Profile of a Modern Worker: Kimberly Mitchell: More Than Just a Worker

Kimberly Mitchell is a union organizer and labor rights activist who is acutely aware of the intimate connections between her identity as a worker and the struggles she faces in every other aspect of her economic life—as a single parent, a consumer, a homeowner, a small-business owner, and more. Starting out as a retail clerk in Washington, DC, in the 1980s as a Black woman, her story is one of millions that illustrates why progressive organizing today must address the whole person, not just the slice that we bring to the workplace.

I’ve always been self-sufficient and ambitious. I’ve always wanted more for myself.

I grew up in Washington, DC. I have many fond memories of my family, especially in the 1970s. In her best days, my mom was a club owner and successful entrepreneur, and my dad worked in Mayor Marion Barry’s administration running the DC Mayor’s Command Station. He was loved by his team and respected in the community. Because of these recollections, I often have thought that I got my social consciousness and entrepreneurial spirit from them.

These good times didn’t last, though. In the 1980s, DC became toxic with drugs, overrun by crime, and was the murder capital of the country. My mom had a nervous breakdown, and my family thought I’d be better off with Dad. But my dad suffered with his addictions. In watching them both, I learned a lot about life—including some examples of what not to do. Mostly I was determined not to make the same mistakes. When life became too much, I moved in with my grandmother. At a young age, I believed that God had a calling for me.

I always had a part-time job, and I made sure that whatever I needed I got. That is how I got into retail. I worked at Bradley’s my last year in high school. As a student at H. D. Woodson High School, I called out policies and procedures that were not right for the student body. As a result, I was elected student-body president. The principal pulled me aside and told me that my peers must really respect me to have elected me. I didn’t really understand what he was saying at the time. But it always stuck with me.

All my peers were graduating and getting jobs with the federal government then. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get one of those jobs. So I stuck with retail. I didn’t want to live in my grandmother’s house anymore after my dad moved in. I wanted something different. But to move I needed a real job. Upon applying for a manager position, I was hired as the assistant manager at a shoe store. I bought a car with the income and convinced two of my girlfriends to move in with me. We got a nice townhouse in Maryland.

Those were great times. We struggled but we learned so much about life. I was nineteen and working six days a week. We all worked, but within two years, my friends’ lives took another path, and they soon moved out. I guess you could say work saved me, or maybe it was my determination to take care of myself. Working kept me out of trouble, and my girlfriends and my coworkers had essentially become my family.

My grandmother helped to lay down a foundation for me. She taught me the value of being a homeowner. She also taught me how to take care of myself because nobody else was going to do it. Before my marriage, I bought a house across the street from her to be near her because I wanted to take care of her like she’d taken care of me.

For a long time, I didn’t want children. I’d been taken away from my mom when I was nine and ended up at my grandmother’s house, and I’d seen other women in my family not really take care of their kids. So I guess I just assumed I wouldn’t be a good mother. But I eventually did get married, and I decided to have a child.

Up until this point, I felt like I’d done everything right. I’d gone to school. I had a good job. I had a family. I was living the dream. But there were cracks.

I remember trying to help my daughter get into a good private school. I had a little money, and I wanted to help her be more successful than I had been. My mom was like, “Does she deserve all that?” I didn’t understand why she would say such a thing. That hurt. But my answer was, “Yes, we all do.”

I also wanted to go back to school myself. But for some strange reason, I did not get the support from my husband. I didn’t understand why he didn’t want me to better myself. I wanted to start my own business, and I hoped he and I could start it together, but that did not happen.

After a while, I could not wait any longer. I realized that no one else could see my vision. What God has in mind for me is only for me. I woke up one day in bad health and realized that my husband and I were living a lie. I had to think of myself and my daughter. So I got a divorce.

We’d been living in a house in a neighborhood that was quickly gentrifying. I made a lot of money when I sold it after the divorce. What’s strange, though, is that even though I’d lived in that area for a while, it didn’t feel like my neighborhood. While I was walking my dog, I would look around and realize that all of the people around me were now white. They made me feel like I didn’t deserve to be there anymore and that they had saved my neighborhood.

