Strike Diary-Day 15: The giant rat was drooping.
“I think it’s the generator,” said Emily Brindley, the bargaining chair for our union, the Fort Worth NewsGuild. She was sitting beside the rat in the back of a pickup truck. Jess Hardin, a bargaining team member, yanked on the handle of the stalling generator, eliciting a strangling noise from the motor. “Yeah, it’s the generator,” Hardin agreed.
I tried not to look at the inflatable rat whose features became a grimace as he deflated. We needed to be positive here. The rat, Scabby, frequently appears at union activities. Today, he joined the Fort Worth NewsGuild in our strike—the first open-ended newsroom strike in Texas history. “Okay, that’s fine, let’s just chant,” I said with an enthusiasm I did not feel. After more than two weeks of walking
