Students, Union Members Attend Public Art & Popular Movements Event in Jay

PHOTO: Jay Labor Mural artist Andrea Kantrowitz presents at the Local 14 Solidarity Center.

Last Saturday, former Jay paper mill workers, current union members and 25 students from the University of Southern Maine came together at the Local 14 Solidarity Center to learn about the legacy of the 1987-88 International Paper Strike as depicted in the mural that has adorned the Local 14 union hall for nearly 40 years.

Artist Andrea Kantrowitz gave a presentation about the mural she created for the strikers and about art in social movements in general. She described how she participated in the 1985-87 Cannery Strike in Watsonville, CA involving 1,000 workers at two facilities.

After a series of questions and answers, attendees took turns reading a Jay striker Brent Gay’s essay “The More I Got Involved, the Better I Felt” from the book Pain on Their Faces: Testimonies on the Paper Mill Strike, Jay, Maine, 1987-88. In it, Gay describes the intense anger he felt with the company and how he was involved in smashing windshields and chasing scabs when they crossed the picket line. But the more he got involved in the strike, his hate dissipated and he began to feel like he was having a positive impact. He went from being terrified of public speaking to enjoying it as he spoke at union meetings, schools, and at the Legislature. He remembered how despondent he felt when the strike was called off on October 10, 1988.

“It was over and we had lost! Just like that,” he wrote. “I saw grown men cry, including myself. It was the same as when a close family member dies suddenly. Everything we worked so hard for in 16 months was over and we hadn’t won anything. The only way to describe the day is it was a wake, with families gathering at the hall to console each other.”  Gay later got rehired at the mill, but they failed to re-certify the union in 1992 by a two to one margin.

“This day was as bad as the day the strike was called off,” he wrote. “Again, people gathered at the hall to be with each other and curse the scabs. Some got drunk, some cried. I did a little of both.”  Still Gay was consoled in the fact that the company didn’t break his spirit, “even though they might have come close.”

“In just a few years, I have done and felt things I probably never would have in a lifetime,” Gay continued. “I think, as a family, we are closer and our values have changed. Only a struggle like this can pull you together or break you apart. There were a lot more good times than bad, times I will remember the rest of my life. I never regretted going on strike, for I always had my pride.”

USM Art Professor Janna Arhndt also spoke at the event on the role art has played in people's movements throughout history. The event was sponsored by the Scontras Center for Labor and Community Education as part of a larger project to study and commemorate the Jay paper strike's 40th anniversary and the transformation of the old union hall into the Local 14 Solidarity Center.