While Maximillian Alvarez was inside the Labor Notes conference this past April, attending panels and sharing space with intelligent, hard working organizers, Mel Buer was wandering the conference grounds outside, meeting folks and talking about the joy of being a member of the working class as they sat in the grass and ate their lunches and talked with friends, old and new. There’s something to be said about the people you meet when you’re sharing cigarettes outside a conference center–one such person was today’s guest, adorned in UFCW buttons and sharing his poetry with Mel while they smoked together on a bench near the conference. On this week’s episode of Working People, Mel sat down with labor poet and union grocer George Fish, a wonderful man full of stories about his life and work, his experiences growing up and ultimately leaving the Catholic Church, his politics–honed through decades of life experience–and his relationship to his writing and poetry.

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Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Mel Buer:

Hey everybody, it’s your host, Mel Buer, and welcome back everyone to another episode of Working People, a podcast about the lives, dreams, jobs, and struggles of the working class today. Brought to you in partnership with In These Times magazine and The Real News Network produced by Jules Taylor and made possible by the support of listeners like you.

Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network. If you love what we do and are looking for more worker and labor-focused shows like ours, follow the link in the show notes and go check out the other great shows in our network, and please support the work we’re doing here at Working People because we can’t keep going without you. Share our episodes with your coworkers, friends, and family members. Leave positive reviews of the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and reach out to us if you have recommendations for working folks you’d like us to talk to. And please support the work we do at The Real News by going to therealnews.com/donate, especially if you want to see more reporting from the front lines of struggle around the US and across the world.

I first met George Fish at the Labor Notes Conference in April where we shared a cigarette break outside of the conference hotel and talked briefly about what it meant to us to be part of the labor movement. The energy of the conference was incredible, and the optimism surrounding such a gathering was truly infectious. Before he went back inside to attend the conference, George shared with me some of his poetry about working in a union grocery store. Fascinated by his work and his life experience I shared my contact information and thus began the journey of getting him onto the show. For this episode, we had an interesting conversation about his life, his work as a freelance writer, and his current work as a unionized grocer. At the end of the conversation, George was kind enough to read one of his poems. Welcome to the show, George.

George Fish:

I’m George Fish. I’m a published writer and poet. I also work as an essential worker in the produce department at Kroger here in Indianapolis, Indiana, also known as Indianoplace, the World’s largest county seed. And I’m active in my union, UFCW Local 700, the Indiana Mega Local. I’m in Essential Workers for Democracy. And I view myself as a Gramscian organic intellectual. I didn’t go into my job to organize the working class. I went into my job because I needed a paycheck, and I’m very glad I published two poems so far in Blue Collar Review, the Journal of Progressive Working Class Literature. I have a wonderful editor there, Al Markowitz. By the way, you can look it up, Blue Collar Review is out of Norfolk, Virginia, and it’s an honor to use my poetry to reach my fellow workers, and I’m also reaching my fellow workers on my jam right now because our contract comes up in a year. We got a very pro-company contract and a lot of people are dissatisfied, so I’m trying to organize people to talk about the contract, so in a year we can get a better one.

Mel Buer:

Great. Welcome to the show. I think a great way to just start off this short conversation is to talk a little bit more about your work at Kroger, and your work with the UFCW. When did you start organizing with the UFCW?

George Fish:

Actually, I never started organizing. I got a job there very late in life in 2015. I had applied at Kroger many times before and almost got hired in the late eighties, but didn’t need to hire basically because I was considered too “introvert” according to their personality tests we had to take, but they needed people in 2015, and I got hired, and once I was in the union… By the way, on my first day of orientation, I joined the union and have been an active member since, and being with…

And about a year, a year and a half ago, I got in contact with Essential Workers for Democracy. We were very dissatisfied with our 2022 contract, which a lot of us found great pro-company, and it passed on two votes, the first vote it got roundly rejected, but the union insisted on another vote, saying that only fewer than 10% of those eligible to vote have voted on it. The second time it went through, but 40% voted against it, so there’s a lot of good basis for opposing that contract among my fellow workers, justifiably, and I’ve talked to my fellow workers, they’re concerned about pay, about COLAs, about more time off, about paid sick days, other matters too.

