Not scabbing, but having to walk across another industry's picket line?

September 2, 2023 11:29 PM

I've got a new job that I love and I'm traveling to pick up my badge and equipment and meet my team in person for the first time next week. Everything's great except, well, my work is owned by a conglomo that also owns an entertainment company. And, while I don't work in entertainment at all, I have to enter my new work at a gate that is being actively picketed by WGA and SAG-AFTRA. Is there an ethical way to do this? Or am I just going to have to be an a-hole?

Nothing is making me nervous about my new, exciting job more than the prospect of having to cross an active picket line on the day after Labor Day.

- How "bad" is this?
- Is there anything I can do to cross "ethically"
- AITA?

If I had been at the job for a while, I could push harder to meet somewhere else.
If I knew that I had to pick up my badge on a lot if I went to SoCal, I might have even arranged to go to a different regional office. But I haven't and I didn't.

I'm in advertising and I'm working on products completely unrelated to film, TV and video games. There's just literally one building where I can get my security badge and laptop credentials and it has one entrance for people who don't have a badge yet -- and it's at a gate where there's an active picket line.

I'm very in support of the strike. I come from a long line of union folks in my family and I have sent money to the strike funds for WGA since the start of this.

I mentioned to my new boss, "Hey, it feels pretty bad to have to cross a picket line for this." He told me he thought it would be over by then and moved on.

My agencies and the rest of the team are going and have booked travel -- with the #1 purpose of kicking off work with me, so I can't just opt out.

Advice? Reassurance? Tips and tricks to not feeling like the biggest a-hole on earth?

posted by anonymous to Work & Money (11 answers total)

I too am sympathetic to unions and the right to strike, but you're only "crossing a picket line" if you're going to work in the striking industry. There is no ethical issue here (IMO) because you are not crossing a picket line, you are walking past a picket line.

Certainly you are not an a-hole, you've given your own money in support of the strike and you're entitled to work in an entirely different industry. Think of it this way: would you stop working if lumberjacks were on strike? or bus drivers? or retail staff? If not, then this is no different.

If you would, you'd never work because some group of workers somewhere is always on strike and you can't starve just to provide solidarity with anyone who is in a labour dispute. By donating you've already done more than most people to support them. Now get on with your day. Good luck at the new job!
posted by underclocked at 12:19 AM on September 3, 2023 [3 favorites]

Is there a way you could get in touch with the people organizing the picket line and ask them what they'd like you do to?
posted by panic at 12:44 AM on September 3, 2023 [7 favorites]

I’m not sure it’s as cut and dry as underclocked opines, because while you don’t work in the same industry, you do work for the same parent company. And while I agree that if any strike that was happening anywhere on Earth stopped someone from working, that would be absurd, it’s different if your own employer (as here) is actively involved as the picketed party, even if it’s a different division.

That said I would still probably feel OK doing this. You aren’t replacing a striking employee and you don’t have a legal basis to join them on the picket line. And it’s no different than if you’d worked there for years and didn’t change your behavior when the strike started.
posted by tubedogg at 1:11 AM on September 3, 2023 [3 favorites]

Does your particular industry have a union, even if you are not yet part of that union, that you can contact and confirm what their stance is? And also, could you wear a t-shirt/jacket that is pro-strike or union when you go in? Like a "Teapot Makers support WGA-SAG strike" t-shirt to make it clear that you're in a different industry and supportive.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 1:40 AM on September 3, 2023 [8 favorites]

Have you actually started work for the company yet? If not then you're just going in for a meeting.
posted by Hogshead at 5:09 AM on September 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

Call and ask if their location has a neutral gate.

Planet Money, 25 Aug, "The secret entrance that sidesteps Hollywood picket lines":

Across Hollywood right now, writers and actors are picketing in front of studio lots. They're walking back and forth, holding up signs demanding concessions on things like pay, how many writers work on projects, and the use of AI in TV and movies.

But, on some of these lots, there are these strange alternate entrances where there are no picketers. Here drivers can come and go as they please without ever encountering any sign of a strike.

Behold the neutral gate. An entrance intended for people who work at these lots but don't work for production companies that are involved with these particular strikes. (Usually that means things like game shows or TV commercials.)
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 6:30 AM on September 3, 2023 [14 favorites]

+1 ask the union (and/or the picketing workers) what sort of solidarity they want from you. Bringing coffee and snacks to the picket line is always appreciated. If they ask you not to cross, maybe you can ask the other people you’re meeting to bring your badge out or mail it?

