By Staff Writer James Mellen III.

When I was younger, my dad told me stories about workers’ strikes in the liquor industry, and how it affected my grandfather’s store. He told me that the liquor salesman who delivered to my grandfather’s store told him not to cross the picket line, but he did anyway, and someone threw a brick through the window of his establishment. I have absolutely no sympathy for him or anyone who crosses the picket line and you shouldn’t either.

The boss won’t listen when one person talks, but he has to listen when the union squawks, but there’s always one Casey Jones, who is going to put in over time while his co-workers suffer from their loss in hours to make Casey’s workplace a better place.
That one worker or those few workers are the boss’s saving grace, and he’s going to milk and exploit that one worker as he clings to hope that he can continue to milk and exploit the rest of the workers at that company.

See, the boss has enough money to pay all of his employees a living wage, and if he doesn’t, then he shouldn’t be the boss. However, most bosses hold money from the employees to line his own pockets.

That’s why you shouldn’t have respect for the wealthy, one way or another, they steal the food out of the mouths of the needy, the single mothers, and the folks who are down on their luck.

We’re all conditioned in America to believe that the cream rises to the top, and that people who own businesses worked there. The rich have paid a lot of money to keep that narrative alive, but 64% of all wealth is inherited, and how wealthy someone’s parents are is a better indicator of college graduation than test scores. There aren’t enough opportunities for people to rise from bottom to top in America.

If a CEO deserves a million dollars for working a hundred hours a week, then doesn’t a single mother who works 40 hours a week at Stop and Shop and another 40 hours a week waiting tables deserve at least a living wage?

And people in America are getting wise to this old lie, which is why when Stop and Shop announced that they were going to cut their health benefits and their pension, the Boston local UFCW said that either Stop and Shop was going to renegotiate their benefits or they were going on strike.

The union plans on voting for either new contracts or a strike on Sunday March 10.

But Stop and Shop has no loyalty to the workers who have slaved away for their company, no care for the paychecks of those who need to pay their bills, and no love for the lives dependent on their parents pay. So , Stop and Shop is going to bring in temporary workers so that they can undermine the voices of those who have built their company from the ground up.

As we all know, there’s a Stop and Shop just down the street from UMassD, and that means that there are rules that everyone should follow if the union declares a strike on March 10.

First and foremost, don’t shop at Stop and Shop until the contract is negotiated. There’s a Target and a WalMart just as close to campus as the Stop and Shop. Nobody’s going to break your windows, but that doesn’t mean you should cross the picket line.

Second and maybe more importantly, if Stop and Shop offers temp positions, DO NOT take them. Stop and Shop might try to offer 20 dollars an hour or some other incentive for temp positions to try to bust the strike. Don’t be a scab, and don’t work at Stop and Shop. If you currently work at Stop and Shop, don’t be a scab don’t work at Stop and Shop.

One advantage to living so close to a Stop and Shop is we might get to see an inflatable Scabby the Union Rat, and that’d be kind of cool.