UNION WOMEN
Standing with us — from the assembly line to the picket line. Union Women!
It’s been awhile ago now. I was teaching in rural west Tennessee, in a K-8 school waaaaay out in the country. It was an almost entirely female faculty, except for a couple of junior-high coaches and the school principal. I was lucky in my room assignment. The school had been a high school once-upon-a-time. The classroom that I shared with a “split-class” of 2nd and 3rd graders was under the gym; it had been the visiting-team locker room. One wall of our classroom was all windows; there was a beautiful view of the green, green valley!
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But working conditions were not good. We were with the students every single minute from first bell until afternoon dismissal. We had no bathroom break, no planning period, no time to return parent calls or to grade papers. We loved our students and wanted to do a good job, but we were desperate for a more humane schedule. We planned a demonstration, and quietly circulated word of our plans to a few sympathetic parents.
And the mothers of our students! Those dear women from the factories in town! They worked at the garment factories and on the electronics assembly lines. And they were union! They knew the power of unity and solidarity! They came to the school for our demonstration; they stood with us in the parking lot. And they came back every time we demonstrated. And, sure enough, the decades-long schedule was changed.
We loved them then, and I love them still! Our union sisters
