Bread and Roses
Today is the anniversary of the ending of the Bread and Roses strike. In 1912, mill workers, mostly women, mostly immigrants, in Lawrence, Mass. went on strike for better wages “a 15% increase in wages, a return to the fifty hour work week, double time for overtime work and a stopping of discrimination for union activity.”
Today is also my first day of furlough from my job. Despite belonging to a union, management has implemented unilateral furloughs of faculty, librarians, and staff. The absurdity of furloughing teaching faculty during the academic year aside, my thoughts turn to the nature of work. It’s easy to go on strike for physical labor, and in capitalist settings, where work stoppage hurts management and profits. But for teachers and educators to strike? It doesn’t hurt management. It hurts our students.
Intellectual labor, emotional labor are invisible labors. The work of the heart and mind is still work.
Card: 8 of Pentacles. Deck: This Might Hurt Tarot
Reading : Gloved Against Blood by Cindy Veach
Listening: