[Iabs-talk] FW: Article from Braille Monitor Articles Section 2019 03 01

[davant1958 at gmail.com]

This article features comments by a great federationist.

 

 

Denise R. Avant, Esq.

President,

National Federation of the Blind of Illinois

773-991-8050

Live the life you want.

 

For more information about NFBI,

Go to www.nfbofillinois.org

 

From: NFB-NEWSLINE Online <publications at nfbnewsline.net> 
Sent: Saturday, March 2, 2019 6:09 AM
To: Denise Avant <davant1958 at gmail.com>
Subject: Article from Braille Monitor Articles Section 2019 03 01

 

A Network of Support From the Editor: Longtime NFB of Illinois member Mary
Lou Grunwald delivered the following presentation at the joint luncheon for
vendors and students on October 27, 2018. I'm so excited to be at an event
like this. It's kind of a dream come true for me. I'm up here because I was
asked to speak about one very specific reason why I'm in the NFB. There are
many reasons why I'm involved, but this is a story many of you may not know.
For a little background, one of the early successes of the NFBI was that we,
along with our national office, advocated with the National Labor Relations
Board (NLRB) to reclassify sheltered workshops as factories and not as
rehabilitation institutions. As a result, the NLRB took jurisdiction over
union organizing efforts at the Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind. In 1976 I
was in my early twenties. I wasn't able to go to college, so my first stop
in my career journey was the Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind. At that time
it was not the place that it is today. They paid subminimum wages, and they
had substandard working conditions. I worked in the factory making big ones
out of little ones, a shorthand for assembling chemistry sets and
switchboard plugs. It was tough work for very little money, but my mom and I
needed that money desperately. I had recently gotten to know the NFB and had
become involved with the Chicago chapter. Through our involvement with the
NFB some of us at the Lighthouse started trying to form a union there. We
worked very hard on it with the support and the guidance of the chapter and
of the state and national NFB, and also the help of the Teamsters Union.
Unfortunately we lost by only a couple of votes because of some ugly scare
tactics that were going on. I'm not at all sorry I did it. It was wonderful
experience that prepared me for things I did later on. But when I got home,
the reality set in. I had done something that I thought was very important,
but now I had no job, and Mom and I had very little money. My mother was
very upset with me because I had done all of this advocacy. I started trying
to figure out my next career move. And while I was working on that,
something started happening. I started getting envelopes in the mail. These
envelopes had people's names on them, people I didn't recognize. When I
opened them I found checks, checks from people, and I didn't know who the
heck they were. I thought, who could this be? What is this? Then I
recognized a couple of the names, and I realized that these checks came from
Federationists all over the country who were supporting me! People I had
never met in my life were sending me money to help support me! That
experience solidified my desire to be helpful in this organization at
whatever level my talents would allow. That's one of the reasons I'm in the
NFB. Thank you!. 

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