The workers of the Stella D'Oro bakery in the Bronx, New York City, went on strike in 2008, protesting demands by new owners of the company for drastic cuts in wages and benefits. They were on strike for more than a year, until the summer of 2009 when they won a favorable ruling from the National Labor Relations Board. The company was ordered to allow all the strikers to return to work under the terms of their old contract and to negotiate in good faith with the union. The result: The company announced that it would sell the plant. In November, 2009, the Stella D'Oro bakery was closed, production and equipment moved to a non-union facility in Ohio.
The following poem was written for the "Poetry of Resistance" event, sponsored by the Activist Poets' Roundtable in New York City in October, 2009, where three Stella D'Oro strikers were honored guests. It was also read at the final rally held by the strikers at the plant in November.
Warriors
You dwarf the words of the poet: you, the warriors of Stella D’Oro. For the best I might ever do is recount this story which your deeds have already written.
The end, it seems, was composed by others— who have more power but less humanity. A toast, therefore, to all still holding heads high, proud of their humanity. For this is the common cause any poet might share with those who fight for justice.
Each one of you will always have your humanity: the many-thousand acts, small and large, of sacrifice and sharing, the comradeship, the sheer magnitude of what you have achieved.
Not one crossed the picket line. No, not one.
For these things can never be taken away no matter how much equipment is dismantled, moved to another state-- just as the poet will always have the written word, even if our world might not be ready yet to listen.
It seems you spoke too soon, you the warriors of Stella D’Oro, before our world was ready to listen. Still, I refuse to lose heart, assert that one day the bosses and billionaires will spend a little time of their own on the unemployment line—after the working people of New York City have taken control.
And then we will turn that old building in the Bronx (you know, the one that used to be the Stella D’Oro bakery) into a must-see destination, marked on every tourist map, a shrine which pilgrims can visit in their millions to learn, remember, offer a tribute to your struggle—writing, thereby, an alternative ending to the story of Stella D’Oro.
And the poem that you have composed for us during this strike year of 2008/2009 will touch their hearts as each one listens to its words— overflowing with your humanity, the many-thousand acts of sacrifice and sharing, the comradeship, the sheer magnitude of what one, small, courageous work-place was able to achieve and finally understand.
