WOID XVII-12. How to increase union membership

Monday, June 11, 2007 3:21 pm

I've never met a Malian I didn't like, which is statistically invalid since I haven't met many Malians to begin with. Still, you see them from time to time, immigrants from that particular African nation, behind a counter in Manhattan for instance, and they're relatively easy to recognize, especially the Bamana people who tend towards the gangly (they remind me of those wrought-iron Bamana spikes you find in the museum), and the outgoing. After a while you know them by their clipped, clear French.

It took a little bit longer for Management at Buffalo Grill to figure this out; Buffalo Grill being the French version of an American roadside eatery the way Johnny Halliday is the French version of an American rocker: slick and sleazy at once. A fair number of Buffalo Grills are located just outside Paris, where the network of highways knits together low-income housing with the picture-perfect villages of Old France. For the low-income, immigrant or other, Buffalo Grill is an easy commute.

No papers? No problem. New hires were told to "bring them in tomorrow," until a few weeks ago, when the French immigration cops started asking questions, and suddenly the men from Mali were told they'd better not turn up tomorrow after all. Except they did turn up - in fact, they decided to sit in the parking lot of the Buffalo Grill in Essone until they got their working papers; except that now there are close to fifty of them sitting in. What's the word for cojones in Bamana?

If this were America you know how it would end. This being Sarkozy's France, I have a pretty good idea. The main difference, though, is the unions. In Essone the unions have been tumbling over themselves to sign up these guys, even the CGT, which is somewhat stodgy, old-style communist and happens to be my old union in Paris. The other locals are joining in support, and you see the Malians standing in their parking lot with huge union badges on their chests and a union flag behind them. My union in America... well, as we say back there, Prends-en de la graine, which means roughly Gee, my union brothers and sisters, I think there's a lesson here for you...

- Hoipolloi Cassidy