I am also concerned with the glorification of confrontation and forgetfulness about tragic consequences. Unless we understand the price paid for perceived glory, then we are condemned to suffer tragic consequences. In my view the strike of 1987 was tragic. I don’t believe that all of the workers at Jay permanently losing their jobs was worth some of the subsequent community benefits that could have been achieved through other means, and have been achieved through other means in other communities.

I don’t have a problem with the mural remaining in place. We know that it was created from a specific perspective. While some might say we must have the courage that the workers at Jay had in 1987, other might say we cannot make the same mistakes, and allow tragic situations like this to repeat. Lessons can be learned by thoroughly considering all aspects of the strike of 1987.

I asked in Vince’s first post on the issue if narratives accompanied each panel on the mural. If there were narratives, then I would have liked to know how the situations depicted are portrayed. Vince didn’t think that there were narratives. If narratives depicted only narrow aspects of the situation, then I would have liked to seen broader aspects considered.

I wasn’t aware of the mural until the controversy arose, but panel 10 of 11 caught my interest, the one depicting the strike at IP’s Jay mill in 1987 (for some reason Taylor on her website identifies it as “The Strike of 1986”). This strike has been extensively written about. The conduct of the company, the union and outside organizers contributed to the tragic results: all union workers needlessly lost their jobs, and the mill was restarted as a non union facility in sharp contrast to a another mill owned by a different company which introduced elements of interest based problem solving to resolve issues. The other mill was owned by Champion International and was located in Bucksport, Maine. At the time, I worked for Champion; however, I was not directly involved with these negotiations.

Those who valorize the strike at Jay point out that local-union members helped improve environmental problems at the Jay mill. Case studies have been written about the strike and the subsequent actions, many from an organized union perspective. Environmental improvements elsewhere occurred without the job losses and rancor.

For me this raised the question of what is chosen for inclusion in this type of mural, by whom and why. My guess is that it is much easier to identify hardships brought about through confrontation rather than meaningful gains achieved through collaboration.

Interest based problem solving was refined in ensuing years, including a successful application in Champion’s Sartell Mill in Minnesota in 1995. An interesting discussion of it was published in the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law on March 1, 2003 by Caryn L. Beck-Dudley and Steven H. Hanks, “On Virtue and Peace: Creating A Workplace Where People Can Flourish.” The article concludes as follows,

“The case of the Sartell Mill holds out hope that organizations can choose to become virtuous organizations that exhibit membership, integrity, holism, excellence, and judgment. Before these virtues can result in human flourishing, however, the organization and its participants need to choose to act on the virtue of peaceableness. Because one participant cannot choose peace without the cooperation and choice of peace by other participants, it is imperative that all members of an organization understand the benefits peace can bring. In the case of Sartell Mill, peace brought with it an organization that improved its productivity. It also enabled its employees to live fuller lives and created a place where individuals wanted to work. This, in and of itself, seems to be a worthy goal.”

In Taylor’s mural, it might have been interesting to include a depiction of the negotiations at the neighboring Bucksport Mill which was an early adapter of interest based problem solving. The process did not go smoothly, but going through it helped refine the process and impart a different approach to resolving difficult issues. Sartell was a beneficiary of what transpired at Bucksport, as were other locations. It seems to me that these types of memories might provide alternatives to conflict and confrontation. The selection of what is chosen to remember in artwork does have an impact on how things on done today.