Book Thoughts: On the Line by Daisy Pitkin
After I read a book, I generally email my thoughts or notes to a friend. I'm now copying these first emails to this blog since it's easier to revisit.
Original Sent Date: Nov 17, 2024
This book is a memoir about trying to set up a union in an industrial laundry. I really didn't understand the scale or day in and outs of fighting for unions for workers who aren't of the upper tiers (like the tech workers my sis works with) until I read this.
Something that really made me think was about how privacy means very little and is not even worth prioritizing when doing union work, since the companies have all of the information on individuals and will quickly use it to threaten them if you don't get to them first. I never expected that building lists of people to join unions would require literally digging through trash for scraps of identifying information, and the constant upkeep and rechecking of the strengths of their commitments. I honestly thought this type of intrusive information gathering and confrontation was more in the realm of mudracking journalism than anything. In this case the greater good definitely outweighs what any one individual would want, if not wanting their information to be shared is even an option they're aware of.
Anyway, I thought the throughline about power not being a zero sum game and the necessity for care and solidarity based activism rather than anger was really interesting. The answer to what lets people overcome fear not always being anger but important relationships makes sense to me. The moth metaphors were also interesting, muddled at times, but I assume the symbolism of duality was part of it. TIL moth comes from the same root as soul.
A relevant interview with the author: https://forgeorganizing.org/article/line-interview-daisy-pitkin