Picture a nine-year-old and her little brother singing, There once was a union maid who never was afraid of goons and ginks and company finks…and you’ll have a snapshot of our 1970s social-activist household.
The Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie albums were spinning regularly on the Pioneer stereo turntable. I can still dredge up the chorus to “Solidarity Forever” from the memory-murk but up until recently that was considered just another one of my quirks.
Other family homes had collections of bone-china teacups or macrame wall hangings. We had call-to-action buttons, mainly for workers’ rights, but also women’s rights. I mostly missed the nuance of the messaging but I loved the pattern and colour and fonts of those buttons and eventually I used them and others from the last century to create a digitized photo collage. “Thought Bubbles” appears as a jumble of colour, pattern and typefaces that on closer inspection reveals a joyful archive of shared labour struggles.
The Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie albums were spinning regularly on the Pioneer stereo turntable. I can still dredge up the chorus to “Solidarity Forever” from the memory-murk but up until recently that was considered just another one of my quirks.
Other family homes had collections of bone-china teacups or macrame wall hangings. We had call-to-action buttons, mainly for workers’ rights, but also women’s rights. I mostly missed the nuance of the messaging but I loved the pattern and colour and fonts of those buttons and eventually I used them and others from the last century to create a digitized photo collage. “Thought Bubbles” appears as a jumble of colour, pattern and typefaces that on closer inspection reveals a joyful archive of shared labour struggles.
‘Thought Bubbles’, 2008. 42” x 24” (Carlyn Yandle image)
The only thing constant is change, and those old union folk songs are trending on TikTok and in conversation; just ask the baristas who have unionized 425 Starbucks stores in 43 states or the eight in Canada — all still without a collective agreement. It seems all those employee enticements over the intervening years (cappuccino bars, foosball tables, designer conversation pods surrounded by edgy murals, corporate retreats) have worn thin. Workers need fair wages, full health benefits, job safety, more staffing, paid parental leave and protection from workplace harassment.
The words and phrases that filled the air in my childhood home included: “job action”, “union-busting”, “organizing”, “bargaining unit”, “wildcat strike”, “binding arbitration”, “ratify”, “lockout”, “mediation”, “picket line”, “walkout”, “bad-faith”, “boycott”, “work-to-rule”, “strike pay”, “management”, “grievance”, “strike vote” and “negotiation.” But the most potent word was “scab.” To be a scab was to betray everyone in the common struggle for your own gain.
This is no longer language synonymous with (shudder!) socialism but is rolling off the tongues of younger workers now. It’s hit the mainstream, and last week, the big time at the Democratic National Convention, when Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers, ripped open his blazer on stage to reveal his “Trump is a scab” T-shirt and the chant went viral.
The words and phrases that filled the air in my childhood home included: “job action”, “union-busting”, “organizing”, “bargaining unit”, “wildcat strike”, “binding arbitration”, “ratify”, “lockout”, “mediation”, “picket line”, “walkout”, “bad-faith”, “boycott”, “work-to-rule”, “strike pay”, “management”, “grievance”, “strike vote” and “negotiation.” But the most potent word was “scab.” To be a scab was to betray everyone in the common struggle for your own gain.
This is no longer language synonymous with (shudder!) socialism but is rolling off the tongues of younger workers now. It’s hit the mainstream, and last week, the big time at the Democratic National Convention, when Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers, ripped open his blazer on stage to reveal his “Trump is a scab” T-shirt and the chant went viral.
Screen grab from PBS, Democratic National Convention last week, Chicago
What is old is new again, with some important updates, like the lyrics to that childhood dittie, “Union Maid:
You women who want to be free, just take a tip from me: Join your hand with a union man into the 21st Century. As Angela Davis found, we’re all-together-bound, let race and class and gender join, to stand on common ground.
You women who want to be free, just take a tip from me: Join your hand with a union man into the 21st Century. As Angela Davis found, we’re all-together-bound, let race and class and gender join, to stand on common ground.
