Songs of struggle and inspiration

New York-based labour and folk social activism singer George Mann has touched down on Australian shores and is coming to a venue (hopefully) near you. He says his years as a union organiser and how music lends strength to the struggle for justice.

George gained an understanding of issues impacting teachers and support staff early on. His mother was a special education teacher and while at college he helped win union representation rights for the 3000 teaching and graduate assistants working there.

As a former union organiser, he also has an intricate knowledge of the role unions play.

George’s concerts are said to make you shout for joy, send chills down your spine or bring tears to your eyes in the same set.

His music, which has been described as part sing-along, part history lesson is sure to inspire all members in their efforts to protect hard-won conditions and continue to make gains for teachers, support staff and principals.

Where does your passion for unions come from?

In my youth, I always seemed to side with the underdog, and enjoyed resisting authority. While I have worked as a union organiser, it is the music of struggle, and specifically the music of the industrial workers of the world, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Utah Phillips, that first moved me to become a ‘labour/folk’ singer. My experiences over the past 20 years, involved in union struggles, strikes and lockouts, have kindled that passion. I have seen workers rise up against oppressive wages and conditions, sometimes resulting in victory and sometimes in defeat - but even in defeat there is beauty and power. That is what has driven me to not only learn and sing the music of our labour history, but to write songs about it.

What were your early union experiences?

My mother was a teacher (special education) and my father was a truck driver. Although they were not very active in their unions, I knew about the value of having a union from my teen years on. In college, we waged an eight-year battle with the State University of New York (SUNY) system to win union representation rights for the 3000 teaching and graduate assistants working there. I was not a TA or GA, but was working on my masters’ degree in creative writing when I got involved in the struggle - editing the statewide newsletter and graduate student newspaper at SUNY Stony Brook, where I studied. We won the court battle in 1992 and I was hired as an organiser for the statewide election, which we won with 85% of graduate employees voting for the union.

After we won the election for the Graduate Student Employees Union, I was hired in 1993 by the American Federation of Musicians, Local 802, in New York City. I was the first organiser ever hired specifically for the purpose of organising new bargaining units, and I helped organise theatre groups, wedding and party bands, and music educators. I am proudest of the work I did with jazz musicians, helping to bring union representation and contracts, pension and health benefits to some of the historically under-represented artists in New York City. In 1997, we organised the faculty of the jazz program at The New School - many of them legends in the jazz world, but all of them working as adjuncts with no job security, pension or health benefits. Following our victory, within three years, the United Autoworkers had organised the 2500 adjunct faculty teaching at The New School.

I have also worked with the Communications Workers of America, first in the GSEU and later with the Newspaper Guild.

What inspires you now as a musician?

I perform for many veterans’ and nursing homes in New York State when I am not on the road (more than 60 at last count). This is difficult work, emotionally, because you get really close to some of these elders, and then one day you come back to the home after a month or two and they are gone. Veterans and their families have been under an incredible amount of stress in the US during the past 12 years of seemingly endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - record suicides, homelessness, unemployment, family problems. I find inspiration for songs in these people.

At the same time, the labour movement is under attack (as always, but it is intensifying) by the right-wing Republican Party, which does the bidding of the big corporations that are smelling blood in the water. So-called ‘right-to-work’ laws, which prohibit unions from collecting mandatory dues from workers who receive the benefits of union contracts and representation, exist in 24 of the 50 states. Republican governors and legislatures have stripped public employees of their union rights in several states recently, and union organising is down because so many workers fear for their jobs in this economy. That ongoing struggle - and the realisation that music and the history in these songs can educate and motivate workers - inspires me to keep singing and writing new songs.

What is the power of music in the struggle for social justice?

There is a sort of magic created when voices are united in struggle - in a concert, at a rally or on a picket line. Songs stay with people, the melodies linger in their heads, and the words of our best labour songs - simple to remember, direct and to the point - keep people’s minds focused on the struggle and the enemy. It can rebuild confidence, bring energy to a fatigued group of workers, and inspire others to get involved.

But even more than that, singing is good for the mind and soul. The power of united voices is becoming rarer in these days of manufactured/synthesised music, dance music and even rap music - which can sometimes carry a progressive message, but is not easy to sing along to. These classic songs (and the best of the new songs being produced by labour/folksingers) remind us of where we have come from, and remind us that what we are facing is no different than what our ancestors faced - corporate, capitalist power amassed against workers in order to maximise profit.

What can an audience expect from a George Mann concert?

Some history and stories of where these songs come from, as well as the songs themselves. I also enjoy bringing my songs to new audiences.

I always sing a few classics, but I also bring songs of contemporary songwriters to my Australian friends - songwriters who you might never hear of if you did not come to my concerts. There are many wonderful artists in the US who will never gain international visibility, and if I can be a sort of ambassador for their songs, it is just another part of my work and responsibility to give back to the artists who have given so much to me.