Seattle Press on Line - SPEEA Members Pass Along Lessons of Last Year's Strike

SPEEA Members Pass Along Lessons of Last Year's Strike

Jean Godden

Nov 30, 2000 -- Boeing engineering workers who marched in picket lines for 58 days last winter passed along the lessons of the strike to Seattle Times and Post-Intelligencer workers, as well as UW graduate students who were preparing strike action last week.

In a workshop held at the Mountaineers clubhouse, the SPEEA members showed more than 300 eager reporters and scholars how to make a burn barrel and how to organize picket lines. They also discussed community support, chants and songs, and how to survive a strike that goes on for weeks, maybe months.

Jean Godden, a Newspaper Guild member at the Seattle Times, said her union had saved her job several times during her newspaper career, and she was glad to go on the picket line to support her union.

Teaching assistants, readers and graders at University of Washington approved strike action November 4 by an 86 percent majority in a membership vote. They have not set a strike date.

Newspaper Guild members at the Seattle Times and Post-Intelligencer walked out at 12:01 a.m. on November 21. In addition to walking the picket line, Guild members started a new daily newspaper, The Seattle Union Record, available online at www.unionrecord.com. A print edition appeared November 24, but promptly disappeared: The Union Record's printer, an Eastside newspaper, reportedly refused to continue printing the paper. Strikers vowed to have The Seattle Union Record back on the streets as soon as a new printer can be found.

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