Would you cross a picket line?

There are many things I am.

A scab is not one of them.

 

A few years back I was a stringer at a paper that was having pretty tense negotiations with its union and, though it didn't get to a strike, I was thinking about this a lot.

Had there been a strike, I figure I would have gotten a lot more work, maybe even a full-time gig, and this was a big metro, so the idea of crossing was tempting. It would have been a big break. Plus, it's not like the Guild was doing anything for me at the time.

But what's the end result? You work there for a few weeks or months and then the strike's over and you're back out of a job? Or, somehow, you stay on afterward but relations with the co-workers are likely rather testy, to say the least. Either way, you're branded forever as a "replacement player," and this is a small business. Word gets around. Besides, it's probably just better for your soul to stay on the right side of the line.

Now I work at a Guild shop, and I think that's a good thing. But I really hope we never go on strike.

 

If Detroit is so tough on scabs, how did The Dwarf live to write all his tear-jerkers?

As for those who say, rather than cross a picket line, they'd go get another job, I say why wait for the picket line? ;D

 

What if you completely disagreed with your union? Does that change anyone's mind?

For example, I once worked for a company that went on strike long before I arrived. One of my last years with the company (not a newspaper), another strike nearly came about. The stories I heard about the first strike were horrifying with the violence (yes, it was near Detroit). When they almost walked out the second time, I disagreed with their purpose. I thought they were being greedy. I would have quit, rather than go on strike.

 

Answer that question yourself, you're the one who said you would cross if you didn't believe in your union. I'd rather get another job than cross a picket line.

 

I will leave this business before I ever face a decision on crossing a picket line. And I mean that chronologically, not as some sort of principle. I just don't see this as a real quandry. The next paper whose journalists go on strike will either fold or it will crush them and their local chapter completely. Or the strike will fail before it ever really starts, by the sheer number of individuals crossing the line.

 

I'm not debating that point. Like I said earlier, so many papers have proven here recently that they care more about the bottom line than they do quality.

And a strike at this point will just save newspapers the trouble of laying your ass off.

 

Yeah, that's what I think, too.

 

mr. ridgeway began this thread after we had a healthy exchange of ideas on the subject via pm's earlier today. my paper went on strike for 148 days back in the day. i crossed for the first four days of the strike with several other prominent members of our sports dept.

unlike the others, i couldn't stand it. the eldest shockey was seven months old when the strike began, and i rationalized the usual -- mortgage, family to support, yada yada yada.

but i was phyically ill during those four days and a mental wreck. i had worked at the paper for 12 years. it had raised me from a pup. the first day we crossed in the manner we felt we had to -- in plain sight, in front of all the picketers who were my friends, some shouting, "don't do it, shockey! shockey, what are you doing?"

broke my heart. as sportswriters, we didn't have to go into the building past the picketers, of course. could've just kept doing my job by covering the jets and never seeing the office. but that would've been chickenshit.

anyway, after four days, i couldn't take it anymore and joined my buds on the picket line. the knot was gone from my stomach. i played mr. mom for almost five months, mixed in with picket-line walking.

i never recovered from the thousands of dollars lost. but i knew the kind of person i was and wanted to be for my son. several of my sportswriting buds who crossed with me that first day remained as crossers, protecting their jobs and income. they remain good friends today.

those scabs who didn't work at the paper until they leaped over the picketers? those are the "pure" scabs i will never forgive/forget.

frank feels once a scab, always a scab. i feel as though i ended up making the most informed of decisions. a couple of our baseball writers were the worst of the worst -- when the strike hit, they were on their "comp time," paid days off earned by working seven-day weeks during the season. they acted as if they were on strike with us. lo and behold, when spring training began, they crossed the line to go to spring training -- having never missed a paycheck.

so my question for my SportsJournalists.com brethren: are all "scabs" created equal? am i forever pond scum for crossing for the first four of 148 days? or did i actually make the most informed decision, seeing life on both sides before landing on the right side? thoughts?

 

I thought the rule here was that PMs were between the two people who exchange them. I kept Shockey's name out of it and I kept our exchanges private even though he told me on a thread here some months ago to "suck it" when I objected to his attack on a writer.

 

Nope, just posting the PM word for word - as per Moddy on the Kentucky Derby thread.