Picket Lines

by Mona Shaw

I don’t cross picket lines.

This has irritated folks I was with more than once. Often someone is misinformed enough to say to me. “But you don’t know both sides.”

I always answer, “There’s a picket line for workers. That’s all I need to know.”

This is not simply a political or moral position. Although it is both. It’s also based on my personal witness of the struggle for workers’ rights.

My mother, Marlene Johns Shaw Gerst, was a labor organizer. She began this fight for justice in 1960. She was a line worker at Champion Spark Plug in Burlington, Iowa. She was only 26. After witnessing one too many atrocities toward workers at the plant, she came home one night, kicked her purse across the living room floor, and said. “That goddamned plant needs a union, and it going to get one!”

It did. She called on the UAW. She passed out cards. She talked to workers without ceasing. She went to their homes, stopped them at their cars and in supermarkets. She convinced men and women to join her at a time when this was not seen as a woman’s role, even by the union. She was threatened with violence and blackballing, but she was not deterred.

This eventually led to an election. The Union won the election, but it was not over. The Company refused to negotiate a contract. After no small amount of agonizing, the workers decided to strike. Calling a strike is a courageous and dangerous thing to do. The consequences can be more than Draconian. We knew this firsthand. My father was the first union person in our family. He was a baker at K & R Bakery in Burlington. Some called him the most talented cake decorator in town. He attempted to organize a union there. He was fired and blackballed. He never worked as a baker again. They took the risk.

My brother Mark and I have clear memories of walking the picket line. We took turns between walking the line and watching our pre-school sister in the strike kitchen. Our baby sister stayed with an aunt. The loose pebbles and cracked asphalt beneath our feet. The smell of chili being cooked in the strike kitchen. I was only 10, but I still remember the recipe for that chili. The stale donuts and jugs of water and coffee on a card table. Those who have never taken risks for justice don’t know how empowering it is to stand up to tyranny. It’s a feeling that you never forget. It was the first of a few defining moments I would have in my life.

On a day, that I stayed home to watch the girls and clean house, Mark ran into the living room crying, “The Union won! The Union won!” We all rejoiced.

The contract gave the workers more humane working conditions, higher wages, and completely paid family health insurance. Upon its signing hundreds of lives changed dramatically for the better.

UAW Local 1237 prevailed, and it still exists. My mother’s efforts were so highly regarded that she was elected vice-president. She told me later with pride, “They wanted to elect me president, but you can’t have a woman president.”

My mother’s gift for organizing did not go unnoticed by the national. UAW secured a proviso that my mother could be pulled from the line at any time to help with other organizing throughout the nation. Eventually, the UAW brought her on full-time. By the time she retired in 1994, she had improved the lives of literally thousands of workers. She was given the Walter P. Reuther Award. When she died last year, Champion Spark Plug hung up a tribute to her and flew their flag at half mast.

My mother wasn’t the only one who made monumental sacrifices. She was gone a lot. My younger siblings lost years with their mother. My brother and I lost our childhood as we were given adult assignments to keep our family going. Her absence combined with other tragedies would tear apart my parents’ marriage. They divorced in 1966. Then and now I feel no resentment for those sacrifices despite their profound damage. We had a higher calling. We were saving the lives of thousands of workers so they could have the benefits that we enjoyed. The biggest benefit may be that my parents never again had to worry about cost when we needed to see a doctor. They could just take us. In more than one instance it’s reasonable to believe this saved our lives.

I remain keenly aware that our sacrifice paled against the sacrifices of the likes of Mother Jones, Sacco and Vanzetti, Lucy Parsons, Cesar Chavez, Eugene V. Debs, and the Hay Market Square martyrs. The history of workers’ rights dates back to the beginning of the nation and includes a cast of millions.

So. When you cross a picket line, or criticize or disrespect striking workers, you not only dishonor my mother’s legacy, you dishonor my entire family. You also dishonor the memory of anyone who’s given their lives for this right. That’s just how it is.