Vicki Larson: We’re Stronger When We Fight Together

The struggle for workers’ rights and fair pay feels like an unending one, while the list of billionaires grows. Here’s Vicki Larson’s Perspective.

I had a long-scheduled appointment at Kaiser just as many of its health-care workers were going on strike over pay and staff shortages, so I called first. Yes, I was told, my appointment was still scheduled so come on in.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the recent strikes by writers and actors, auto workers, teachers, baristas, health-care workers and others, and the efforts to unionize in the Bay Area and across the country. I thought about how that’s played out in my own life.

Years ago, I worked at a union newspaper, where I made top scale given my 20-plus years as a journalist. But I was only working part time. When I divorced at midlife with two young children I needed a full-time job ASAP. When I joined a non-union paper, I was hired at $8 an hour less—and much less than the men who had nowhere near the experience I had. I figure that has cost me more than $100,000 over the years and who knows how much in reduced Social Security benefits, not to mention all the bounced checks and sleepless nights wondering if I could pay my bills.

When I left after 19 years, I discovered, thanks to California’s new pay transparency law, that I was making the least possible for my position despite winning numerous awards.

No wonder women overwhelmingly age into poverty.

That would have been my trajectory, too, if my parents hadn’t left me a small inheritance and I was able to rent spare rooms in my home now that I am an empty nester.

It’s hard not to feel like something is very wrong when companies like my paper’s hedge fund owners own millions of dollars in mansions while the journalists who work for them, like me, can barely afford to live in the communities they cover.

I understand the anger and frustration of those striking.

“I hope you get everything you’re fighting for,” I told the woman at Kaiser as she checked me in. She smiled and thanked me.

Kaiser workers eventually did, but others are still fighting. I hope they get what they deserve, too, even if it’s too late for me.

With a Perspective, I’m Vicki Larson

Vicki Larson is a longtime journalist and author in the North Bay.