Norma Rae Goldstein

Just call me Norma Rae Goldstein. Ok, it’s a bit of a stretch because I am not, in fact, a union organizer, and I’m not as perky or as sweaty as Sally Field in the film Norma Rae, but I shook things up a little at WTF.com. And to the tune of Katy Perry’s profound opus I Kissed a Girl, I kicked some ass, and I liked it. For those of you who could care less about the civil rights, well you’re in the wrong place. You may stop by for a peek into the life of a suburban lesbian mother for shits and giggles, but I never promised I wouldn’t step on my soap box every now and then. And don’t try to look up my skirt while I’m up there! Strike that last bit. Look all you want. I’m packing a whole lotta happy, and I don’t mind sharing. That’s just the selfless kind of gal I am.

Last time on “I Miss Wearing My Jeans for Weeks at a Time”, our heroine (that would be me...or that would be I if you hold grammatical rules above colloquial aesthetics) was smarting from the fact that the company that hired her refused to extend health benefits to domestic partners and turned its back on civil rights. It is here that we pick up our tale of oppression and wrong-doing and start a new paragraph where we no longer have to speak of our heroine in the 3rd person.

Ah, that’s better.

I assumed that because WTF.com was a private company, I had no choice but to accept the terms or get the EF out of there. Let’s face it. I needed (and still need) a job. I sat and stewed and occasionally wrote a blog biting the hand that feeds me. One day when I was avoiding making yet another cold call, I was inspired to do a bit of research. I got in touch with someone I knew who used to be the Director of the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights. My sister and he were university chums from marching band days. Go Cats...or something. I gave my hero, Dudley Do Right, the low down and asked him if there was any hope for a girl like me trying to keep her lady friend insured.
“It’s complicated,” he responded which was heaps better than, “Sorry, you’re buggered.”

Warning: Dry and complicated bit
Turns out, in the state of New Jersey, if a company self-funds its insurance plan, it needs only uphold federal law. As we know, the federal government only affords the rights of marriage to opposing-gendered couples. According to the NJ Civil Union Act, if the insurance plan is not self-funded, companies must abide by the state law and provide benefits to Civil Union partners IF they provide coverage to spouses of heterosexual employees.

Resume uncomplicated stuff
As soon as I established that our company was not self-funded, I realized that WTF.com had to extend benefits to my civil union partner. Yippee! I jumped up on my desk holding up my CIVIL RIGHTS sign and waited for everyone join me in solidarity, shut down their computers and bring WTF.com to its knees. Unfortunately, I work at the end of the office of cubicles where only 2 people can see me. One of those colleagues was out making a sales call and the other one was, you guessed it, trying to look up my skirt. I’ve got to stop climbing on soap boxes and desks. I implemented Plan B which was to send over an email to the human resources department with all the links to New Jersey law that Dudley Do Right provided me.

I heard nothing for weeks. Not a peep.

Finally, the HR ladies invited me to a meeting. I brought my notepad and pen so that I could capture whatever rubbish they were about to spit out. I was ready to get legal.

Instead, all they said was, “You were right.”

“Well that’s good news!” I said as if they were telling me something I didn’t know when I really wanted to say, “No fucking kidding! Did you think the gays were going to accept your institutionalized discrimination and just sit back and take it up the ass?” Ok, forget the part about whether or not gays would take it up the ass. "But when it comes to our rights, you’d better believe we’re going to know the law inside and out, and you’d better catch up because we’ve got lawyers and media connections and whistles." Ooooah! Ooooah!

But the truth was, I didn’t know that Gabriella was entitled to benefits because as Dudley Do Right said, it’s complicated. Civil Union is complicated, and few of us understand what it is, and even fewer of us have a Dudley Do Right who can tell us when we’ve been wronged.

I can now cover Gabriella. WTF.com changed its policy...in New Jersey. As far as I know, WTF.com has not announced to the rest of the New Jersey employees that civil union partners are now eligible to receive benefits. In the other 7 states where there are offices, the benefits stay the same, and WTF.com will not recognize domestic partners there. Looks like I need to stand on a few more desks. Union organizer, no. Civil Union organizer...perhaps.

By the by, Crystal Lee Sutton, the inspiration behind the film Norma Rae, died in September of 2009 at the age of 68. In January 2007, Sutton was diagnosed with brain cancer. She had two surgeries and suffered a two-month lapse in treatment while she haggled over health care coverage.