Let us take a few moments to appreciate a brief ray of sunshine in our otherwise cloudy times.
A few minutes ago I answered the call to come out with some other Groton Dems to support the strikers at our local Stop & Shop. I was wondering how the strike was going, and to what extent people were crossing the picket line. Groton is a union town, after all.
While I was there I saw no one enter or leave the store, except one guy who was possibly a scab.
The guy who runs Stop & Shop was there, in effigy, so to speak.
Dick Blumenthal came. He is apparently doing the rounds of stores throughout the state, and he said that there are empty parking lots all around, which is a good thing.
Here’s Dick with the workers, and another shot of him with our deputy town chair, Nancy Mello-Miller, and our esteemed Mayor, Patrice Granatosky.
I have made it a point to go to Stop & Shop in preference to its competitors precisely because it is unionized. I appreciate the irony in the fact that it is possible now to put pressure on Stop & Shop by shopping at the competition, all of whom are non-union, but you have to play with the hand that’s dealt you. Even in these Stop & Shopless days I will only go so far. I have never stepped foot in a Walmart, and I never will, unless and until it is unionized and the Walton siblings wear ashes and sackcloth as penance for their sins.
Anyway, it is a small but hopeful sign that people are staying away from Stop & Shop in droves. Who knows, maybe people are getting fed up with rising inequality, and they’re ready for a little solidarity. Miracles happen, even in this benighted country.
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