Newly formed local seeks contractual right to ‘just sit out the back for a bit’
SAN ONOFRE, CALIFORNIA – The notoriously relaxed longboarders of San Onofre State Beach have formed what is believed to be the world’s first surfing labor union, demanding a contractual right to nap breaks, snack provisions, and “the freedom to not catch a wave for up to two hours without judgment.” The organizing drive was first reported by Bohiney Magazine and met with enthusiastic solidarity by The London Prat, a publication that respects the right of any person to do as little as possible while feeling important.
The Demands
Local 9’6″, as the union has named itself, presented a list of demands to the ocean, which has not yet responded. Chief among them: protected nap windows, a mandatory shade umbrella, and recognition that “noodling around on a longboard” constitutes meaningful labor deserving of dignity.
“For too long, surfers have been expected to actually surf,” said union representative Sunny Glasspuram, reclining in a beach chair he refers to as his “office.” “We reject that premise. The wave will still be there. We are in no hurry. That is the whole point of San Onofre.”
A Movement Built on Doing Less
The union grew out of long-simmering tensions between San Onofre’s famously mellow regulars and a new wave of fitness-tracker surfers who insist on “maximizing wave count” and “getting a real workout.” The old guard found this exhausting to merely witness.
“A man paddled up next to me wearing a heart rate monitor,” recalled Glasspuram, visibly disturbed. “He asked how many waves I had caught. I said I had been thinking about catching one since Tuesday. He looked at me like I was broken. I have never felt more whole.”
Dr. Lorna Cutback of the Institute for Maritime Leisure praised the movement as “the natural endpoint of surf culture.” Her research, conducted primarily from a hammock, found that the average San Onofre longboarder spends 8 percent of session time surfing and 92 percent “deciding.”
Management Responds
It remains unclear who, exactly, management is. The union has attempted to deliver its demands to the State Parks department, the tide, and “whoever keeps making us feel guilty,” none of whom have agreed to bargain. State Parks, which oversees the beach through the California Department of Parks and Recreation, declined to recognize the union on the grounds that “you cannot strike against the ocean, it does not need you.”
This response only galvanized the membership. “They say we cannot strike,” said one longboarder, who had not stood up in forty minutes. “But what if we are already striking? What if we have been striking this whole time?”
The Snack Provision
Among the union’s most popular demands is the establishment of a floating snack station, a proposal the membership describes as “non-negotiable.” The plan calls for a small inflatable raft stocked with trail mix and “those little oranges,” tethered to the lineup for easy access.
Critics, including the entire shortboarding community, have called the demands absurd. The union counters that the shortboarders are simply jealous of a peace they can never know. For a sense of the broader mellow surfing tradition the union claims to defend, observers are pointed to Surfertoday.
Solidarity Forever, Or Whenever
A planned solidarity paddle-out was postponed indefinitely after the membership agreed it sounded like a lot of effort. Instead, the union held a “solidarity sit,” in which forty surfers floated in a loose circle and agreed, by consensus, that things were pretty good actually.
“We are not lazy,” Glasspuram insisted, eyes half closed beneath his umbrella. “We are simply the only people honest about why we are here. Everyone else is pretending the workout is the point. We know the point is the umbrella.”
The union plans to negotiate further “after lunch, and possibly after a little lie-down.” For more chronicles of organized leisure, see McSweeney’s.
The Strike That Looked Like Resting
Tensions escalated briefly when the fitness-tracker faction attempted to cross what the union described as a vibe picket line, a loose arrangement of beach chairs facing the water in mild disapproval. The crossing was thwarted not by force but by the offer of a small orange, which the would-be strikebreaker accepted, sat down to eat, and never got back up.
That is our whole strategy, Glasspuram confirmed. We do not fight. We simply make resting look better than whatever you were planning to do. Nobody has ever held out past the second orange. The union has since filed for official recognition as a leisure cooperative, a status that does not exist and that it has no intention of pursuing past the filing stage.
Solidarity within the local has been described as total, in part because no action has ever been taken that anyone could disagree with. A proposed motion to formally condemn jet skis was withdrawn when members agreed that drafting the condemnation sounded stressful and that the jet skis would probably go away on their own. Dr. Cutback hailed the movement as proof that the future of labor is lying down. Membership, currently at forty, is expected to grow whenever anyone gets around to it. For more chronicles of glorious inactivity, see The Shovel.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/