So, I’ve been talking to my fellow workers, just low-key, and following the advice I heard from Labor Notes of 80% listen, 20% talk, which I don’t always do, but getting to know my fellow workers. And I think I’m well regarded there as a union activist who has good things to say, and I hope to encourage them because the contract still weighs weight, and Indiana and Indianapolis do not have a tradition of activism, but we need it. And part of what I feel why is important is letting my fellow workers know that they are the union, it’s not the union rep. By the way, we have a very, very good union rep, a black woman. She doesn’t take any guff from management.

And it’s not the officials, and it’s not the international union officials, it’s not the stewards, it is us, the rank and file. And I think that a lot of people have taken inspiration from what the Teamsters and what the UFCW were able to do because they had a rank-and-file voice. And that’s what I’m trying to do within the UFCW. And I’m proud to be a union member, and I’m very glad to be a union member because I have protections that I worked… I worked 14 years in non-union shops as a temp, and, of course, had no rights. And we always dreaded they’d say, “Management wants to talk to you,” then they dress you down, and dismiss you from your job. And if you were lucky, you got unemployment compensation. If you weren’t lucky, you didn’t. But I’ve got this job security, and I tell you what, unions are a working man or woman’s best friend.

Mel Buer:

I agree. Yeah. I didn’t have union representation until I started this job at The Real News. The difference between the work I was doing in non-union shops or teaching or working as a freelance journalist, it’s night and day, and I really appreciate the ability to be able to have a bit more say in how the workplace runs and to be respected for that. So, I definitely appreciate the union difference here, and I’m glad that you have also noticed that. We met outside of Labor Notes, sharing a cigarette, and you had showed me some of your poetry, and you have just described yourself as a Gramscian intellectual working-class poet. When did you start writing poetry? What inspired you to start writing?

George Fish:

Actually, I had for a long time wanted to write. I wanted to be a writer. Unfortunately, I had an alcohol habit, so I was drunkenly talking about writing instead of really writing. Back in the fall of 1980, I was in my early thirties. I was in forced sobriety for lack of money, and I actually wrote a short story to get published, and I was so excited that I started pursuing it from then on. And then, in 1984, had my first article, In These Times, that was followed by an article Monthly Review. So I started writing for the National Left Brass. I worked on a staff of a small magazine here in Indianapolis.

I started poetry, Christmas Eve 2004, I was in an angry mood from my ex-Catholicism, and I wrote a bunch of very angry irreligious poems just as therapy, and then put them aside and looked at them two weeks later and saw that a couple of them really worked out. So then, I started pursuing poetry and published my first poem in 2007 in the Indianapolis area-based Tipton Poetry Journal. And I’ve had about 30 poems published nationally, mostly in small Indiana publications, but also in the website, New Politics, and also, Blue Collar Review.

So I combine both working and writing, and unfortunately, writing doesn’t pay anymore, so I have to keep my day job at Kroger, where I’m a produce stocker, and I’m an older worker. I’m now in my late seventies, and I can’t afford to retire because of a poor work record for 38 years, so I don’t get that much in social security. But I do get a small pension for the union, and thanks to the union, which even though I was still working, contacted me, says, “You eligible for this pension.” So I was really grateful for the union, making sure that I got my pension money before I was too old to receive it or dead, and so I’m glad for that. And my wages, unfortunately, make up 69% of my income, so I still have to work.

It’s a physical blue-collar job. I’m on my feet eight hours a day, heavy-lifting of 50-pound bags of onions and potatoes, 30-pound bags of onions, 40-pound boxes of bananas. But it gets tiring, and as long as I can hold up to it, I’ll do it because, unfortunately, there is so little social safety net, even for the elders, that should I be too old to work, I would have such a drastic drop in income that I would really be hurting. So, I combine all three and write whenever I can because writing is my lifeblood. It gives me a sense of wanting to live, and be a part of life, and contribute. And I’m glad to say a lot of people like my writing. They like my ironic sense of humor. You see, I have a sardonic sense of humor. That’s because I have a million one-liners. I keep them so tense like sardines. Yes, I make a pun out of anything. So, I came late in life, but I’m glad, and it’s good to be alive after a rough, rough time growing up.

