The Hammer: Power, Inequality, and the Struggle for the Soul of Labor Highlight

More vivid than any lingering regret, though, is the sense of possibility that the strike has given her. She feels infused with an entirely new understanding of how the world works, and how it can work. When she was waking up and going to the picket line every day, with all the stresses of family responsibilities hanging over her, she was scared. But she could also see, unscrolling in her memory, the years and years of sacrifices made by other workers before her. Those sacrifices built and fostered and defended and preserved the union that she had now. The feeling of responsibility to past and future generations of working people was, to her, very tangible. Her career dreams now extend beyond the factory, and toward a job in the labor movement itself. Sometimes all the labor movement hands you is a heavy burden—an order to fight long and hard, and take drastic risks to just hang on to what you already have. That may have struck her as an unfair bargain before the strike, but now, she is at peace with it.