Letter: Walkout at Texas Bottling Factory

Back in December I wrote an article on “Base-Building and Resilience” based on work at my job, a bottling company. Today I write as an unemployed worker who coordinated a walkout.
After months of late nights and exhausted days, my coworkers and I had had enough of the lousy working conditions. We had won back being provided with free water and got the company to make minor repairs to our workplace, but many were still frustrated. Since December, many workers had been fired or had quit after finding “better” jobs. A workforce of 19 had dwindled to 9; only 4 of whom had been on the job 5 months before. This low amount of workers caused the bosses to panic. They started to speed up productivity using threats and lies and kept people on the job 12 to 16 hours a day to get the trucks loaded.
As for myself, I had been injured on the job so was only supposed to do 6 hours of work; yet I was forced to stay longer working the forklift since the bosses had the forklift drivers doing the loading. Although many of us were written up, we struggled against these attacks. When the bosses insisted that they were looking into raises for us, “the hard workers who stuck it out,” we would all just laugh and say “yeah right.”
So one Wednesday the bosses had a meeting where more lies were fed to us, and instead of eating them up, one of my co-workers stood up and said, “Bet if we walked out we would get some raises.” The supervisor immediately called the meeting off and sent us back to work. I started asking everyone their opinion on the action, how they would react, if they would join, and what they would like our demands to be. This was over a span of 3 hours. To my surprise, everyone was in agreement on two demands, a raise and more manpower, whether it be temps or hurrying the hiring process.
Keep in mind, nobody working in the plant at this time was receiving CHALLENGE and none of these workers knew of my communist politics. Suddenly we were all called into the office and challenged. The supervisor told us to drop the talk of walking out and get back to work. We refused, voicing our criticism and demands. They told us to be realistic. We insisted that we were. We demanded the head of the whole plant be there within an hour to hear our demands or we would walk. So we waited. An hour passed, and we regrouped on the work floor discussing the demands and our allegiance to each other. Everybody was pumped and ready to get this done.
We noticed the branch manager in the office. So we marched in with our heads high and our ambitions even higher. Then it happened. Many who were chosen to speak to our demands froze. It turned into me and one other guy arguing back and forth with the bosses. They kept saying that they couldn’t do anything: it was too late in the day; the demands weren’t realistic; maybe it would be possible, but it would take time; months or years. I immediately changed the situation and said we were walking out. Four of us walked out of the office, but five held back. I turned around and said “let’s go” to the others, who had earlier said they were going to walk, but all I got back was “I don’t know.” I turned my back and left with the 3 workers who didn’t hesitate.
We got outside and waited for the others, but they didn’t come out. While we waited we talked about how happy we were to stand together and how strikes were truly the only way workers could get respect. I gave them CHALLENGE, and we all shook hands and left. An hour later, I received a phone call from a co-worker who had stayed in the plant, and he informed me that four more, including him, had walked out a little later. They had gotten scared, but realized that walking out with us was the right decision. I expressed my agreement and the importance of solidarity between workers.
The next morning I went to work. On my way in, I was intercepted by the head of HR who informed me that I had received two write-ups, that I was no longer needed, and that I had to leave. This was what I expected. I contacted a co-worker who had not arrived yet; he had come in a little later, and informed that no one else returned to work that day so he left. But on Friday everyone but me was back; so I was the only one fired. I did stick out, leading the fight for the water and repairs and initially the walk out, but that was a risk worth taking to demonstrate working-class power.
Though the walkout didn’t succeed in getting our demands completely met, a large group of temps were brought in to help with the long days being worked. This walkout was too spontaneous and poorly coordinated. Other departments within the plant weren’t consolidated and no plan was made on how to push it further. Another weakness was me being the only one in a position of leadership since now that I am gone, the bosses will work to erase any trace of my influence over the workers.
I plan on maintaining contact with those who walked out to the best of my abilities. For my next step, I’m not too sure. I was already in the process of moving into another industry. In the meantime, base-building and increasing the membership are my main goals, which never changes.
A small dim light has shown itself at a bottling plant in Texas. The dark night will not live forever. The working class is strong, we just need to be organized enough, mass enough, and ambitious enough to show it to them. Here’s to the international struggle for communist revolution! Till the next time my comrades.