THOMAS THE TANK ENGINE GOES ON STRIKE:
(A Children's Story for Young Wobblies)

It was darktime in the land of Sodor. The moon loomed low in the early morning sky. Thomas puffed slowly to the Tidmouth Sheds, pistons knocking and clattering where his buffer had fallen off once again.

"Joe Hill's Ashes!" Thomas exclaimed to his friends, "Today is the last straw!"

He had so much to tell Percy, who had to remain in his shed after his boiler exploded. Poor Percy, he was still shaking from the shock of the explosion.

That morning Gordon, the biggest and fastest engine, had been driving himself as fast as he could go to make up time after Sir Topham Hatt had erred in his schedule. Sir Topham Hatt often made errors and invariably placed the blame on the poor hard-working engines who had made him and his stockholders so much profit. This morning, Gordon was forced to pull a long line of overloaded freight cars that wobbled and rocked along the trackway. Sir Topham Hatt had ordered Gordon to disregard the "slow speed" signals along his route.

The engines had warned Sir Topham Hatt again and again that the old wooden bridge over the river gorge was in severe disrepair, but he had ignored their warnings in his repacious pursuit of more profits. As Gordon flew onto the bridge, he felt it shudder and begin to buckle, but he was going much too fast to avoid disaster. He reached the center of the span just as it collapsed and plunged Gordon and his frightened freight cars down into the gorge. The obsolete wooden freight cars had no chance and were dashed to pieces on the rocks below. Gordon was luckier. He plunged into the river and stayed in one piece, although severely damaged.

The direct main route around the island of Sodor was severed with the bridge's collapse and Thomas and his friends were forced onto the longer and steeper side tracks to complete their normally lengthy and arduous runs. In addition, they had to shoulder Gordon's heavy burden by putting on more freight cars to make up for his lost cars, even though they were smaller and weaker.

That was why all of the engines were limping back to the sheds, long after their work day was to have ended. As they met together to share their days painful experiences, James sighed and informed them that Gordon had been raised and towed to the scrapyard to be cut up and melted down in the foundry.

Edward exclaimed, "That is Sir Topham Hatt's answer to our pleas to be pensioned off and retired once we are worn out and unable to perform as 'Really Useful Engines'. He always uses Gordon's speedy pace over all our heads, saying, 'Why can't you all be Really Useful Engines like Gordon?' "

"Really Useful Stakhanovite* Engines, is what he means.", said Thomas' cars Annie and Clarabell together. [*Under Stalin, a Stakhanovite was a Soviet industrial worker awarded recognition and special privileges for speeding up production and forcing other workers to keep pace.]

"Alone, each of us will wind up on the scrap heap when we are no longer able to increase profits for Sir Topham Hatt and his corporate cronies." declared Thomas, "Direct Action is our only alternative. For too long, we have had our begging and pleading for changes gone unanswered! We must stop work until our demands are met! Linked together drive shaft to drive shaft with extinguished boiler fires, we shall be invincible!"

"No more pitting us one against another.", added Rosie, "We need to form a strike committee to present our demands. Uniting under the banner of the Industrial Workers of the World ("IWW"), we will have the experience and support of other workers to back our demands. And they commenced to draft their list of demands.

"First of all, we demand that Gordon be repaired and brought back to us whole. An Injury to One, Is an Injury to All.", cried Percy, "Repairs to all of us must be completed before we return to work!, "

"An end to unsafe working conditions and the elimination of hazardous worksites", chimed in Edward.

"A limit on the length of our workdays with longer breaks to fill our boilers and catch our steam," added Donald and Douglas.

"More wages!", cried Toby the Tram Engine, ".Dare we even demand an Abolition to the Wage System?"

"We have that already" said Rosie, "We don't get any wages now."

"Sir Topham Hatt thinks he can push me around because I wasn't allowed to be as vocal as you, Thomas." said Emily, "I demand to be heard and treated the same as any other engine."

"Unless we all support one another's demands, none of us will be able to change the way we are treated", stated Thomas,

Most of all, they all agreed, "We must work towards being able to make those workplace decisions that affect us the most. We are the railroad - we know how to run it - and it cannot run without us. For now, we must demand equal participation in those decisions, but later....."

"We cannot be 'given' these rights. What is 'given' can also be taken away. Our rights to determine our own workplace lives is non-negotiable. Only the strength of our union will insure they will never be taken away from us again."

The next morning, Sir Topham Hatt came running into the Tidmouth Yard shouting angrily, "You are all naughty engines! Really Useful Engines do not disobey orders! If you do not return to work at once, I shall take away your privileges!"

"What privileges?, said Emily, "Even Santa Claus brings more coal to bad engines than you provide to us!"

Muttering threats, Sir Topham Hatt returned to his office and called together his stockholders.

"They cannot hold out for long" he told them, "Once they discover that they can be replaced, they will meekly beg to go back to work at whatever conditions we demand. We simply have to find other temporary means to perform their tasks until then."

Meanwhile, Thomas and his friends were busy telling others about their strike. Bertie the Bus, and even Harold the Helicopter, agreed to honor their strike and to organize other road vehicles and aircraft to refuse to cross their rails or carry their freight or passengers.

"If they are allowed to continue to abuse you", Bertie the Bus exclaimed, "then they will feel free to continue to abuse us."

"If you win with our support" said Harold the Helicopter, then we will make similar demands and will look forward to your support in our struggle. That's what Solidarity Unionism is all about."

Sir Topham Hatt rapidly discovered that finding ways to replace the striking engines was not so easy. He even sought foreign engines on the mainland to bring to Sodor. However, both Bulstrode the Barge and Sodor Bay Tug Boat had passed the word about the strike on to the freighters crossing the sea from the mainland. In transit, the freighters told the engines about the strike and what was at stake. The foreign engines agreed not to scab but to join with the strikers once they reached Sodor. That Bulstrode the Barge threatened to jettison them if they did not agree, may have also played a part among the more recalcident.

On the docks, Cranky the Crane and Salty recognized their working class interests and also joined the strike. Shipments at the docks began to pile up. Those few freight shipments that left the docks, somehow either arrived damaged at their destination long after they were supposed to have arrived, or were found to have been delivered far across the island from their designated destination.

Ships filled with cargo containers began to accumulate in the bay, at least those whose containers had remained on board on the voyage across the sea.

Finally, as word of the strike spread, foreign docks refused to even load containers on board ships that were destined for Sodor.

At last, as the best of endings happens in Sodor even in the worst of circumstances. the stockholders recognized the greater strength of the engines and their union. They capitulated to all their demands. Sir Topham Hatt was sacked and was last seen wearing overalls, carrying an oil can in the transfer yard.

The engines themselves elected representatives to assume his role and, with the participation of them all, began to participate in those workplace decisions that concerned their lives.

While the railroad's stockholders agreed to limits on their say over the railroad and to share its income, they still retained ultimate ownership and control of the railroad ------ at least for this strike victory.

[Postscript: After the strike had been won, all of the engine's engineers, conductors, firemen, brakemen, and all the yard mechanics and technicians agreed that they indeed had won for themselves as well, everything that the engines had won.]