A few years later, my grandmother was diagnosed with throat cancer. Doctors told me there was nothing they could do and that I should take her home and make her feel comfortable. I took on caregiving responsibilities for her while still working my full-time job as a store manager. I didn’t realize how hard it would be. I wish I had been able to spend more time with her and take better care of her. She passed within a year of her diagnosis.

I worked as the caretaker of an older European woman. She hated it when people asked her where she was from. I never understood why, until she finally told me it was because people never asked where I was from. I told her it was because I was Black—they just assumed I was from the United States. I had never thought about it.

Someone later asked me if I preferred to be called Black or African American. I had never thought about that either. It all made me think. My daughter’s complexion is much lighter than mine. And sometimes people would walk up to her, right in front of me, and ask her where her mother was. And I would be like, “I’m right here!”

I thought about taking one of those home DNA tests. But I do not need a DNA test to tell me who I am. I can hear my ancestors. I know I am a strong Black woman, and I stand on my ancestors’ shoulders.

At the time of my divorce, I was in school to be a skin therapist. My ex-husband sued me for my business, property, and money. I had to stop my business. It is hard being a single mom and a business owner. I had to leave school and go back to work for someone else because I needed a steadier income.

That’s how I ended up at Macy’s. I had gone to social services to get help while taking care of my daughter. They wanted to make sure I was looking for work. So I did. I found the job listing in the Washington Post. I went in for a make-up artist position. Even though I was qualified, I didn’t want to be a manager. I wanted to have a peaceful life. I was still taking care of my daughter. But they pushed me to do it because they had a new counter open. Truthfully, this was ultimately good because that’s how I got my higher salary, and my hours were good. But when I got the job, social services said I could no longer get food stamps because I made too much—about $15 an hour. So, I was essentially still working as a freelancer and a full-time manager in retail but getting less support for both.

Macy’s was my first union job. I didn’t really understand what the union did at that time.

Meanwhile my mom got sick with cancer. I was trying to figure out who I was, and I began to ask questions about my life. I asked my mom why she never came for me after I was taken away. I asked her about her life. I learned that she’d been a sickly child and had been in and out of hospitals. Later she’d owned several companies. I realized I’d gotten my entrepreneurial spirit from her and not my dad as I’d originally thought. We kind of reconciled as adults. But because my mom was sick, there was talk of moving her from her house to a nursing home. I had to tell her this during my lunch break. I hated the thought of it. Pop went to visit her in the hospital after I told her about the nursing home, and she died that night. That was the last time I’d spoken to her.

I had peace, though. My mom hated hospitals, and I knew she didn’t want to leave home. She must have made an agreement with God that she wasn’t going to live in a nursing home. And that’s what gave me peace. Her death was a blessing because, even though DC had passed a law requiring paid family leave, I still couldn’t figure out how to take more time off. There was no way I was going to be able to take care of her, as much as I wanted to.

I have owned a few homes in my life. While living in the home that I raised my child in, I almost got caught up in the housing bubble. I came across the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA). NACA was the first time I had seen anybody organize to help people.

I decided to refinance my mortgage. When I went to the bank, the loan officer was like, “Your credit is all right.” And I was like, “Just all right?” For it to be over 760 for a single Black mom working retail, I felt like he was really disrespecting me. But I went with it because I assumed the best.

Later, when talking to a broker, I discovered that the bank hadn’t given me a good rate. I’d been redlined. Not only that, they had also made me spend money that I didn’t have on home improvements.

On top of that, I’d had flood insurance through a federal program. It cost around $560 per year. Chase Bank said I didn’t need it, so they canceled it. When I refinanced, I was trying to get out from under Chase Bank, given their involvement in the housing bubble and their predatory practices. But then my new mortgage was bought out by, guess who? Chase Bank. And I found out I really did need flood insurance, but I was no longer able to get back into the federal program. So I had to pay more, a whopping $1,200 per year.

After being in the house I realized that the contractors hadn’t been honest with me either. The house flooded—a lot. Before I’d moved in, I’d asked them about why they were doing certain things like putting up greenboard. Was there water damage? They said no, and I believed them. I called to get the gutters fixed, thinking it would help a little. But when I got home from work, I found that the contractors had replaced every last one of my gutters, without ever talking to me or getting me to sign anything or giving me an estimate. And they were looking for payment.

