The Strike

By May Kwek

This poem is based off a scene in the 1855 book North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. In the scene, there is a strike and when the strikers hear that their employer had tried to break the strike by hiring non union Irish workers, they riot outside his home and he comes out to face them. 

In that time they referred to employers as Masters and I have kept it in my poem. 

The situation

The air isn’t dark but it rumbles

The sun shines but there is fear

People run and shout, demanding things

Yet oddly their demands are clear

It’s a strike turned into a riot

“Raise our wages!” they declare

And the Master emerges from his house

And fixes them with his stare

We pause the scene for a moment

Let’s enter each of their minds

The Master and the workers

And see what we might find

The Master

They call me cruel, so many have

Unfeeling, uncaring, proud

Look at them, my workers

What a rowdy crowd

I have done an honest business

Indeed I truly have

But it doesn’t run on charity

Indeed it couldn’t have

It must make money, it must

Or else everything will end

So I cannot raise wages

I am being squeezed on both ends

If I fail, and I might

This whole place will shut down

Everyone here that I support

Will be squashed into the ground

I have hundreds of livelihoods

Dependent on that monthly check

It’s my duty to keep it coming

Even if enough it lacks

I have spent the money

Keeping the air they breathe clear

Lost both pounds and pennies

So that they can still be here

Yet, it’s not enough, it wasn’t enough

I have done all I can

What more do you ask of me?

I am just a man

The worker

I have slogged long and hard

Days and nights I slaved away

To put food on the table

To live till the next day

I cough, I fall ill

I came to work anyway

Life is too short, too precarious

To afford to waste that day

I have given my life

So that I can keep living

If not for me then for my family

Who are at home starving

I have given all I have

For this measly check

These meagre pennies

Aren’t equal what I can’t take back

It’s not enough to live on

My back’s against the wall

I’ve tried everything

Everything! Every and all!

Yet, it’s not enough, it wasn’t enough

I have done all I can

What more do you ask of me?

I am just a man

The Conclusion

The scene is still paused dear readers

I cannot will it to move

For peeking into both their thoughts

I find that I’m confused

For I came here expecting

To support the weak and disparage the strong

But I found a situation so terrible

And no one really wrong

Copyright © 2017 by May Kwek