Customer Reviews

Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983 (Ilr Press Books)

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Barbara Kingsolver was a young reporter in Arizona when she was assigned to write a story about this strike. Little did she know then that the strike would last for eighteen months, and that this book would be a natural outgrowth of her interest. The book is filled with facts and figures as well as the stories of people who bravely "held the line" each day, picketing against the "scab" workers that were brought in by the Phelps Dodge Copper Corporation. It's also the story of a town, where the only work was in the mine. And it's also about the generations of Mexican American citizens of that town who had to fight prejudice as well as the everyday dangers inherent in mining.

Most of all though, it is the story of the women and how this strike broadened their understanding of the world beyond their families, and let them develop new strengths. For it was mostly the women who stood on that picket line - the wives, sisters and mothers of the men who would have been arrested. Families were threatened with eviction. There was even a catastrophic flood during this time, which brought its own kind of devastation. And some of the women were arrested too. But despite intimidation, tear gas and harassment, the community stood firm.

I was particularly interested in the stories of the handful of women who actually worked in the mine. One of them had 11 children but needed the work to be able to help her husband support the family. Eight dollars an hour doesn't seem like much, but it was considered a good wage compared with $3.00 an hour for being a secretary. Several of them described the actual work, including the heavy lifting all day long and sometimes working as many as 28 days in a row. Their male co-workers verbally harassed them. And there was no special restroom for women. Eventually though, they won respect.

But when the corporation wanted to cut wages and eliminate even a cost-of-living increase, the strike started. It went on and on. Ms. Kingsolver goes into all the details. It was fascinating. It was if I was just picked up from my New York City apartment and plunked down on the picket line of a little town that had less people than one apartment building on my block.

The eventual result wasn't very good for anybody though. Not in the usual sense. But by the time the author gives her own spin on the situation, including her feminist politics, I was left with a positive feeling, as was her intention. I learned things from this book. I learned about a copper mine in Arizona, the actual jobs and the people who worked there. I learned about the large and imperfect system of unions in this country. And, most of all, I learned about the strength and courage of a few special women.

Barbara Kingsolver is one of the, if not the, greatest writers ever produced by America, maybe, the world. With care and compassion, she writes a thorough account of the mine strike of 1983 in Southern Arizona. During the height of the Cold War, while Reagan was calling the Soviet Union and Communism, the "evil empire," things which Americans thought went on "only over there" were happening in Southern Arizona. Hard-working people who did no more than stand up for there rights, were denied their right to assemble, to speak, to pursue life, liberty and happiness. Judges, Governor Bruce Babbitt, Department of Public Safety, the National Guard, and the local authorities, all in the pocket and payroll of Phelps Dodge Copper Corporation who was trying to break up the Unions, so they could re-institute racist, sexist, classist, policies.

They all failed. The Morenci Mine Women's Auxiliary led the way to community solidarity against all odds. More than any strike victory, they gained, life, confidence, and a purpose in life. Read this book, it's told in the form of interviews and narrative. You'll get to know and have affection for Anna O'Leary, Flossie Navarro, Berta Chavez, and many other women of Clifton, Arizona. You'll root for them, be inspired by them, and, be moved by them. What a wake up call! Working people of the world, UNITE!

In "Holding the Line", author Barbara Kingsolver ("The Poisonwood Bible", "Animal Dreams") offers us an account of the strike at the 1983 Morenci Copper Mine in Arizona. Kingsolver was working as a reporter at the time and spent quite a bit of time with the women involved in the strike. She gives the reader a different perspective on the strike; and on strikes in general. "Holding the Line" focuses on the women involved in the strike and how the strike affected them, and also just how much influence they held during the strike. Kingsolver admits her bias early on in the preface, so the reader knows from the start that the author personally sides with the strikers against the company, Phelps Dodge.

After spending decades slowing winning better pay, better working conditions and opportunities for women and minorities, the union works are the Morenci Copper Mine are dealt a new blow and a new challenge: At the end of their current contract, Phelps Dodge claims that they are losing money and the new contract the offer is with reduced wages and the elimination of a Cost of Living Expense for its workers. The way the workers have traditionally won concessions and what should be considered "human rights" (here I show my bias) is through a strike. The union workers walked off the job at the end of their contract and thus began an 18 month standoff between the workers and the giant Phelps Dodge, which almost immediately began bringing in scab labor to try to break the strike and break the union.

