Anyone up for breaking a strike?

Hey, Mitch Albom did it...

 

A terrific question. Could we perhaps get a consensus on this issue from the many respected journalists -- and the rest of us -- who frequent this site?

 

You could be a homeless street poet who eats crickets for dinner. It doesn't matter.

If you crossed the picket line to work at either paper, you'd never have a normal life as a journalist again. Especially with this site around. Doesn't matter if you are a 21-year-old kid with a history degree from Hackensack Community College or Norman fucking Mailer.

If you have any aspirations of a future in journalism, you aren't even thinking about it.

 

I'm in the Guild and would never think about crossing a line, but the above statement strikes me as naive hyperbole. So does daemon's post, which was written just before mine.

Crossing a line might get you blackballed in a Guild shop, but there are many more non-Guild shops. Very few people doing hiring at a non-Guild paper would take scabbing into account. Some might take it as a badge of honor.

The damage done is to a scabs' career is overblown. Does that justify doing it? Hell no. But don't try to make this into a make-or-break career move, the only affect scabbing has is on the scabs' conscience, and even that's highly debatable.

 

Bubbler is right. In fact, in many places, those throwing the "scab" word around would get shouted down by colleagues who are more interested in a harmonious workplace.

Would I cross a picket line? No. Then again, I don't have to worry at this point in my life about having to put food on the table for my family.

Do I feel sympathy for a Rick Reed, who's still paying for it 10+ years after the fact? Yes, I do.

There are two sides to the union picture, and too few people see both sides. Many just follow the party line ... just like many do the same thing in politics, without thinking about the specifics.

And one last thing. If there are some Teamsters who have nothing to do with the newspaper out there, trying to keep the "scabs" from crossing the line ... it would almost be worth it to walk past those people. It's not their workplace; they should stay the hell out of there.

 

Rick Reed was a scab in the public eye, he'll never shake that reputation -- right or wrong.

Most scabs in any other workplace are known only to their co-workers or those who they crossed, and when they move on, they are 95 percent likely to have a totally new lease on life, in this business or out of it.

That's why the notion that becoming a scab is fatal to one's career is naive.

 

Those who would cross a picket line are scum in my book.

However, there are many parts of the country where unions are hated...by rich and poor alike. There are also parts of the country where unions have gone the way of the eight-track and just aren't on any kind of radar (economic, social, political, cultural). There are also some parts of the country where unions never showed up to begin with. In the town where I live, I feel safe in guessing that almost no one (management or worker) would give a shit if someone had scabbed.

 

As far as the career effect goes, one should remember that the people doing the hiring are management, which means crossing a picket line isn't as likely to hurt your future job prospects as one might think.

 

Some of this shit makes me sick, and it's exactly why the greedy robber barons who run many of these chains can get away with it, because there will always be people who rationalize putting up with it.

Now, more than ever, is a time where those of us who aren't in management need to show solidarity, whether it means an Inky/DN employee striking or a non-guild employee respecting that strike.

So, fuck yeah. If you cross the picket line in Philly (not that there will even be one) then I'll be one miserable co-worker if we ever land in the same place.

 

I will add that I do see both sides of the union picture, and I've never been a big fan of unions.

But union or not, something needs to be done right now in our business. And the Inky/DN situation is nothing like the one that was in Youngstown, or even Detroit.

You want to talk about livelihood? About financial security? Look at some of the changes management wants to make up there.

Fuck that.

 

The problem is that it's unions -- in some form or another -- or nothing.
Unless you're willing to rely on the essential civic conscience of the average American corporation.

 

One of the toughest things I ever dealt with came in 1977 when I was 22. My hometown paper, which I had worked at as a part-timer in college, offered me a dream job -- I thought I wanted to work there forever -- but I had to cross. These were people who had mentored and supported me in my first newspaper job ever.

I couldn't do it, even with the sports editor saying, "You might not get this chance again." And I like to think my career turned out pretty well because I made the right choice.

My advice to those of you who might consider it: Don't. And the pariah factor isn't even first on my list of reasons. Those people are fighting the good fight at a critical point in this industry's history. Don't be part of helping break them.