Loose Lips Sink Ships?
I was in Baltimore this past weekend for the holiday and tried to get some info about the Sparrows Point shutdown. No one is talking. Or rather, no one knows anything more than the limited info reported so far by Steel Market Update, Steel Guru, and Baltimore Brew: steelmaking operations suspended, 700 workers furloughed, machine shop shut down with equipment being sold off, limited finishing operations to fill old orders, 'indefinite' shutdown....
Neither RG Steel nor the United Steelworkers union has provided any hard information to workers about future prospects for Sparrows Point. Union officials have warned workers not to talk to the media--behavior better suited to Soviet Russia and other totalitarian regimes than a democracy.
Where are the fighting unionists of old? The brave men and women who would have been out in the street protesting this outrage? Have we become so beaten down, so meekly accepting of every blow that we just lie low and hope for the best?
Just before the holiday I read 'Diary of a Shirtwaist Striker' by Theresa Malkiel, a lightly fictionalized account of the bitter 1909-1910 strike by young seamstresses in New York City. The 'Uprising of the 20,000' brought the shirtwaist industry to its knees.
We have forgotten how to fight.
Comments
Post new comment