In a culture where women have traditionally been at home, "barefoot in the kitchen", the women in Morenci and the other nearby mining towns began to get involved. At first it was just to assist their husbands, but as the strike continued and the police and the National Guard are called in and start abusing their power, the women become a true force. They became the glue that held the strike together, and in the process found a sense of empowerment that they never would have discovered otherwise. Kingsolver showed how this strike helped to better shape the community and brought the women together. She also shows, through the eyes and stories of these women, exactly what Phelps Dodge and the "authorities" were doing, and it wasn't good.

"Holding the Line" is a powerful book with a stunning story. Barbara Kingsolver took what I thought was going to be a dry subject and brought it to life. The reader is able to get a sense of the outrage and frustration and triumphs of these women as Phelps Dodge tries to grind their lives into the dust and break the back of the union. But, the women became the backbone of the local union, and they were unbreakable. To say that this book is a story of true triumph in the face of a corporate giant would be to mischaracterize it, however, because that isn't what this story is and it isn't what the end result happened to be. But, it is a story that I had never heard and one that deserved to be told.

-Joe Sherry

I will never view law enforcement or the judicial system the same way again. A real eye-opener for those with no experience with unions. The story of heros persuing the American dream...

I could hardly believe what I read. It's is amazing how this "novel" is treated as a serious work, but it is merely a story, loosely based on the events. Worst of all, it is based completely on angry spiteful stories. She makes these people out to be heroes, but she ignores those that brought their children to the picket line with their hands taped to hold up their middle finger, those brandishing pistols to kill the scabs (all of this caught on network news). She ignores the violence of the strikers driving through the cities randomly shooting into homes, including shooting a young child at home asleep in bed. If these are heroes, I am a little worried.
I was there, before, during and after. My family worked there, before, during and after. She quotes Fina Roman complaining of being tear-gassed, yet ignores why. The strikers were armed and storming the plant with threats to kill. Ask why my father and brother were forced to sleep in the mine because it was unsafe to leave the plant. Ask me about having a baseball bat taken to my vehicle and cups of urine thrown at me while driving through the gate in a non-union position.
I grew up with the union. My father had always been union. Seeing this event is why I have never again been supportive of the unions. At a time when copper was priced incredibly low, Phelps Dodge made a compromise to keep the mine open and keep jobs. These "heroes" bit the hand that fed them. Look around at all of the ghost towns where industry used to be. Those are in places that aren't right to work states.
After the strike, the lowest salaries were in the $10/hour range, back in the early 80s. This was after the Phelps Dodge "drastic" pay cuts. Medical insurance included a $10 and $15 co-pay, but otherwise fully funded. The salaries and benefits from there over 20 years ago would be welcome in many places today. The reason why the company was able to hire people to fill the striking worker's jobs is because everyone from outside of this mentality could see how good the jobs and salaries were compared to the alternative. That's not to say the company was all virtuous and without fault. In this case, though, the company shares little righteous blame.
So, if you want to read this book, see it for what it is. It is not an accurate retelling in any way. The author makes no effort to identify even a common ground, but uses spiteful, vindictive stories to try to satisfy an anti-"Corporate America" image.

If you like Kingsolver you'll like this, even though it's non-fiction. It's a great story, very well told. If you're unfamiliar with her works, you might want to start with her non-fiction (Animal Dreams, Bean Trees, Pigs in Heaven, etc.). Not because this isn't as good but to enjoy her wonderful and unique voice as a writer.

This book details the struggles of the women miners of Arizona. Their hardships were projected beautifuly by Barbara Kingsolver's use of descriptive words. Her often wild style threw me off a couple of times and her other work kind of worried me about the content of this book. I was pleasently surprised by "Holding the Line : Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983".

If you expect anything even approaching an objective and truthful retelling or analysis of the Phelps Dodge strike, you'll be sadly disappointed. Kingsolver picks a series of unsubstantiated and self-interested stories of the strikers and completely ignores the horrible violence committed by the unions.

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