Bread and Roses and the DUP Workers Union

April 7, 2021

Dear reader, 

Here I offer some interconnected thoughts, not fully formed but important for me to share nonetheless…

I wasn’t able to put out a video this past week in large part because it was Holy Week (the week in the Christian tradition that reflects the betrayal, passion, and resurrection of Jesus). I’m both an observer of this week and am also employed at a church that puts out multiple services which provide music, video editing and publishing online. 

However, during this past week— a time of reflection on sacrifice and the great burden and price of human fallibility— there was a moment of birth  and sacrifice… 

Workers from Duke University Press (DUP) went public with a worker’s union. I have a personal investment in this in the way of a dear friend who works at the Press. I’ve seen the difficulties she faces having to work in an environment which demonstrates a wide range of problems and prejudices that disproportionately and negatively impact the workers of the press. You can hear a short testimonial from her and many others here.

These workers want the press to thrive AND they want to thrive as well. 

“we’re building a work community that values justice, equity, & dignity…Policies should recognize us as whole people striving to lead full, healthy lives & should be applied equitably.” 

Alejandra Mejía explains well the importance of workers being at the forefront of policies and all the parts of the workplace that affect their lives: 

 “As a formerly undocumented immigrant from a working-class background, I grew up in a context where I witnessed constant precarity, manipulation, wage theft, and fear in my community. Through those experiences, I’ve learned that workers are the experts of our own condition, and we must have a say in the working conditions that affect our lives. I believe that a union would be the most powerful mechanism to ensure equity at DUP. I care about my colleagues and I want to see us all thrive.”

We can see all the birth taking place… the birth of collaboration among workers, of communities of care and equity, but we shouldn’t forget that in our time and place being a part of a union is a sacrifice and precarious reality for many. We have lived through many iterations of laws that have suppressed the rights of workers to form unions over the past 100 years. I remember walking home from classes in my Applied Conflict Management major and feeling so discouraged by the many resistance movements of workers over American history that were squashed by corporations with legislators in their pockets… This post is long enough… maybe we can sing some Hazel Dickens and talk more about the labour movement in this country and the rich ties it has to many types of “American” music. 

All this to say that the work these union folks are doing is bold and leaves them vulnerable to high paid corporate lawyers and executives that can and often will put exorbitant profits above basic worker needs. It becomes very important then that we bear witness to and put public pressure on any union busting efforts that seek to take further power and security from the workers. Solidarity forever… 

This takes me to the song of the week… finally

This week I decided it was finally time to sing a song I’ve been saving for a special occasion. Bread and Roses has deeply influenced me. I have a poster at home which reads “Hearts Starve as Well as Bodies”— a prominent line from the song. 

There are three major things to talk about in terms of the formation of this song. It can be a bit chronologically confusing but I’ll try to make it brief… It begins with a speech given by a suffragette leader named Rose Schneiderman given in 1912:

“What the woman who labors wants is the right to live, not simply exist – the right to life as the rich woman has the right to life, and the sun and music and art. You have nothing that the humblest worker has not a right to have also. The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too. Help, you women of privilege, give her the ballot to fight with.

From this beautiful sentence came the the poem by James Oppenheim titled “Bread and Roses” which was first published in a magazine in 1911 with the attribution line “'Bread for all, and Roses, too' – a slogan of the women in the West." By the time the poem made it into an anthology the attribution had changed to "In a parade of strikers of Lawrence, Mass., some young girls carried a banner inscribed, 'We want Bread, and Roses too!'" 

While Historians believe this last attribution to be ahistorical, nevertheless the song retro actively became intimately affiliated with the Textile Mill Strike in Lawerence, Massachusetts which lasted from January to March of 1912. This brings us back in time to the incredible efforts of the many women (mostly immigrant women) working at this textile mill and the work done (again mostly by women) to thrive and not just subsist in their labor. 

There’s a deep grief I feel thinking of all the disastrous working conditions across the spectrum from the next-to-nothing wages and exploitative labour experienced by migrant workers to the unsustainable and stifling workspaces at prominent  publishing companies (Like DUP). Unions are an important way to transform this grief into something good, to transform workspaces into communities of equity and reciprocity.

Lastly I’d like to share my  favorite verse from Bread and Roses: 

"As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for Bread;
Small art and love and beauty their trudging spirits knew—
Yes, it is Bread we fight for—but we fight for Roses, too.”

And so as we stand on the shoulders of the “unnumbered women dead” and we work to find new ways to resurrect the work of liberation for all those oppressed by systems of hate, greed and prejudice may we learn to stand in solidarity with fellow workers across a wide range of professions. 

Keep an ear to the ground: 

    Twitter: twitter.com/DUPWorkersUnion

    Website: dupworkersunion.org 

Until Soon,

Remona Jeannine