Worker Power, and other lessons from Terry Reed

“Why is it,” Jonathan puzzled, “that the hardest thing in the world is to convince a bird that he is free, and that he can prove it for himself if he’d spend a little time practicing? Why should that be so hard?” (Richard Bach, Johnathan Livingston Seagull 2006, 88-89)

I was trying to think of what I should write for the end of the year.  It seems a fitting time to look back, and to look ahead.
Then I came across a FB post about the ongoing government shutdown and how federal workers are working without pay and failure to work is grounds for insubordination under law.

A friend, Terry Reed, posted this in response:
“Don’t let the law be your guide. There are good and bad laws. Dignity, respect, the right to fair pay and benefits should always be your guide. Solidarity is your most potent weapon against a bully, a tyrant, an injustice. There are many ways to show your solidarity and fight back. The creativity the workers have together to formulate plans of mutual interest will overcome the control of the tyrant. Don’t limit the workers ability together to come up with a plan of action.”

I first met T Reed in 2015 when he came to Connecticut to participate in a week long member mobilization. Terry is “retired” from several jobs, starting as a social worker and ending as a labor organizer.
I remember finally getting the chance one evening to sit and talk to him about my brief experience in the movement, what led me to the place I was in, and my hopes and dreams for the movement.

Johnathan Livingston Seagull speaking to his student Fletcher Gull, spoke of things others didn’t:
“He spoke of very simple things- that it is right for a gull to fly, that freedom is the very nature of his being, that whatever stands against that freedom must be set aside, be it ritual or superstition or limitation in any form.”

Terry spoke of things that others didn’t, or at least he spoke of them in a different way. He told me that there is no power under the sun as great as the power of workers standing in solidarity and that legislation and contracts can be good things, but that they can just as easily hold workers back, as chains about their ankles.
Like Fletcher Gull, my eyes were opened to the possibilities before us, if only we had the faith to believe in workers.
At one point I looked to my left and Jan smiled at me.
She knew.
She would tell me later, “you were having a Terry Reed moment.”
She, and so many others have been recipients of these moments.

Terry remains a mentor to many of us.
He’d say he’s just a worker.
He’s right.
But it’s easy to get caught up in the legalities of contracts and laws and the business of running a union and forget a simple principle that Terry reminds us of:
There is no greater force under the sun than the force of workers standing in solidarity.