Research successful labor strikes in American history and use the lessons you learn to organize a successful strike of your own. Force the institutional entity against which you strike to meet your demands. Make sure you document your actions with video and photos.
When my group first saw this mission we knew that we had to do it. We came up with the idea of protesting block scheduling. Even the teachers were excited about it.. But as we developed the idea we realized that it would not be successful at all. Crystal, Phil and I went in front ofthe class several times.. Finally Kat came up with the idea of fighting to put recycling bins back in the classrooms for the last week of school. We took the idea and ran with it.
Since the 1900's there have been several labor strikes but the two of the most famous that make history are the following the Homestead Act of 1892, Pullman Strike from 1893 to 1894. Labor Strikes
The Homestead Act of 1892 was a strike between the Agglamated Association of Iron and Steel workers and the Carnegie Steel Company. It was caused because of proactive attempts to break the union.The man in who was placed in charge of the Carnegie Steel Mills was Henry Frick. Henry Frick was determined to get rid of the Labor Unions. When the Labor unions had asked for something such as a wage increase, instead of doing that, he would do the opposite and give them a wage decrease. Because of this the Union went on Strike. Even though Carnegie was in favor of Labor unions, he agreed with Henry Frick to break up the Union. Carnegie encourged Frick to use negotiations to break the Unions, this is when the employees asked for a raise in wages and Frick replied with a twenty two percent decrease in wages. The bargaining was not working and Carnegie Steal would Cease to recognize the union. Henry Frick Locked the workers out of the plate mill and sealed it so none of the workers could get in. When they were finally letting workers in they had them escorted but when they were being escorted an armed battle began between the guards and the workers and eleven people were killed.
The Pullman Strike of 1893 to 1894 was a strike about the Pullman Palace Car company which manufactured exclusive luxury train cars, also know as the private jests of that era. When a recession began they had to decrease wages because of lower demand for the cars. As a result a strike began, led by Eugene V. Debs, which included Pullman workers and spread to other railroad workers through out the American Railway Union. The strikers burned and looted seven buildings and railroad cars. The Violence got so bad they had to call in 12,000 Federal troops and United States Marshals to try and stop the strike. Soldiers killed 13 Strikers and wounded 57 more people. The Strike came to an unsuccessful end.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/477805/famous_strikesthe_most_famous_labor.html
After learning all about that we realized that a violent and interrupting protest would not be best. We decided on a low key sit in. Crystal made us some posters for it and we were set. We even got people to sign a petition.
The next day we got together outside of the office and organized ourselves.
Sure there weren't alot of us but I think that with the people we had it was just right. Soon enough we were on our way inside the office.
Shortly after entering the office we recieved an immeadiate reaction. Two of the ladies in the office told us that we needed to leave. We stood our ground and waited quietly and calmly as we pointed out that we were not in anyone's way. She told us that the office was a place for people with issues. Matt pointed out that we too had an issue hence why we were in there. The lady at the desk went to great lengths to kick us out. Even to the point where she had a teacher hold the door open for us. We exited but stood right outside the office and put our posters in the windows and made a point to let the lady see them. Shortly after that the principal came out of the office and let us back inside. At that point the entire office was abuzz with the word recycle. We even had an adminstrator grab a poster as he began to start up a recycle chant.
We struck up a conversation with the lady at the desk as she began to tell us how she thought that it was a wonderful idea. She went as far as to offer to let us use her truck to drive the collected recyclables to the nearby recycling plant in Townsend. She told us that we needed to write up a note for her to get approved by the principal and to send out to the entire staff of Middletown High School.
Whitney wrote it up quickly and handed it over to the woman.
She happily agreed to give it to our prinicpal. And cheerfully allowed us to go hang up some of our posters outside of the office. So, with smiles plastered on our faces and the thrill of success in our hearts we exited the office practically skipping.
Mission accomplished