Strike
Sixteen years ago— twenty-seven thousand stood their ground; Now thirty-three thousand rise, voices echoing. October's first breath brings forty-five thousand more— Longshoremen ready, hearts steadfast and unyielding.
I stand with the machinists, With the longshoremen by the docks, Bones weary, bent like steel under relentless heat, Who have lifted fortunes for others to hold, Never feeling the golden dust That slips through their calloused fingers.
Record profits—
But where are they?
Promises broken, like backs on the assembly line, spines twisted, twisted deals behind glass doors far from the clang of metal and the salt of the docks.
30% over four years, they say, best we can do.
But where’s the rest?
Where’s the other 15?
Swallowed by the sea— lost with Evergreen, or maybe hoarded by hands too slick, too sticky with greed to understand the weight of a wrench, the sweat of a shift.
Oligarchs who love only the green faces of long-dead men, whose hearts are hollow, cold as steel vaults, too full of profit margins to feel the pulse of the workers they’ve bled dry.
I am not on the factory floor, nor by the docks where tides turn heavy, but I carry your fight with me, etched into my choices, my refusals. In every boycott, every dollar withheld, I lend my strength to yours— a quiet solidarity that ripples, pushing back against those who measure worth by the balance of a ledger.