Mel Buer:

Yeah. Do you explore any of these experiences working at the age that you’re working, or the experiences that you’ve had in just in the last 30 years of your life? Are these some of the themes that you explore in your poetry?

George Fish:

Not yet. My poetry can be very eclectic. I’ve written a lot of things. Basically, yes, they’re all explored indirectly. I had a hellish childhood, being raised Catholic in small towns, a lot of it that was in the Pope Pius, the 12th era, was before Vatican II, and I became an atheist at 18 when I entered college. By the way, I have a Bachelor’s in economics from IU Bloomington, Indiana University Bloomington. But I explore it indirectly because I write a lot of irreligious poetry that my good ex-Catholic friend, that John has said, is theologically correct. So it’s highly irrelevant, but yet it’s theologically correct because I get back at the Catholic Church by skewering on them with my poetry. But you’ve given suggestions on more topics I can write about.

My first poem in Blue Collar Review is based on a true story of an encounter with an obnoxious manager at Kroger, that inspired me to write a poem. And like I said, I was encouraged by Blue Collar Review editor, Al Markowitz, who is a very helpful editor and always takes the time to give you a personal letter of critique if he doesn’t accept something or he wants to change. He’s very good in that realm, and I’m glad to say that every writer really benefits from a good editor.

Mel Buer:

I agree. My editor is here at The Real News, and the editors that I’ve worked with over the last, oh, 10 years or so, are really the reason why I improve, frankly. I know that I’m going to give you time at the end of the episode to read a selection from one of your poems, but I really of want to drive home some of the other themes that maybe you work with, so we’ve already talked about traumatic upbringing within Catholicism. I am also a born and raised Catholic, and grew up in the Catholic Church, probably had quite a different experience than you did, but still walked away from my relationship with that faith at a younger age, in the last 10 years or so.

George Fish:

You’re a lot younger, I can tell by looking at you. You’re a lot younger. You’re a lot younger than me. I’m usually old enough to be your father, if not your grandfather.

Mel Buer:

Yeah, I’m 32. Yep. But I went to high school in the Catholic Church, so I graduated into… I was 18 or 19, and then I went to a Catholic Jesuit University for two years in Colorado, so it was just… I don’t know, natural progression into the various stages of education that is controlled by the Church, and then fell out of it quite quickly, and also had struggles with alcohol and found there was no room for both faith and my addiction at the time. And so, I don’t know, I felt left behind by God and I used to write poetry about the same stuff. You get angry when you grow up in a faith like that and you find that your life circumstances don’t quite match up with what is supposed to happen or what you think is supposed to happen.

And so, I can understand wanting to write back to that. And I think that poetry specifically has this unique characteristic where you can start and have those conversations with the pieces of your life that you are most affected by. And I was wondering, are there other moments in your writing career in the last 30 or so years where you found that writing has particularly helped with, whether it be the alcohol, or the questioning of your faith, or other moments in your 30 years?

George Fish:

Yes, important. When I started writing seriously on a regular basis, I was writing for a number of small magazines that had deadlines. It helped me overcome my horrible previous habit of procrastination because editors just didn’t mess around when you didn’t make deadlines, so it got me off… It helped me break through procrastination because I had to meet deadlines. I had to be good fast, and I think it helped me learn to be good fast because I was an active freelance writer-journalist who had to produce something every week or every month and had to do it, so I did it. You don’t want an editor scorned on your back.

I want to thank you for sharing. We have a very similar parallel experiences. I also want to say that because of my writing, my writer’s biography is in Who’s Who in America for both 2019, 2020, that I know of. So, everybody check that out at the library, and I’m very glad that writing has given me my Andy Warhol 15 minutes of fame, so if I may be egotistical or individualistic on that regard, but every writer, when I think about writing, writing is a very egotistical business because when you’re a writer, you have the chutzpah to believe that what you have to say is so well written and so incisive and so interesting that total strangers will read you. Yeah.

Mel Buer:

Yeah. What are some of the things that you did write about, and you said you got published in In These Times and other publications locally and elsewhere, what was the focus of your journalism beat?