I was so angry. I felt like, “I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do. I’m a single mom taking care of business. How come I can’t have the American Dream?”

And then I found out my daughter was pregnant. I’m fifty-two and a grandmother. My daughter is still young. So I had to figure out how to take care of both of them. I asked my store manager if I could take time off to support my daughter in those first six weeks. I only had two weeks of vacation. My manager was like, “It’s in the middle of the Christmas season!” I didn’t know what to do. I asked God, “What are you trying to tell me?” It was just so many things.

I ended up selling that house at a loss to stay above water. And wouldn’t you know, I moved back into my grandmother’s house. When she passed away, she left it to me. And that’s where I am now. On the surface you might think, “Wow, an inheritance!” But her house needed so much major work done to it—so much money to spend that I didn’t have. It was then that I realized that the dream was never meant for me: as either a person of color or as a woman.

When I first ran into the union, I ran into a door.

I was with my friend at the Baltimore Harbor, sightseeing. There was this door that was all glass, and I tried to walk through it. Afterward I started getting these bad headaches. My head was hurting and I was scared to call in sick from work. I still needed money for everything else going on in my life. I asked my union rep at the store how I could get out of the union so I could get more money in my paycheck. And she was like, “Why would you do that? The union can help you out. Why don’t you just go downstairs and fill out a family leave form?” And I was like, “Why didn’t anyone tell me that before?” And she said, “The managers aren’t going to tell you that.” I realized that there was all this information that I hadn’t known, and I started soaking it all up.

One day the union rep called and asked me if I was going to be at the union election. It turned out I was the only person who came from Macy’s. So, they asked me to come out and be more active with the union. They invited me to speak to the city council about wages when they were trying to pass the Large Retailer Accountability Act. After thirteen years at Macy’s, my hourly take-home had only gone up $4. I was excited to be a part of the union after that.

I started going to union meetings and getting active. And it was just in time. Things started changing at Macy’s. The seniors who worked in the store were in a funk. And you know I really care about seniors because of my grandmother. I found out that the store had implemented all of these new computer systems for scheduling, signing in, and so on. Many of the older associates weren’t able to do it. Then this program called “Schedules Plus” came out. It was a program that generates your schedules, and if you’re late or don’t have enough points, you lose your job. So the older store associates were at yet another disadvantage.

I felt bad about that, felt it wasn’t right. I’d been there for thirteen years, but some people had been there for thirty or forty years, starting back when they couldn’t even be on the floor because they were Black and had to be in the stockroom. They felt like after all they’d been through, they were back at the bottom.

So I wanted to help. I asked the union, “What do you need me to do?” I became a shop steward. I loved it. Then the union president called to ask me to be an executive board member, and I called my mom, and she was so proud of me. You know, it’s funny. My mom only told me she was proud of me for two things. The first was that she thought I was a good mom. And the second was that I was a leader in my union. I knew I was on the right path after that.

Now Macy’s became my second home. I was even dating. At one point, the guy I was seeing asked me why I was letting the union organize me. He said I was doing all this stuff for free and not spending time with him. But it wasn’t about the money. I remember being asked, “What would you do, that even if you didn’t get paid for it you would do anyway?” And I said, “I would do my union work!” I was able to talk to people in the stores about things I’d been through and about what their rights were.

Of course it wasn’t all easy.

When I was talking to coworkers in my own store, my manager got mad because she had to answer to the union. I told her we wanted a partnership, and she was like, “We don’t need you!” And I was like, “Why not?” I mean, I also came from management and was even a district manager once. I thought Macy’s was about “team wins,” and she wasn’t being a team player. I was super confused.

But I learned quickly. My manager thought she had put me in my place. She wrote me up for an entire year for questioning policies and procedures at a store rally. She claimed I was being disrespectful.

You know, the thing about this idea of “respect” is, it can be used against you in weird ways. I did not know what the word meant until I was much older. For me, it means I must have respect for myself by loving my mind, body, and soul and not letting anyone just say or do anything to me.

