Phyllis Holliday — LaborFest Writers

About

Phyllis Holliday was a founding member of the LaborFest Writers, present at the very first workshop at the Exit Theatre in July 2005. Her friend Adele Kearney joined the group because of her. She was a PBX telephone operator at a Nob Hill hotel for many years, an active member of Hotel and Restaurant Workers Local 2, and a tireless advocate for her union during contract negotiations and direct actions throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

Her writing was drawn from the deep well of working life — the hotel floor, the picket line, the small daily acts of resistance and solidarity. She also wrote poetry of startling originality. She brought to every meeting a sharp wit, a generous spirit, and an absolute belief in the power of workers' stories.

Phyllis made her last reading with the LaborFest Writers at the Green Arcade bookstore on Market Street in July 2017. She passed away two months later.

Writing

A Local 2 Story · 2012

When I had worked for a Nob Hill hotel for seven years it was sold to a corporation and began to go downhill bit by bit. Old standards were drifting away. The first private owners were genius hotel proprietors. We were given pleasant work sites and were encouraged to know all our coworkers from bus boys to front desk, concierges to cooks. Also we had the camaraderie of our unions — Engineers and front desk were Teamsters, the rest of us were in the Hotel and Restaurant Workers Local 2.

A new assistant manager I will call P the Peculiar was so harsh with me I got used to being summoned to his office every Friday so he could taunt me and try to make me lose my temper or become miserable enough to quit. Quickly I contacted my Union rep. I felt strong enough to put up with being called a terrible worker — I knew if I stood firm, the union was invisible but with me, like guardian angels every time I had to go to P's office.

The climax came one Friday when P the P was saying really horrible things and I was quietly weeping and trying not to blow up when there was a loud click. He looked flustered and brought out a tape machine. I looked at him and smiled. I guessed what he did was pretty illegal. But it was the last time he asked me to come to his office.

A few days later it became known that a mild-mannered man in bookkeeping had discovered P the Peculiar had been embezzling, fiddling with guest credit cards. P the P was immediately fired. The sweet Spanish-speaking guy in the sign in and out kiosk said, "The evil one is gone." We high-fived.

There will always be evil but as long as we have unions to back us up, we can fight and win.

LaborFest Reading, 2012 · © Phyllis Holliday 2012

Polite Ninja Tactics · 2012

I began to be part of negotiations in the 1980s, and found it exciting and intense. I was a PBX operator on the telephones at a Nob Hill hotel, and sat at a long table with my friend, a kindly Greek cook, as we made notes and seethed sometimes at the attitude of men in fine suits.

One of my favorite actions was what I am calling Polite Ninja Tactics. This involved following up tireless researchers in the Local 2 offices who located the names and addresses of where the hotel money came from. With this information, six or seven of us would meet outside tall glass towers in the business district. Usually five women, a small child or two, and a priest — except for me, always women of color, none of us over five foot five. The priest looked saintly and scholarly, tall, slender, and silver-haired.

We entered the foyer, stepped into a chrome and mirrored elevator, watched the red blink of floor numbers increase — 12 ... 20 ... 35. We stepped out onto soft gray carpet. The receptionist summoned someone, and three puzzled looking men arrived in well-made suits, shiny polished shoes, silk ties. I have never forgotten the looks on their faces. Irritation and puzzlement. Six small women, a little girl, and a priest. Perhaps they thought we were soliciting for a charity.

We all had soft voices and were extremely polite. It took a lot of concentration for me not to laugh. It was a Kabuki play — gestures, oh how polite. Workers' lives at stake. We were like mosquitoes, annoying, and we would not leave them alone.

LaborFest Reading, 2012 · © Phyllis Holliday 2012

The Sawmill · 2012

Sometimes in the sawmill a man would lose A finger or a thumb; sometimes a hand. In the worst of sometimes, the mill whistle Screams. An ambulance howls its way Like a fast wolf. Otherwise a milltown’s Quiet. In the night children wake up to A sound, like the barefoot tiptoeing of A something on the boardwalk, in freezing cold. More than once in the Shamrock Valhalla Saloon A frothing beer rises up mid-air and An empty mug clanks down on the bar.

Boy children growing up consider jobs As agricultural agents or insurance men In brown suits, with leather briefcases. Where do fingers, hands…worse losses go? Lefty’s daughter is afraid to ask. In Pine Grade School she turns away when The rich girl Lucy says, “My Pa went To Reno to play the one armed bandits.” Sawmill furnaces blaze. Smoke rises Over the town. One day the logging is over. This neck of the woods is down to stumps. A sawmill closes down. Fires go out. In The dark of the night it comes, a sound Of rubbery slaps, like clumsy clapping.

Raised by Wolves · 2012

The wolves who raised me snuck under the library steps in the tiny cold town, up into the tunnel, stole books for me. Fairy tales.

I did not know the librarian wept when she saw the muddy paw tracks, stiff gray wolf hairs and sighed. Another child out there, raised by wolves.

I was chubby and had lost a mother to read to me. Crows taught me to snatch dresses my size, drying on backyard clotheslines. Magpies flew through open windows brought me heirloom pearl necklaces, lace caps. I was innocent.

I have no way to return books, cross-referenced by berry stains and bird-shit. No way to send apologies, not knowing which windows and backyard clotheslines held the joy of gifts.

You may have seen me on the bus, slanted wolf eyes, black thrift store dress, holding a tattered sinister looking book. I smell your fear or puzzlement, or you look and smile, as if to say "Guess who raised me?"

← Nellie Wong All Writers →