George Fish:

Lots of things. I would be assigned articles by my editors in the magazines. I wrote on things, I wrote for many left publications, Indiana themes. I wrote about how the Indianapolis Colts extorted the city to pay for an expensive stadium. That was the Colts Extortion Board. That article I wrote for Against the Current. I wrote a lot on Indiana issues because that was your Indiana publications. When Indiana signed a Religious Freedom Act that discriminated against gays, I wrote a poem about that, and that was published in New Politics. So, I’ve combined my political and other interests with my poetry and writing, and not just political interest, I also wrote a poem that was published, T.S. Eliot Was Wrong, which starts out with the famous epigraph from T.S. Eliot’s Waste Land, “April was the cruelest month,” and I write that, but T.S. Eliot was wrong, very wrong. Although his language is vivid, picturesque, I say, “April was not the cruelest month. January is because January is cold and freezing and flu season.”

I write on a lot of different themes, but a lot of irreligious themes and a lot of political themes. And I’m a great lover of blues music and punk rock, and also classic rock and roll, including 1950s rock and roll. And I have a special fondness for early ’62 to ’65 Beatles because I think the Beatles did some of the greatest teeny-bop ever been done in rock and roll, early Beatles song. I don’t want to be just a one-dimensional person. I’m more than just a one-dimensional political walk. I just want to be as fully engaged in life as I can, and I’ve been successful at it so that I’m not just a jack of all trades and a master of none. As my old academic advisor, IU Bloomington, he said, and I quote, “Knowledgeable and unusual variety of activities, and that’s wonderful.” Thank you. Yeah.

Mel Buer:

Yeah. Do you ascribe to a certain type of leftist politics? Is there a specific ideology or political tradition that you find you identify with?

George Fish:

Well, for a long time, I was part of the Trotskyist far left, but now I consider myself a social Democrat, a democratic socialist in the sense of Michael Harrington, the left wing of the feasible. I think what’s important now, and of course, as I get older, it becomes more important because I know that my days on this planet are numbered. I want to see results in the here and now for me and for my fellow workers. And one of the big issues that concerns me, of course, is the Republican threats to social security and Medicare, which had my age, 77, I rely on.

But, yes, I would consider myself right now an anti-authoritarian democratic socialist, social Democrat. I was very, very enthusiastic about Bernie Sanders’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns, and wrote an article in New Politics praising Bernie Sanders 2016 candidacy when he announced it in 2015 and started a discussion on that going on in New Politics. So, basically, I think revolution is a will of the wits, I don’t think it’s going to happen, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do things to make our lives better in the here and now, and that’s what my politics is about now.

Mel Buer:

I tend to agree, pragmatic politics at this current moment.

George Fish:

And that was one of the things always so exciting about the Labor Notes Conference this past April 19th to 21st, is that it’s obvious now to me that the left wing of the labor movement is now a mainstream part of the labor movement. It’s not a fringe. It’s when 4,700 union activists from all over the country gather in one spot, you know you’re not a fringe. You may be a minority voice, but you are an important voice in the labor movement itself now, which is so different from the old Meany-Kirkland AFL-CIO I remember.

Mel Buer:

I was going to ask, in the last couple of years, there is this resurgence of… Not just in the popularity of, or I would say positive thinking about labor organizing, but also the new organizing and a… Oh, I don’t know, it’s like the clouds broke and the sun came out for the first time in a long time. What is the most exciting thing based on your experience of unions in the past and what we’re seeing in the last couple of years? What is the most exciting thing about seeing this resurgence in labor activity?

George Fish:

I think in the emergence of the organization active in Essential Workers for Democracy, taking a cue from what was done in the Teamsters and the UAW and trying to democratize a very top-down union, the UFCW, which represents over a million people and a lot of in the groceries and food processing who really need good unionism. And I think that’s been an honor to be able to participate with EW for the Essential Workers for Democracy and the good people who are involved with it, who are seasoned union militants, mostly on the West Coast, especially in the UFCW mega local, Local 3000, which represents Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, but also strong base in California. And we are all over the country, even in the Midwest, which lacks in activist culture.

