Water Workers Strike

Picketers outside the Baldwin Filtration Plant on Fairhill Road. Ninety Cleveland water plant workers went on strike July 17 after failing to reach a new contract agreement with the city. The union is seeking a retroactive 2 percent pay raise going back to 2007.

Mayor Frank Jackson called the demands unreasonable. Union President Frank Madonia says other city workers have received the same raise. (Photograph by Pamela Zoslov)

It ain’t quite this simple, so I better explain
Just why you got to ride on the union train;
‘Cause if you wait for the boss to raise your pay,
We’ll all be waiting till Judgment Day;
We’ll all he buried -- gone to Heaven --
Saint Peter’ll be the straw boss then.

-- excerpt, "Talking Union Blues" by Millard Lampell, Lee Hayes and Pete Seeger