It’s not good for workers to feel belittled. I don’t want to be seen as the angry Black woman. But some people will see me this way even when I’m not because portraying me that way makes them look better. When I got written up, it was because I was supposedly being disrespectful for correcting a manager who was giving false information about store policy. And I wasn’t angry or loud when I did it. I was simply clarifying the truth. But I guess they knew they were trying to mislead us. So, they’re the bullies in this situation, but they say that I’m disrespectful to cover up for the fact that they are lying.

I wish I had figured it out earlier. It would have helped me avoid a lot of pain and heartache.

I was fearful of losing my job, and it paralyzed me for a short time. But my coworkers organized on my behalf and inspired me to be true to myself, and I continued to do the work that needed to be done.

Now I’m taking all of my power back. I’m past ready to take a stand. If you can’t respect me as the person that I am, then I don’t need to be here. Go ahead and send me home! I’ve had so many managers, at least twelve different managers. I have a new manager, a new floor manager, and a new operations manager. I told the union rep and the other associates, “These people come and go, but this is our house.”

One year we went through the worst Christmas season. Hours were all over the place. I thought I would have a nervous breakdown. I kept getting confused about the schedule and started losing points. It was like someone was rolling dice to determine when each of us would work each day. Then, to top it all off, they decided they wanted us to work inventory from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.

I started talking to the other associates about all this. The managers didn’t know or care about Macy’s policy. They looked at us like we were a bad boyfriend. But this is our house. We have a union contract that we really had to fight for. I told the other associates that I didn’t care what they felt about the union. I asked them, “How do you feel about managers coming down here, constantly disrespecting us, telling us what they want to tell us? We have to reclaim our own space!”

It’s important not to just let the managers do whatever they want. We need these jobs. Not everyone can just quit. Not everyone can retire. Pop is in his eighties and still looking for side work. And, frankly, there should be dignity in work. If you feel like you want to work for the sake of work, you should be able to work and be treated fairly.

We had enough people who knew they didn’t want to do inventory, so I suggested that we should meet with store management and refuse to do inventory at those hours. I knew we had the power to ask for a meeting with management, but the meeting never happened. Instead of doing inventory, associates called in sick.

The word “worker” is not a good word to me. It can sometimes feel patronizing—like we’re just sitting around, waiting for someone else to tell us what to do. I respect my local for letting members speak up on behalf of themselves and their brothers and sisters—because we are the union.

One of the union staff was having a planning meeting with other organizations and she asked me if I wanted to come. When I arrived at the meeting I was the only worker at the table. That happens because they sometimes have these meetings at lunchtime when workers can’t be there. The timing and location are wrong. I told them, “I don’t think you realize the importance of having the workers there.” We are the ones behind enemy lines. Who better to help you plan and strategize to win this fight?

I don’t want to be in an army where we were forced to sign up. I want to be in an army where we all volunteered and are committed. It’s not just about pouring words and money into workers. One thing I like about my union is that they ask me what I want to learn. It’s about meeting workers where they are and helping them to improve their situation, teaching them the importance of organizing work, and helping us develop into leaders. We all have to learn how to love up on each other if we are to make a difference.

Workers are ready to fight. I knew we were ready. I told the union that the workers were ready. It’s the organizations that aren’t always ready. We all have to get our timing right. And when the organizations miss that, the workers veer away. That’s how we get divided by the Donald Trumps of the world, who don’t want us to get together. They know that if we do, we are powerful and there’s nothing they can do to stop us. They make us think that they have the power, but we do. We need to organize and not compromise—or else we will wake up again and look out the window and say, “What the hell happened?”

Now even the young people are standing up for their rights. They see the system for what it truly is. The seams are coming apart. It’s up to unions and organizations like Jobs With Justice and the community and faith groups to help pull the world back together. We have the power and the people. We’re angry. And we need to know how to channel that anger against those who are trying to harm us. Otherwise some of us will use our power the wrong way and end up in jail or, worse, dead.

If we’re going to be known as workers, we need to be empowered by that. We need to have jobs that we’re proud to do. Caretaking is important work. Having a small business is important work. Retail is important work. We should all be valued for what we do.

If all you see when you meet me is that I’m a worker, you’re missing the entire point. I am a whole person. I should be able to exercise control of my life in all aspects—at work, in my home, and in relationship to the big banks and the large corporations who shape so much of our society. If we fail to see people like me as whole people, then we’re losing good soldiers who could be in this fight with us, this fight for dignity and respect.

