10 October, 2007

Don't You Cross That Line



The UAW is on strike. According to the AP, "It is the first UAW strike against Chrysler since 1997...and the first strike against Chrysler during contract talks since 1985."

I have never been on strike, since there is really no union for what I do. But in 2003 my mother went on strike with her local teacher's union, after working without a contract for a number of years. My mother is not a terribly political person, but the fervor with which she fought her bosses was inspiring.

Some teachers went the scab route. Fearing for their own personal well-being, with no sense of solidarity, they crossed the picket line. Not a good idea. What friendships may have existed between the teachers-turned-scabs and their colleagues ended at the moment. The rest of that year was made unbearable for them. Most of them left for other schools at the end of the year. Interesting, to say the least.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

What if we had a union? Orianna Webb and I once discussed that possibility, while we were on strike as graduate students at Yale. I think we concluded that most classical musicians would celebrate, and those who didn't would find scabs in about ten minutes.

DTL said...

Yeah. I'm not so sure how the notion of solidarity would play out in composerville. Poorly, I suspect.