Sandy Berman has resigned \”with a mixture of sadness and disgust\” from The SRRT and The PLG. You can read the full release below.
Sandy Berman has resigned \”with a mixture of sadness and disgust\” from The SRRT and The PLG. You can read the full release below.
Steve Fesenmaier writes \”FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Sanford Berman
4400 Morningside Road
Edina, MN 55416
952-925-5738
Monday, June 4, 2001
WWMD?
What would Martin do?
Certainly, he would not attend an event at a labor-boycotted hotel. Not even an ALA Conference event called the \”Coretta Scott King Awards Breakfast\” sponsored by a Social Responsibilities Round Table (SRRT) task force.
My understanding is that the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE) International Union, Local 2, which has declared a boycott against the San Francisco Marriott – ALA\’s headquarters hotel – intended to picket the Marriott several times, including Tuesday morning, June 19th, before and during the CSK Awards Banquet. However, \”leaders\” of both SRRT and PIG (Progressive Librarians Guild) pressured Local 2 to cancel the Tuesday morning demonstration. Believing that such pressure (indeed, bullying) – presumably exerted to avoid embarrassment for SRRT and the CSK Task Force (although cloaked in phony claims of \”racism\”)- violated the most elemental principles of social responsibility and progressive librarianship, wholly undermining SRRT/PIG\’s ostensible commitment to support and demonstrate solidarity with poor and oppressed people, I herewith resign with a mixture of sadness and disgust from SRRT and PIG.
This matter should have been solely about appalling leverage on the Marriott to secure justice for its underpaid and disrespected workers, not about avoiding embarrassment for relatively comfortable librarians of whatever color.
I\’m also resigning to protest the appalling hypocrisy manifest in the militant, pro-boycott rhetoric appearing in Library Juice and the SRRT Newsletter and the actual, anti-labor behavior of those selfsame \”militants\”.
— Sandy Berman, ALA Equality Award Winner, 1989
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