1. What essential services do municipal workers provide? Should they have the right to organize unions? To strike?
2. Do the media report on the economy from both labor and business perspectives? Should they?
3. What restrictions are appropriate to regulate protests on public and private property, e.g., marching down Main Street, leafletting in a mall store or parking lot? Are there times when the Bill of Rights should be suspended?
Activities
1. Read articles in both the Democrat & Chronicle and Labor News and write a report comparing/contrasting their treatment of a labor issue.
2. Role play picketing. Create a scenario in which workers refuse to enter a worksite because of a dispute and set up a picket line. Identify the issue in the dispute (e.g., wages, hours, working conditions), make cardboard placards and write slogans, make up chants (e.g., "What do you want?" "Contract!" "When do you want it?" "Now!"), etc. Act out the demonstration, with some students as pickets, some as workers (scabs) or bosses crossing the line, some as cops.
Vocabulary
apprenticeship
municipal
Glossary
picket: during labor disputes unions place workers outside worksites to publicize their issues and to discourage people from entering. They walk picket lines, carry placards and chant.
general strike: the stoppage of work by all the workers in a single community (local) or throughout a country (national).
Resources
Map/Guide # 5, 15, 19, 22, 34, 35, 36
Jeremy Brecher, Strike! (1972)
William Puette, Through Jaundiced Eyes: How the Media View Organized Labor. (1992)
Educators are encouraged to reproduce this Study
Guide for classroom use. REAL welcomes comments by teachers and
students, which can be directed to real@rochesterlabor.org
