Honk For Strikers, Despite The Cops

It has been rumored that the Sheriff’s Department is considering issuing citations to those drivers who honk their horns as they pass the striking Kaiser steelworkers’ picket lines.

Yeah, sure, why not?

It requires a lot less effort to arrest responsible, socially conscious citizens who won’t require court-appointed lawyers when they go to pay their fines promptly, than it does to pursue and prosecute real criminals.

Bad people live in the city; that’s why many of us choose to live in the Valley.

Yet, in our Valley, burglaries, break-ins, assaults, and vandalism have become endemic.

In part, it is because thieves and burglars have no fear of being arrested.

When asked why, the police claim it is because they haven’t enough officers or money to do the job.

How is it, then, that the county has enough patrolmen and money to post carloads of officers on Trent or Euclid to guard against people who are committing no crime whatever?

All is not completely lost.

If you subdue the burglar and place him, trussed up like a Christmas goose, in the center of your driveway, the police will send someone over to pick him up.

Warning: You better not have harmed him!

If you think I am exaggerating, count the number of people you know who have been victims of these crimes, and then count the number of times the criminals were caught, or even pursued for that matter.

Obviously, the Sheriff’s Department is too busy with horn-honkers, seat-belt scofflaws, and acting as a security force for the Maxxam Corp.

Now that the keys on my typewriter are warmed up, let’s get to the real subject of this column.

Many of the people passing the Kaiser picket lines choose not to honk in support of the strikers, and that is perfectly fine. Not everyone agrees with their cause.

What shocks me is the occasional passerby who flips them the bird.

Those people walking that picket line aren’t criminals.

Those are our friends and neighbors out there, and they are cold and tired and facing a jobless Christmas.

They are not out there seeking power or revenge or a workers uprising. All they’re trying to do is save a way of life against a giant faceless corporation led by multi-millionaires who couldn’t care less what happens to the families and businesses of Spokane.

Those friends and neighbors need the support of the community, not the condemnation!

Believe me, if the strikers should fail in their fight, we will all suffer.

Lower paying jobs and less benefits at Kaiser mean a drop in the local standard of living that will affect everyone - schools, merchants, and government programs will all suffer.

Worst of all, it will guarantee that our children will have to settle for a future that offers less pay and fewer benefits than their parents had. This is hardly the progress that most of us work for.

Like them or not, the men and women of unions are responsible for giving us the 8-hour day, the 40-hour week, secure pensions, paid health insurance, overtime pay, safe working conditions, paid vacations and holidays and the abolition of child labor.

Giant corporations create jobs. Unfortunately, when we take the company’s side in matters like this, we are showing support for millionaires who live thousands of miles away and are mostly interested in golden parachutes and year-end bonuses.

I guess you know which side I’m rooting for.

The next time you flip the bird to those people on the line, try remembering the words of the American industrialist Andrew Mellon, who, around the turn of the century, bragged that he could hire half the workers to murder the other half.

Cops or no, I intend to keep honking like hell!