Part of the power of picket lines is the incidental shut down of other services. Teamsters have it in their contract that they don’t have to cross picket lines, so good luck getting packages if your employees are on strike, for example.
posted by momus_window at 7:16 AM on September 3, 2023 [4 favorites]

Hi. I'm not in the WGA or SAG-AFTRA, but Mr. Blah is in IATSE, and thus we have been mightily affected by the work stoppage caused by the strikes. Because non-related Reasons, we are better off than most right now, but we are surrounded by friends, family and colleagues who aren't working, who are suffering. There is no question that the strike is the right thing to be happening. There is no question that the AMPTP are the villains here. There is no question that we have to support the strike and the strikers.

Having said all that? Please go ahead and pick up your documents. Feel free to check in with strike leaders at the gate (if you indeed can't use the neutral gate). Explain your situation. Make a donation to the strike fund, or bring donuts or something.

And having said alllll that? Also FYI currently there is no afternoon striking at lots in the Valley for the time being, due to the weather. So maybe you can schedule your appt. for an afternoon and skip the entire hassle if you're heading to one of those lots.

Mazel on your new job; make a donation to the strike fund when you get your new paycheck. Here's one place you can help: the Motion Picture & Television Fund. MPTF does great work supporting suffering entertainment workers of all kinds (including IATSE workers).

We all need to remember who the real enemy is. It isn't you.
posted by BlahLaLa at 6:14 PM on September 3, 2023 [7 favorites]

In my opinion, crossing a picket is crossing a picket. If you're going to work for a parent company and have to cross a line to do so you aren't a scab, persay. But you also are not respecting the strike. I would reach out to the strike leaders dor advice or find a way to delay your start date at your new job.

If you generally believe that it is important to support striking workers, crossing the line on literal day 1 does not bode well for sodarity within other workers for the company going forward. Imagine that you are in your Great job 20 years from now and realize that your job may soon be automated and go on strike. What would you think about a new employee in another department crossing your line?

Another way to look at the situation is that starting this job by crossing the picket is saying to yourself and the company that your dream job is more important than solidarity. Taking this as morally neutral, I think you should make and see the choice with clear vision of your priorities and not try to fool yourself about the implications.

The purpose of a picket line as opposed to just a strike is to make the conflict public to put pressure on the company and give the workers leverage at the table. Crossing the line says to the company that you don't mind that conflict, that this conflict is not yours, and undermines the workers' attempt to draw public ire to the company, in order to give them a stronger bargaining position.

My uncle is not on strike, but he is in a union that is essentially out of work because of the strike. He and his coworkers are suffering financially because of the strike, but they know that in the long term it benefits them for other related workers in the same industry to put fear in the hearts of execs. So, there's my bias. I think crossing the line shoots yourself in the foot.
posted by Summers at 8:12 PM on September 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

My Republican father, who was extremely conservative in other ways but a strong supporter of labor, would not get his diabetes medicine from his regular pharmacy location (a grocery) if there was a picket line in front of it. Not crossing a picket line means different things to different people. Personally, with the way I was raised, I would not cross this picket line, even if it was lumberjacks, or bus drivers, or retail staff: a picket line is a picket line, a strike is a strike, and the union keeps us strong. But I also understand that other people do feel differently, and that you are concerned that you will lose this job if you don't pick up your badge.

I would reach out to the strike leaders and ask them what they would like you to do. I would bring cash to donate for the strike fund as a potential 'toll', and also yeah everybody likes snacks and cold drinks.

I am sorry that your boss is trying to make you go through this, though.
posted by corb at 9:41 AM on September 4, 2023

Maybe for a slightly dissenting view - if you are already committed to working for this company, and if you have no problem working for the company at locations where the strikers don’t happen to be present, I’m not following why walking past these folks to pick up your ID would matter. I mean, if the issue was whether you should refuse to work for the company, I would get it, but you’ve already crossed that bridge. The ethics shouldn’t depend on whether you can see the strikers based on which door or which building you enter. When people say their grandad would never cross a picket line, I don’t think they mean that grandad would reschedule to go to a different office building where the strikers didn’t happen to be set up. I think it you want to support the union, you would do better to make a contribution, and stop worrying about plotting your movements to avoid the strikers.
posted by Mid at 7:19 PM on September 4, 2023 [1 favorite]