#dothewritething

When I was on strike, there was a period when I had the assignment to ride around on a bicycle and photograph every dumpster at our worksite, mark locations, and find out which fellow unions were in charge of emptying them.

(this didn't end up happening because my health collapsed, but it was something I was expected to do)

The reason for this was that we had sympathy from groups like the Teamsters who drive UPS trucks. By law they could refuse to deliver across a picket line, but that line could not be the metaphorical line of a struck workplace. It had to be a literal picket line and as our internal support for the strike flagged we were going to send groups of about 10 people to form picket lines around dumpsters and loading docks.

Because keeping our wages so low was driving a large and comfortable margin of profit for our employer, losing a large portion of their workforce to our labor action didn't do that much. We had workers at other sites waking up early to form picket lines at worksite construction sites, and picketing loading docks, stopping deliveries of substances that needed to be frozen, which ruined them.

We had a strike kitchen which served a lot of bad coffee and butternut squash.

We had riotous memey chats and constant arguments with our union staffers, fellow workers, and everyone split on whether to demand disability rights and childcare or give up or what. We were constantly, nonstop fighting. My phone would overheat and I'd look at it at 11 PM with more than new 900 signal messages.

At one point there were serious and pointed conversations about whether the lead negotiator for the other side was hexing our guys and about whether we needed to supply the bargaining team with protection from the evil eye.

We had folks scouting ahead on bikes ahead of the lines checking for cops.

We had multiple cars charge our picket line and clip workers.

We had a picket line drag show.

We shut down bus access to our worksite for days by staging a dance party around the entrance to the terminal for hours. Bus systems need to be reliable for them to be worth running. After blocking the terminal enough times our employer shut down the bus.

We had folks from HR standing far off and taking photographs of our pickets and movements. I got a feeling of constantly being watched, both by worksite labor relations and the staffers in my own union.

We had local anarchists barricading entrances to the worksite with makeshift structures, including just a wall of bikes. One of the barricades was charged by a car, which dragged a bike beneath it for some 50, 60 feet.

The anarchists also liberated workplace cafeterias so that for hours and hours no one had to pay and everyone ate for free, they spread leaflet material that was anti-union boss at our staging area and ran away, they chalked up anti-cop messages. How we loved 'em!

Staffers tried to go behind my back to pull another lead strike captain for my turf but they didn't succeed in cutting the head off the snake. My companions were true to the end.

Some of them are now organizing their apartment buildings. Some won positions in union leadership.

We passed a contract that we all agreed was horseshit, with inadequate protections, and we're all-in now on defending the letter of it as our employer tries to claw it back.

Support the labor movement. Corruption happens, but it isn't the job of bystanders to regulate or manage it.

Today (3 April 2025) is a UK day of action to protest against Meta’s alleged theft of copyright-protected works and to showcase the strength of feeling amongst creators. Please share!

More info here: https://societyofauthors.org/2025/04/01/soa-day-of-action-following-allegations-of-metas-mass-theft-of-authors-work/

The Handwritten First Draft of Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing

In light of recent events...

Is it really the writers fault that the higher up just let it die for the sake of profit? Seems to me that they cod simply put projects on hold if they care so much about the end product.