A Broader Definition of Collective Bargaining

Those of us who advocate a new approach to economic democracy—one that broadens our view of human beings and seeks to bring the benefits of collective bargaining to arenas beyond the workplace—are sometimes accused of throwing the baby out with the bath water. That’s wrong. We recognize that there are a lot of practices from twentieth-century organizing and collective bargaining that are worth retaining in the twenty-first century. Most important, traditional collective bargaining practices have developed and tested real mechanisms for winning enforceable agreements, union contracts that ultimately serve as the governing document for many a company or worksite. These collective bargaining agreements also extract capital directly from corporations via increased wages and member dues, thereby providing resources that help to sustain unions and the democratic power they represent. As a result, there are mechanisms in place to ensure that the contracts negotiated through collective bargaining are implemented and enforced. In all these ways, traditional organizing and collective bargaining has given millions of everyday people the opportunity to practice democracy. This is fundamental to the health of democracy at all levels.

Yet despite all these benefits, it has been apparent for several decades that the current vehicles for practicing collective bargaining are no longer enough. Some of the reasons have been skillfully described by Charles C. Heckscher in the 1996 introduction to his book The New Unionism:

In the 1930s the work force was dominated by the blue-collar skilled and semi-skilled who were employed in large bureaucratic organizations; the Wagner Act was designed for them. Since then what might be called the middle ranks of employees have more than tripled: managerial and technical workers now make up well over half the work force—more than the total of crafts, operatives, and service employees.

Heckscher goes on to describe another challenge that may be potentially even more important than the changing roles of the workforce. In his words, “cross-cutting identities of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, and other social categories have become increasingly important alternatives to older occupational identities of workers and managers.”³ In other words, a range of social roles and identities beyond just the role of worker must be considered and addressed if we intend to tackle the fundamental forms of oppression that continue to distort US society. As evidence, consider the fact that during the 1970s and 1980s, as protection from the NLRB became steadily less effective, growing numbers of working people turned to other legal tools, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX, to defend their ability to organize—and often with more success.⁴

Advocates of traditional unionizing strategies are not the only ones who have been reluctant to embrace new models of organizing. Some moderate and progressive political leaders have also fallen into the trap of accepting a limited perspective on democratic principles and practice. Historically, many Americans have assumed that, for the average citizen, democracy means merely voting every year or two; making the occasional consumer choice that is supposed to have an impact on corporate behavior (such as buying organic produce at the supermarket); and, maybe most important, the right to be left alone, as reflected by the popularity of the Tea Party slogan, “Don’t tread on me.”⁵

Building a more powerful people’s movement for economic democracy will require the spread of a more expansive view of democracy, one that moves past individual rights and into the realm of shared responsibilities. Repressive laws, policies, and practices only change when masses of people take aggressive steps to force that change, even when that entails reorganizing institutions built over the last century.

Collective Bargaining for the Twenty-First Century

The changed circumstances we have described demand an evolved definition for collective bargaining, applicable to the twenty-first century:

Collective bargaining (noun): The process whereby working people take collective action in negotiating with any entity that has power over their wages, living conditions, and overall economic well-being in a way that produces an enforceable agreement that can be renegotiated as conditions change.

As we will explore in the chapters that follow, a range of organizations representing working people are already engaged in the process of bringing workers together to negotiate with those who have control over their shared conditions—not just employers but also landlords, bankers, merchants, government officials, and more. These groups are demonstrating the necessity and the value of creating new institutions and laws to support them. They are evolving the unions of the future.

But many are also being transformed in deeper ways, recognizing their efforts not simply as part of the struggle for union rights but also as part of a fundamental fight for our democracy. The more corporations and billionaires rig the rules to interfere with people’s ability to collectively bargain and to participate in democratic action in many other ways, the nimbler and more innovative the modern labor movement must become—and in more and more places, and in more and more ways, this is exactly what is happening. Growing numbers of union and nonunion workers are discovering how they can build on effective elements of traditional bargaining to inaugurate a new period of organizational and movement growth.

Through it all, workers like Kimberly Mitchell and thousands of others are obeying the organizers’ golden rule: They are not giving up their power. And against all odds, they are winning.⁶