough. I can say [the pay increase] has made life easier, and more and more attainable.

3. What happened when the pandemic hit? Did the contract’s provisions have an affect on your day-to-day work at Anchor?

Machel: None of us would have a job, I’ll tell you that. We actually did layoffs, but way later [than many other companies in pandemic]. And we bargained with management over that, and actually [won] a pretty decent severance package for everybody [who’d been laid off]. Just having that kind of protection in there [allows us to say], “We’re not gonna back down, we’re gonna get our workers paid.”

Also, half of those people that [were] laid off are working there now because we have something called callback rights, where if you lose a job, and you’re in good standing, you have about two years to get back into that same position before they hire anybody else [if that worker wants to return]. So whenever things started opening back up again and more production was happening, they brought back people based on company seniority through those callback rights.

Dahlstrom: I probably would be out of a job right now if we didn’t have our union contract. It’s been a rough battle because, you know, nobody has a pandemic clause in their contracts. So we’ve had to roll with the punches, work with management, and push where we can push. Our No. 1 thing is we want to make sure our workers are safe, and that they don’t have an onerous workload.

I think the most fascinating news that can be reported is the fact that we had our first and only [pandemic-related] layoff in August: We laid off eight people, almost all of which have either been brought back, or have been offered to be brought back.

Wilson: I continued to work at reduced hours through most of the last number of months, and I recently returned to work full time. There are people who got laid off, for example, and for them, the union contract was a much, much bigger deal, because that situation was [governed] by the contract.

But I mean, there’s no question in my mind that having our contract has been a benefit in every way. There’s no drawback.

4. A typical critique of unions is that they’ll implement a layer of bureaucracy that will hamper innovation and communication. Have you seen that happen at Anchor?

Wilson: Management is now acknowledging that they are bound by the contract in certain ways so they can’t just do anything they want at any time. So in a sense that has improved communication. Now if there is something that’s not going the way it should be, [workers] have a venue to actually express that to management and expect to get a reply. Whereas before, you could complain, but that was gonna fall on deaf ears. That being said, I don’t think that communication has improved to the extent that I had expected that it would.

Having that third party [the ILWU] has only improved things. The company can say “that’s going to make it harder for us to get stuff done, we won’t be able to just come to agreement between the two sides because there’s going to have to be this extra barrier.” But if they were interested in fixing the problems that led to this situation they would have.

Dahlstrom: I think if you asked management, they would say [the union has hindered communication]. But I think the union has offered more solutions than problems for management. The reason why we unionized is because we had X amount of problems for X amount of years, and now with the union, we have a seat at the table. We meet with management every two weeks. There’s been a long-term disconnect between the fourth floor [management], and the first, second, and third floors [production]. That’s been an ongoing issue, and one of the reasons why we unionized. At the end of the day it’s all about communication. And that’s something that we’re fighting for every single day.

5. How much of the gains you’ve made this year do you attribute to your contract, as opposed to the company just being decent?

Machel: We were gearing up to actually open up the bar [when restrictions were lifted in San Francisco], and one of the questions I was bringing up to my manager was, “Are guys going to give us a little bit of backup if we get people that don’t want to wear masks and stuff like that?” She basically was like, “we would much rather our workplace be as strict as possible, so that nobody gets Covid and everybody’s safe, versus getting money from people.”

I want to say that [this] was out of the goodness of their hearts. But in my mind, the contract solidified that — [especially] because we also had a lot of vocal interactions with management. If I worked at another restaurant or another bar that wasn’t unionized, I highly doubt that they would [take those concerns seriously]. They’d be like, “Eh, this is how it is.”

Wilson: The “bureaucracy” that I’m involved in right now is trying to resolve an issue that, if we didn’t have this system in place, wouldn’t get resolved. So [the contract] is just an overall good thing from my perspective.

Salgado: Because we worked hard [on management], we were able to get hazard pay. Anchor wasn’t going to do that naturally, but because we were able to bring it up [to management through the union], we were able to get this because it was in our contract.

We still had to fight with them to get them to [re]hire people. They would try to have a skeleton crew do production on stuff that a normal crew [would be] doing. So because of that, we fought with them: “Look, you need to hire people back, we’re getting complaints from people who are getting way too much of a workload.”

It’s one of those things where they [might] have done it anyway, but we were able to bring it up several times, so they did it before it was too little, too late.

6. What would you tell workers at other craft breweries who are thinking about unionizing?

Dahlstrom: Open up your mind, and be imaginative. You can break the status quo, that’s what that’s what did it for me. If you imagine a world where you can solidify the benefits that you like from your job, whether it’s meal periods, shift beers, “safety doughnuts …” whatever you like about your job you can solidify, and whatever you don’t like you can bargain over and change.

Would you like healthcare? Would you like higher wages? Would you like paid holidays? I mean, when you’re bargaining, you’re gonna have to give up some of those things, but just imagine a world where you could potentially have some of these things.

Salgado: People need to believe in the power of the contract. Believe in the power. For those who believe in it, it does change. If people work hard and they talk to each other, you know, things will change. I think it does work for people who are willing to give a union a shot.

Wilson: It was an unfamiliar situation and we went for it. It’s a learning experience for everyone. But, I mean, frankly, we’re better off now than we were before. I think it was worth it, for sure.

Machel: For a lot of people, this is their first-ever experience with the union, and with this specific union [ILWU Local 6], it’s a little bit hands-off. … It’s mostly based on the workers figuring out what to do next. That can be scary, and it was scary for a lot of us. But we’ve learned through mistakes and victories, and we’re getting better and better at this. And it’s created an even more prideful place of work. It’s created relationships with [coworkers] that would have never happened before. If we have an issue, let’s bring it up. Now, we can actually say something. Instead of just coming to work at a dope company, we’re coming to work at a dope company at a union that we created ourselves.

The article Anchor Union, One Year In: Lessons Learned at the Legendary Brewery appeared first on VinePair.

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