ABSTRACT
This chapter examines our strike from a rhetorician’s perspective that is to answer Jason Del Gandio’s charge to value our rhetoric: Activists always consider rhetoric to some degree. If one element of setting a tone of solidarity is constructing an ethos in which many members were doing lots of work in loosely coordinated but aligned groups, another element is trust, which calls for both the membership and the leadership to believe in each other’s good will and commitment. Undervaluing the rhetoric of our efforts hinders our communication with, and our political efficacy within, the wider public arena. The large number of people sending out messages to the membership led to confusion, especially when those messages overlapped or asked for slight variations of the same thing. There is anti-labor legislation in every state legislature in the country, and even in the US Congress, that would undercut unions’ rights to bargain, grieve, arbitrate contract violations, strike, collect dues, and more.
