Open Letter to the Communications Director

The following email was sent on Wednesday September 5, 2012 at 2:04 pm, to Kwame Patterson, Communications Director NYCDC.

Dear Kwame;

Thank you for your work revamping the District Council website!

While I understand that it is a work in progress, I am disappointed to observe that the archive section doesn't go back before 2012, and other documentation from the old website is missing. I assume there is virtually unlimited space to accommodate any and all relevant information, going back as far as possible-- with hope that relevance is determined by the needs of the membership, rather than a bureaucracy seeking to deflect criticism seen as undermining its agenda.

I am disturbed to see member's 'letters to the editor' will need to be approved by the Executive Committee, as if such encumbrance of censorship will not affect a decision to submit our views, and the Administration has unlimited time to winnow through the opinions of a free and democratic community to determine whether they are appropriate for consumption by our Union Brothers and Sisters. At times I feel like we are definitely living under the boot of a totalitarian state, which is the District Council.

Also in the past, each Local Union had its own page; now they are broken down by category, lumped-in, and crammed together with other Locals, on the same page. The Local membership-- as we witnessed when the WC&C agreement was pushed through overnight-- are considered less and less a viable part of the political process, as the domination of interests of paid employee-members dictate the course forward.

And furthermore; the beige background of the webpage, when we had wood grain to look at, is frankly a bland strain on our shared sensibilities, in my opinion-- as if only once we were Carpenters-- proud artisans with a craft and history to draw from-- but now must suffer complete deprivation beneath corporate values, devoid of culture, effectively silenced by trumped up legal rationale, cut off from any sense of community or identity, other than what is force fed.

I truly appreciate the real improvements to the website; but until it as a whole reflects a genuine openness and commitment by the Administration to ensure transparency, and free member discourse unimpeded by bogus layers of filter, it will be viewed with animosity by all those who may care for the Union as a bastion of democratic values.

Sincerely,
Demian D. Schroeder
Local 45