Post strike relations: Was trust lost? If so, can it be restored? My story.

News is coming out today that union workers plan to end their walkout against Verizon Communications.  There has been screaming and yelling and throwing bad names and bus pickets in front of executive's houses.  Hateful sayings have been hurled.

Bad memories come up whenever I hear of strikes.   You see, in my sophomore year of high school our teachers went on strike.  I remember going home and asking, "What's a scab,"  for it was being screamed at me by math and science teachers who just days before were on a respected pedestal.   The Honor Students, ( yep I was one) were teaching the younger students.  New York State Regents exams didn't care about a strike.  Those exams go on state wide so one community can not reschedule.

I remember, like it was yesterday, a teacher throwing a tomato at our school bus window as we went to the other school.  "Who are those people?," I remember thinking.

The strike came to an end.

It seemed so strange to sit in the classroom and look at the teacher in the front of the room.  I was sick to my stomach.  I was always taught to respect people in authority and elders; but I was truly troubled.  it was hard to concentrate.

That experience left a gouge on my heart.  I never regained the respect I once held for the teachers who were so rude to me and my fellow students.They didn't even acknowledge it.  This was my education-it could not be put on hold. The education I got during that time has stuck with me.

So as these union employees go back to work-I wonder what issues will be in the workplace by people who drove into work and through the picket lines, feelings by the people whose children were pulled indoors as bus loads of people emptied onto their quiet neighborhood street to picket.

Be a shareholder, vote out those members of management you don't want.

How will cross departments meetings flow?  Was trust lost between the two "sides?"  Where was the customers' voice in all of this?  If lost, can trust be restored?  As we know, trust, once broken, never returns to the same level .

It's a sad situation.  Respect and communication without agendas except for the customers' should be simple.   Even designers will tell you that a simple working design is the hardest.