Have you ever had a job where all the employees had some kind of union so you all went on strike?
Were you on the picket lines?
Did you have to get violent to stop outsiders from coming in?
What was the long term result?
No and yes.
I mowed the lawn when it was over 100 degrees. I put the lawmower in the shade and went inside for a cool drink before doing the trimming. I was sweating profusely (it was over 100).
As I stood at the kitchen counter giving the ice a minute to cool my drink, my wife told me in no uncertain terms that I “wasn’t done”.
I took a moderately refreshing drink, and told her that not only was I done, I’m done doing yardwork forever.
The only time I did yardwork after that was mowing (but not trimming) when she had her gallbladder removed.
We’re now divorced. The yardwork was one of many, many straws.
I’m fairly certain it’s illegal to stop anyone from going into a business.
I’ve never belonged to a union, so I’ve never struck. I’ve threatened to quit, but as the business owner my threat was kinda lame.
About 15 years ago we were set to strike when the district realized that the fact-finding the arbitrators would find would reveal that they were lying through their teeth to the community. They folded like a cheap suit.
Yes, once. It lasted about a week, if I remember correctly. I had an assigned time and location for picket duty.
There was no actual violence, even though we have Teamsters as one of the unions in our company. One guy did get killed while trying to illegally disable some electrical power at a peripheral location, however. The company brought scabs in from undisclosed locations into a fenced parking lot next to the building, with police protection (really the police were just to hold the picket lines back). Most of the picketers in my location were white-collar workers so we were disinclined to do anything either illegal or violent.
The strike was resolved when the parent company realized that the local CEO had been an idiot for provoking the strike in the first place, and they agreed to negotiate in good faith.
No. I would never take a job where union membership was a requirement.
I’ve both been on strike, and crossed the strike lines to work. In one case I agreed with the root motive for striking, in the other I didn’t.
“Did you have to get violent to stop outsiders from coming in?”
A strike is a labor protest, it is not a revolution to close off access to the business or to torment replacement workers. Unfortunately, I’ve personally seen some ugly violent strikers that don’t understand this (slashing tires, throwing bottles, screaming insults, rocking cars). I’ve quit any union that condones this sort of thuggery.
Never on a strike; however, in the 70s I was in the USAF and we basically did what the Brits call “work to rule”. We were getting hammered for not doing good enough inspections on the aircraft. So we went exactly by the book and wrote up everything. Was that a scratch in the paint or a crack? Write it up and let the non-destructive inspection people check it out. Hundreds of them. Even a drop of hydraulic fluid was written up as a leak. I believe that only 4 of the 25 schedule missions got off the ground the next day. The higher ups stopped hassling us after that. FYI: This was certainly not during war time - just training missions.
Early 80’s, I was in highschool working at a Chicago land grocery store chain.
Don’t know why there was a strike, didn’t care.
It lasted a few days and all I really remember was that I didn’t have to work that weekend and still got paid some token amount from the union for not going in.
There was talk of graduate teaching and research assistants going on strike when I was a graduate student at Berkeley. I believe the issue was forming a union, though. I don’t recall that it actually happened.
Yes, I went on strike. No thuggery. It was the UC teacher’s assistants strike. 
it worked.
Yep. Picketed a few times a week for strike pay. It was a lost cause from the start. I was laid off when the strike started, they immediately called me back to scab. I told them to fuck off, they tried to get my unemployment cut off, I won.
This was my first job, back in the late 70s-early 80s.
Over the years I met several people who scabbed at the plant. We laughed and joked about it but I secretly always held it against them.
Shortly after the strike ended they fired all the employees, union members who crossed and scabs alike and closed the plant forever. It was a really old place, way behind state of the art plants and if you’re going to build a new factory why not do it in the deep south where the unions were much weaker?
Haven’t belonged to a union since, don’t see unions the same now.
3 times since I went to work for Boeing. Did the picket line thing, got on the local TV news a couple times, generally enjoyed the time off. The first and third time I could afford to miss not having a regular payday. The second time worked a variety of odd jobs to make ends meet. Currently working under a contract that goes through 2024, I plan to retire long before that contract expires.
Yes, I’ve been involved in a strike. Many years ago, in my first “real” job after college, I worked at a state-run facility for people with developmental disabilities and some with high medical needs as well.
At one point, the state could not pass its budget for the next fiscal year. I don’t remember at all what the issue was, but they couldn’t come to an agreement on the budget. The fiscal year ended and the new one began with NO budget. That meant NO paychecks for state workers. Not just where I worked- all across the state in all state jobs. We were still expected to go to work and do our jobs, we just weren’t going to get paid until the budget passed. We didn’t think it would really happen, but that Friday rolled around and no checks.
There were several unions on campus and after the first non-pay day, they organized a picket line at the entrance to the facility. There was no violence, just a lot of sign shaking and chanting when people drove by or in.
But, because the residents of the facility required 24hr care, we couldn’t all be out there. No one was going to let anything happen to the residents regardless of whether or not we were getting paid. It certainly wasn’t their fault.
Not only was there no problem with people crossing the line to report to work, it was encouraged, especially for medical care and direct care workers.
I think it only lasted for a week or so and then the state got their act together, passed the budget and we got our pay.
And we’re all very pleased that you came into this thread to tell us about it.
Worked for UPS in the part-time college program. Still had to join the union though. Teamsters voted to strike though not the UPS local so out we went. All us college guys worked the picket line shifts for the full-timers who were happy to pay us their picket pay so they could goof off at home. Lasted about a week - lots of free coffee, donuts, and sandwiches. The BS strike hastened the demise of the crooked teamster leadership when the reformers took over at the next election.
Yes, and probably will be again, shortly here. We’ve been working without a contract for over 3 years, trying to protect our pension and benefits from cuts while our employer makes literally billions in record profits. The first few strikes were 1-2 day affairs, I’m told the next one will be likely be significantly longer. Walked picket lines every time. No violence.
Not a union member, but have been striking in sympathy with union-led strikes, back in my mine geologist days. It’s illegal to fire striking workers, if the strike is declared legal, here. There wasn’t any violence associated with those particular strikes (the mines just shut down rather than run on blacklegs), unlike recent ones in the SA mining sector.