Katharine Graham was an inspirational publisher, and in retrospect, the epitome of white feminism.
Recently, the Spokane, Washington Spokesman-Review reported that with Hecla supervisory personnel working the mine, Lucky Friday silver production between July 2017 and September 2017 is 90 percent below its production for the same time period in 2016.
The workers protested against unreasonable rules, including a required three-day notice to take leave for a death in the family.
Isolated examples exist of union resistance and victory. Important as these are, they do not yet approach the scale needed to respond to the challenges that labor faces in the coming years. But they show that it is still possible to strike, and it is still possible to win. In each case, building workplace union culture and organization was key. Broadening this model outwards could provide ways of reversing labor’s fortunes.
One big issue in May’s three-day strike by 38,000 AT&T workers was the company’s offshoring of jobs.
During modern times, corporations threaten the jobs of pro-union workers in over half of all union elections—and follow through on the threat one-third of the time. In between, bosses have resorted to spies and frame-ups, physical violence, court injunctions, private armies of strikebreakers, racist appeals and immigrant exploitation.
Our greatest power is still the work we do and our occasional refusal to do it.
There are important questions facing all those seeking the best way to protest President Trump, the GOP-led Congress, and the immigration, health care, and environmental polices the new administration seeks to impose upon a reluctant populace: what is the meaning of a strike, demonstration, or protest march?
The brilliance of strikes and stoppages like the Day Without Immigrants and the Women’s Strike lies in organizers’ willingness to halt business as usual.
What can be learned from the Day(s) Without Immigrants to minimize risks for those who choose to take part in A Day Without a Woman?
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