Source: Fraser, C. (1998). "The People vs. City Light" In Revolution, She Wrote (pp. 204-206). Seattle, WA: Red Letter Press.
First Published: Freedom Socialist, Summer/Fall 1980
Transcription/Markup: Philip Davis and Glenn Kirkindall
Copyleft: Internet Archive (marxists.org)
2015. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
My marathon case against City Light is like un endless football game, with the score changing each quarter and the final tally bearing little relation to the actual yardage gained on the ground or in the air. I was leading at halftime, scored a winning touchdown in the third quarter, then came out on the wrong end of a 1-point conversion.
The July 21 decision against me by two of the three hearing panelists was such a travesty of the rules of the game — and of justice — that I cannot accept it as the final score.
Hearing Examiner Sally Pasette, an attorney, found for me on the grounds of political ideology discrimination.
Elizabeth Ponder, the only Black panelist, well understands discrimination, and she ruled for me on the grounds of both sex and political discrimination.
But panelists Darlene Allison and Beverly Stanton reversed Pasette’s knowledgeable decision, ignored Ponder’s special expertise, and substituted their own pro-management prejudices for the objective findings of fact and conclusions of law arrived at by Pasette and Ponder. The written decision of Allison/Stanton unabashedly revealed their antilabor bias and total lack of understanding of sex discrimination and civil liberties law. It ignored my First Amendment rights and flaunted the provisions of the Seattle Fair Employment Practices Ordinance.
Allison/Stanton attributed full credibility to all of City Light’s professional-liar witnesses and no credibility to my testimony or that of my witnesses. These two Tory panelists disregarded the stacks of memos that crassly illustrated management’s violations of my constitutional rights to criticize and rebel. They identified so supinely with absolute “management prerogatives” and “legitimate business reasons” for persecution that they conferred on employers a divine and tyrannical authority that far exceeds their legal — not to mention their moral! — powers.
The Terrible Two condemn me for such crimes as failure to “compromise” on affirmative action and workers’ rights, and for creating “animosity” through my advocacy of fair employment practices.
They accuse me of permitting my “personal political activities and interests” to “interfere with” my job.
They denounce me for “insubordination,” “vituperation,” “going too far” — highly subjective value judgements that express their political views of management/labor relations.
So now I am being punished for persecuting poor City Light. Can you believe this?
• • •
And what is to be said about a legal process in which I am judged by two people who cannot remotely be considered my peers, who are not radicals, or feminists, or unionists, or workers, or civil libertarians, or even reasonable?
They even rejected, without explanation, my Motion for Reconsideration of their ill-considered, ill-advised and stupid decision. So now I am requesting Superior Court to review my case.
It’s horrendously expensive and time consuming. But I have to keep faith with my feisty legions of endorsers and supporters from labor, civil rights, civil liberties and all the other progressive movements dedicated to preserving democratic rights in the face of swelling totalitarianism on the job. I feel ethically impelled to ride this one out so long as the tide carries me, so long as my wonderful defense committee can summon the financial resources, the personnel and the jubilant spirit of solidarity to fuel the political-legal battle.
We will carry on until free speech in the workplace is vindicated in law and in life. Otherwise, the habit of workers to speak up, to organize, to negotiate and to criticize is sorely endangered, and without these fragile liberties, not even token democracy exists. Fascism rules.
• • •
If ever I needed the help of my sister and fellow workers I need it now to try to reverse the panel’s alarming decision.
Please: ask your unions, and all the other organizations you work in, for donations to the Fraser Information and Legal Defense Fund. If you know any affluent individuals (we don’t!) or any open-minded, grant-awarding foundations, ask them, too. And send us your modest contributions — these are the staff-of-life to us. Nothing is sweeter than the money of the underpaid and hard-pressed working people who have learned that the capitalist class is not about to subsidize the emancipation of labor.
Mutual aid is the cement of resistance — and the roadway to victory. Your oppression is mine and my case is yours. Take it! Together we will make that scoreboard light up for us!
• • •
Donations for Clara Fraser’s case should be sent to: Fraser Case Information and Legal Defense Fund. c/o United Feminist Front, 6019 South Redwing, Seattle, WA 98118. Phone 206-632-7449 or 723-8923.