Mel Buer:

Yeah, I see a lot of what UFCW 3000 is doing here on the West Coast because I’m based in Los Angeles currently. And it’s really exciting to see that not just the UFCW, but other unions are taking on this inspiration of creating reform movements inside of unions. They care so much about the way the union operates and they want to see it improve. They want this to be a new generation of union activists who are participating democratically within the institution of the labor union. And I think that is a really exciting piece of the new era of union organizing, this more modern era of union organizing.

George Fish:

Oh, yes, in for a long haul, it took a long time for UAW, for democracy, to win, but it did with Shawn Fain, it took a long time for TDU, Teams for Democratic Union, to make a difference, but it did. And one man, one vote, which encourages the rank and file to participate, and as I said before, it’s… Give us a sense that we are the union, it’s not the officials, it’s not the union rep, it’s not the stewards, it’s we ourselves, the rank and file, and when we have a voice, we really feel empowered to make a difference in our unions I feel.

Mel Buer:

Absolutely. Well, we’re getting to the end of our conversation, but I did want to give you time to… I would say we probably have time for one poem, or one selection from one of your poems. Which one would you like to read, and go ahead when you’re ready?

George Fish:

I would read my very first one, which is a show one, it’s only one page based on a true story that happened to be at Kroger in 2021, during the time of COVID when we had to wear mask and my mask inadvertently came… Wasn’t on my face that I got chewed up by a manager, and then a non-union shop would’ve gotten fired for what I did, but had protection because there the union, and was in Blue Collar Review in the spring of 2022. It’s called, I’m so glad I’m working in the union workplace.

Mel Buer:

All right, go ahead.

George Fish:

This was especially given home to me during the height of COVID when upset because the heavy box on an ill-stacked pallet nearly fell on my foot. I was so upset I forgot to pull up my face mask. It was on my face, attached over my ears, but in my upset, I’d forgotten to pull it up. Was obnoxiously reprimanded it by obnoxious assistant manager, and I blew up angrily in his face, in a non-union workplace, I would’ve been fired, perhaps some, barely. Instead, rather than have to face that assistant manager the following day, I simply went to the store manager and requested a personal day off, which was granted because the ability to do so was part of the union contract. Going home, I immediately applied through the union for a month’s disability lead, which was also granted. In the meantime, the nasty assistant manager was forced to take a vacation, and when I came back to work a month later, not only had I calmed down, he had too. He wasn’t hassling me any longer as he had, and even more beneficially, I had a job to return to. That is what union protection is all about. Ensuring you don’t pay through the nose for an inadvertent mistake by getting fired for.

And that is the poem I read to great satisfaction and appreciation at the Great Labor Arts Exchange, at the Labor Notes Conference, and I’m very proud of that all.

Mel Buer:

You should be. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk about your writing, to talk about your poetry, and it’s been a joy talking to you, and I’m really glad that we finally, after a couple of months, got a chance to sit down and really discuss what makes your writing and your life experience unique. So, thank you so much for coming on, George. I really appreciate it.

George Fish:

Great. Appreciate it. And please send me an email with the link to the video so I can share it with others.

Mel Buer:

Absolutely. And as always, I want to thank you all for listening, and thank you for caring.

We’ll see you all back here next week for another episode of Working People. And if you can’t wait that long, then go subscribe to our Patreon and check out the awesome bonus episodes we’ve got going there for our patrons. And go explore all the great work that we’re doing at The Real News Network, where we do grassroots journalism, lifting up the voices and stories from the front lines of struggle. Sign up for The Real News newsletters so you never miss a story, and help us do more work like this by going to therealnews.com/donate and becoming a supporter today.

Once again, I’m Mel Buer, and we’ll see you next time.

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Mel Buer is a staff reporter for The Real News Network, covering U.S. politics, labor, and movements and the host of The Real News Network Podcast. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, and others. Prior to joining TRNN, she worked as a freelance reporter covering Midwest labor struggles, including reporting on the 2021 Kellogg's strike and the 2022 railroad workers struggle. In the past she has reported extensively on Midwest protests and movements during the 2020 uprising and is currently researching and writing a book on radical media for Or Books. Follow her on Twitter or send her a message at mel@therealnews.com