By: Patricia Francis Good     

Probably the most important professional fight of my life happened while I was employed at the San Antonio Lighthouse for the Blind. As the Manager of Community Relations, my responsibilities included traveling to Washington DC every three months to advocate for the rights of people who were blind. I never thought that a decision made at the General Services Administration (GSA) in Washington D.C. the summer of 1999 would endanger the jobs of our 120 blind workers in San Antonio.

These workers gave up their right to a disability check to work for $6 an hour at the Lighthouse. Some of our workers, took as many as three buses to get to work every day while taking the verbal abuse of thugs and even lived in fear of being shot at the bus stops. They endured these conditions and many others just because they wanted to be productive human beings who put in a good day’s work, socialized with their fellow workers, and felt patriotic about their work to support the United States government.

Since 1938 the GSA had stocked products made by our blind workers under a set aside contract protected by a federal law called the Javits Wagner O’Day Act which was designed to create job opportunities for people with disabilities. The blind population had, before this Act became law, a 75 percent unemployment rate. Opportunities were limited and in fact discrimination existed towards people who were blind in the workplace. Our blind workers felt great pride in just having jobs.

But in July of 1999, the GSA Chief David Barram announced the shutdown of four depots and four smaller “supply points” without any advance warning to the non profit Lighthouses around the country. Within weeks, the GSA warehouses quit buying from the Lighthouses in preparation for closing down. About 33,000 blind or visually
impaired people depended on this program for employment around the nation but were now suddenly seriously at risk. Federal agencies no longer were required to purchase supplies from GSA, but instead federal employees were told they could use their government issued credit cards to make purchases at commercial stores.

On September 16, 1999 the President of the San Antonio Lighthouse called an emergency meeting of the management staff and explained the decision by GSA. Fifty (50%) percent of our $16 million annual revenue was now at risk. In twenty one years, the San Antonio Lighthouse had not laid off or cut hours for one
blind person because of lack of work. But now we were told twenty three (23) blind part-time employees and six (6) sighted support staff were going to be laid off the next day and that our organization would also have to scale back its work week to three days for the remaining employees in the manufacturing plant. If work continued
to decline, there could be more layoffs in store for the Lighthouse, which had about 120 blind manufacturing workers and 130 support staff at that time. Around the country, approximately 1,400 other blind manufacturing workers were being laid off.

After the President made this announcement, the room went silent. All of the managers were shocked at the news, none more than me. I asked the President… “What could we do to save our people from losing their jobs or having their hours cut?” He answered that he didn’t think anything could be done now that GSA had made their decision. I said, “We can’t just sit here and not stand up for our people.” He asked me what I thought we could do. And I said, “We should fight this in the press!” At that, our Vice President who was a retired Army General stated, “We can’t air our dirty laundry in the press!” Other managers agree with him and further commented that once a government decision was made – it was final. I said, “I didn’t
come here to give up so easily when blind people who worked so hard to get a job at the Lighthouse were going to lose those jobs!”

AND THAT IS WHEN THE FIGHT
BEGAN!!

It was me arguing for fighting for the rights of our people to work and the rest of the managers arguing that nothing could be done now and most certainly not through the press! I argued none of us could not walk back into the manufacturing plant without doing everything in our power to fight for our employees’ right to work…after all, wasn’t that what we were here to do? I also stated that we could contact our local, state and federal legislators to apply pressure to the GSA. Oh, that really pissed off the guys who feared retaliation from GSA! It was a heated debate that lasted a full hour. And, then at the end of the hour the President called a halt to the discussion and said he had made a decision. He announced that he was going to back me to see what we could do. And, he added as he looked me straight in the eye
“You better be right!” I suddenly felt a heavy load on my shoulders and wondered if I would soon be fired for even suggesting a battle with the almighty government agency – GSA!!!!

The following morning I called the Editor of the San Antonio Express News, Bob Rivard. I told him I had an important breaking story that I wanted to give him. I also asked him for his help in getting the story out to the AP Wire Service so that the story would run in newspapers throughout the country. After all, it wasn’t just the blind workers in San Antonio that were going to lose their jobs. He agreed and ran the story on the front page of the Business Section of the Express News the next day and sent it to the AP Wire Service which distributed the story to the rest of the country.

Apparently the other Lighthouses had kept their lay offs a secret. I got an angry call from my boss that every Lighthouse in the country was mad as hell that he had broke the story because reporters were now aware of the GSA decision and were wanting interviews with them. I assured him that we should hold on through it all for a chance to get our people their jobs back and if we did, those other Lighthouses would benefit from our efforts and get their jobs back as well.

