On strike.

• Author: Becker, Matt
• Position: Teamster narrative - Column

We'd thrown up the picket lines at 12.01 A.M. on Wednesday, and hadn't let a single truck in or out for the first four days of the national strike by Teamster truck drivers. Now, in the small hours of Sunday morning, rumors flew that Yellow Freight would try to push trucks through sometime on Monday. I asked Otis, the steward for the other local, what his people had planned. Otis grasped my forearm in one sizable hand, stared at me closely, and asked, "Are you management?" And, after a moment, "Does J.B. [one of my stewards] know you?"

I was obliged to act a little insulted, but I wasn't really. I knew what Otis meant. When one of my stewards happened by, I steered Otis over to hear me vouched for. "Is this guy management?" Otis asked De. "He's too nice to be a road driver."

Otis is right. I'm also too middle-class, too politically progressive, too vegetarian, too blind to the charms of internal combustion, and, until this strike, too nonsmoking. At thirty-three, I'm younger than many of my co-workers' children. When I finished Yellow Freight System's driver-training school three years ago and moved to the southwest suburbs of Chicago to start as a road driver, I quickly learned that I could enjoy the company of the other drivers, but I couldn't join them.

Thirty days after I started driving I automatically became a member of the union. I found joining the Teamsters amusing, since I had assimilated, over the years, the Newsweek view of unions: outdated, obstructionist organizations that exist primarily to protect their members' excessive wages and expensive work rules, extorted from enlightened corporations which would treat their employees well anyway. In the case of the Teamsters, add a reputation for violence, corruption, and organized-crime connections.

I wish I could say that I was re-educated by dedicated fellow Teamsters struggling for justice for all working people. I'd be lying. I quickly discovered that most road drivers maintained almost unbelievable levels of apathy, suspicion, and cynicism toward the union. Many never attended meetings of the local, yet could tell you with assurance how quickly you'd be kicked to the floor if you opened your mouth at one. The only comfort was that they didn't hold these attitudes toward only the union; they felt the same toward any individual or entity perceived as having power over their lives.

I began the strike assuming that my youth, outsider status, and relative inexperience in the union...