TriumphAnt

Diary of a Striker -- Part 2

Days 2 and 3:

I confess that I entered this strike with the hope that getting to the point where the novelty had entirely worn off would take longer to reach than the end of Day 3, but here I am at the end of Day 3 and the novelty has pretty much worn off.

Show up, sign in, throw a couple fluorescent green “ON STRIKE!” / “EN GREVE” stickers on my jacket or hang a string-strung placard around my neck, so as to provide a quick visual endorsement for the doorway monitors that I’m on their side and they don’t have to challenge me or re-direct me to the waiting-to-get-in line, head across the street to the Presse Café for a large take-out cup of either Ethiopian Yirgacheffe or Kenyan AA coffee – “I like it black, so please fill it right up”, and back across the street to commune with one or more of the dozens of little pockets of striking workers that make up a population who, collectively, completely surround the large four-building complex in which I work.

Mood-wise, the vast majority of us are still joking around, because the word generally is that the strike will be settled quickly. Of course, the niggling little thought starting to bump around in my mind is that fully 48 hours earlier, the… uh, well, the vast majority of us were still joking around, because the word generally was that the strike would be settled quickly.

Since then, two of PSAC’s bargaining units have indeed come to tentative agreements and terminated their strikes. But the largest, ours (Table 1), still sits in the “optimistically hoping to reach a settlement” column in the news coverage.

So life on the picket line is already starting to coalesce, like water whirlpooling inexorably into a drain, into its routines. There are minor variations. On day 2, our strike captains circled the building and conscripted all but an essential “skeleton” group into a large march up the street to les Terrasses de la Chaudière, another large government complex where we joined our “brothers and sisters” in solidarity. (The people with megaphones really do talk like that. When we arrived en masse, a bullhorn-wielding strike captain at the Terrasses hailed our arrival and asked “our loyal brothers and sisters from Phase IV” to completely encircle the building.) I must admit that we were a pretty impressive assembly. By the time our two groups got together and strung around the building, we were probably a couple thousand strong and managed to work ourselves into one continuous line.

But that was a short-lived diversion and the mood was somewhat dampened by the wailing arrival of an ambulance. Apparently someone’s excitement had actually managed to escalate his or her metabolism to the point of triggering a collapse. Not fatal, but of sufficient concern to co-strikers that someone called 911. After that, we just sort of drifted back to our own buildings.

So now rumour has it that, if we’re still on the line on Friday (Day 4), there might be a large rally assembled on Parliament Hill, an event that is always good for a few minutes on the late evening news.

And speaking of rumours, Day 3 also saw the the start of the “Well, I heard from someone…” ones that began to fly back and forth along the picket line:

“Well, I heard from someone that some strikers are showing up early for their four hours on the line and then going to a different door to get in and still get a full day’s scab work because they say they were held up by the strikers….”

“Well I heard from someone that the union has sent in a striker with a camera to take pictures of the scabs to post them on the union’s website…”

There was, in fact, at least one person I saw festooned with four separate picket signs, making her look like one Dr Who’s Daleks ( http://www.jeffbots.com/daleks.html ), and each sign was covered with a stream of names headed “SCABS!” Thankfully everyone that I was with when we witnessed this display admitted to being a tad disgusted with that idea. But I also have no doubt that I wasn’t the only one who tried to give each sign a quick read to see if anyone I know had made the list because he or she had chosen what I consider to be actually the more courageous decision -- to tough it out by opting to cross the line.

And get duly crossed off the PSAC Christmas party invite list forevermore, in consequence.

And the latest? Well, the vast majority of us are still joking around, because the word generally is that the strike will be settled quickly…

“It’s like déjà vu all over again.” (I have the strangest feeling that someone else said that recently.)