As October arrived, I had been busy working with getting my fact sheet and the Express News article out to every legislator I knew. By this time I had convinced a few of them that this was a fight they were interested in joining. I had worked with Texas Senator Phil Gramm and he called me directly to ask if the other Senator from Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison had given her support for our cause. I told him she had
not. That’s when Senator Gramm asked what could he do. I told him to please call GSA Chief and convince him to reverse his decision in behalf of blind workers all over the country who were losing their jobs. He agreed to do just that.

It just so happened that the annual convention of the National Industries for the Blind was meeting in San Antonio that first week in October. Our President was the Host Chairman of the convention and had asked me to run a workshop about our efforts to reverse the GSA decision. By this time, every Lighthouse in the country was interested in hearing what San Antonio was doing to stop the layoff of blind workers in our manufacturing plant. My workshop was moved three times because of the amount of people signing up to attend. I had put together a panel of media people I had worked with (including the Editor of the San Antonio Express News) and the topic was “Dealing with the Media and Managing Crisis!” After learning that so many delegates were going to attend my workshop, I asked the hotel to install a phone bank at the back of the room.

I figured I could give them my fact sheet and they could start calling their Senators and Congress people to help apply pressure to GSA. The room was packed when we started the workshop. I introduced the panel of distinguished media speakers. I will never forget that one delegate stood up during the Q&A and asked Bob Rivard, Editor
of the Express News how I had gotten through to him. He responded, “Well, if you got as many calls as I got from Pat Good, you would call her back too!”

I encouraged each of the delegates to make calls from the phone bank to their Senators and Congress people and to call the GSA Chief from the phone bank as often as they wanted during the convention. We kept the room open for the duration of the convention and the phone bank stayed busy the whole time!

During the Convention in the general assembly towards the end of the week, a call came in from the Chief of GSA who asked to address the entire Convention. Over the loud speaker, the entire room could hear the GSA Chief say: “We did not intend to throw blind workers out of jobs, but acknowledge it was possible that nonprofit organizations have lost sales as GSA warehouses reduce their stocks in anticipation
of closing. We are going to look at that hard and make sure we didn’t do anything inadvertent.” And, he added, “I just want to let the San Antonio Lighthouse know that we are sending you some work today!”
Our President was thrilled with that news! I, however, was unwavering in my commitment to continue the fight until we got our people back to work. My boss attempted to explain that maybe we should back down now that we had a contract coming. But my answer was absolutely not! We had the GSA Chief’s attention now and we were going to continue to fight for him to reverse his decision. By the end of the convention, I had probably talked to almost every delegate, giving them the fact sheet and encouraging them to go home and get their Board of Directors to continue to call the GSA Director. The fight was not done until our workers came back to work!

One week later on October 13, 1999 our President called me into his office and shut the door. I figured I was going to be fired. Instead, he said, “GSA has suspended the depot closings. All the Lighthouses are going to get their contracts back and we are bringing our laid off workers back and going to a full 5 day schedule.” I could hardly believe it! I asked to see the GSA website where the announcement was posted. And, sure enough there it was in print. We had won the fight!

So, here is something I must admit in full disclosure – I didn’t think we would win, but I knew that I had to do everything I could do to represent the best interests of my fellow workers. They depended on me to advocate for their right to work. I worked the Hill in Washington for five years and I never had that happen again. Was it luck? Maybe. But I believe one person who stands up and fights for the rights of others just maybe once in a lifetime can win. All 23 blind workers came back to work in our manufacturing plant and many more blind workers came back to their jobs around the country. And I was so happy to see them all come back to work!

EGG IN CLOUDS

INGREDIENTS

• 4 eggs
• 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, shredded
• 1/4 cup chives, chopped
• 3 strips of cooked bacon, crumbed
• Pepper to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

• Separate egg yolks and whites, putting the whites in one large metal bowl and the yolks in separate bowls.
• In a metal mixing bowl, whip the whites until stiff peaks form
• Carefully fold in the cheese, chives and bacon
• Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or silk pat and spoon 4 mounds of whipped egg whites
• Make a deep well in the center of each with the back of a spoon
• Bake at 450 degrees F for 3 minutes and remove from oven
• Add one yolk to each well and season with pepper
• Return to oven and bake until yolks set, about 2-3 minutes for a soft egg yolk

INSPIRATION: