It is good to see that strikes are back in fashion. They are the best, and often the only way, people can demand their fair share of the productivity they bring to the market.
In Hollywood the Writers Guild of America is on strike to get a fair share of the revenue stream that will come through Internet distribution of their work.
In New York the stage workers are trying to protect their hard-won benefits by shutting down shows.
Huge railway and student strikes are planned this week in France to fight against Sarkozy’s neo-liberal attack on pensions and on University financing.
In Germany locomotive drivers and train conductors are in on and off strikes to get better payment.
In Ireland bus drivers are on strike over new imposed working condictions that in effect require them to do longer hours.
In South Africa construction workers fight for better wages too.
In Australia union workers are striking to have the union be the sole worker representative at a big brewery.
In all the above cases the media reports are heavily slanted against the workers. Strikes are "bad for small business", they are "inconvient" to those who do not get the service, they are "unfair", "untimely", "not justified". The demands are always "excessive".
Don’t believe any of it without checking what the striking workers really say and what the strike really is about. The media owners have no interest in presenting a fair picture of any strike and, unless they strike themselves, journalists don’t dare to cross their employers intent.
If you can, visit workers on a picket line. Bring them coffee and some supporting words. Striking is not easy to do. It requires sacrifice and no one I have ever met really likes to go on strike.
Unions are the bastions that indirectly defend every other wage owner. Strikes are the only real weapon wage owners have. Let’s hail their use.
