From One Survivor to Another

There is no such thing as a pacifist labor strike. There has never been one in history. The success of a strike comes with the bosses’ knowledge that strikers will physically keep/push out scabs.

Labor historians and union folk need to publicly speak up about this when this debate is raised.

Even strikes in which no scabs are brought in and the strike is successful without violence only happen because the boss knows that the union has and will physically force their issue. It’s kind of like Mike Tyson calmly telling you to move out of the way at a nightclub. He doesn’t have to actually lay hands on you, but you know what will happen if you don’t, and the interaction can not be classified as non-violent.

There would be no unions right now if the union movement had been a non-violent movement. We would all be working 18-hour days from the time we were 8 years old.