CHRISTCHRUCH – The ongoing workers strike at Gordons Pickles pickle factory in Wigram launched at the beginning of the month has only escalated at a similar pace to the escalating average global gayness as the month of June continues, each day being gayer and more communist than the last.
As has already been widely reported in New Zealand but, typically, will not be reported even in Australia for a day or so, this morning the striking workers ejected a gang of scabs and seized control of the factory in its entirety, barricading the doors, threatening local police with crudely fashioned and stolen weapons, and informing the press that they had taken several hostages.
Worker’s Spatula are reporting as the first news team to gain entry into the factory since control of it was seized by its labourers. The armed forces of the revolutionary proletariat within immediately agreed to our correspondent’s request for entry, but the bourgeois cops would only allow for safe entry in exchange for the release of one badly beaten hostage, who turned out to be a forklift operator.
Led by two masked young women through the darkened pickle factory, our Spatula correspondent quickly noticed that all the pickle factory workers were women. Already inspired by the image of proletarian warriors striking at the patriarchy and the capitalist order which rests upon it, our correspondent was shocked when, upon entering a central office for an interview with the strike leader, they were struck by the uncharacteristic sight of a Sailor Moon poster on the wall above a table containing several pairs of cat ear headphones.
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry, but are any of the workers here trans women?” asked our correspondent.
“Each and every one,” responded the masked woman seated at the table before them, “this is a pickle factory, and beyond that fourth wall we are in a Worker’s Spatula piece.”
“Phenomenal. Phenomenally spirited of you,” gushed our correspondent, “to use Pride Month to seize control of your workplace as trans communist militants. Let me just say: you are just so valid.”
“Yes,” exclaimed the head pickle comrade, “armed occupation is a big part of every trans woman’s #TransitionGoals.”
“What are your demands of the enemy?” enquired our correspondent, sitting down across the table and beginning to jot down notes on a notepad.
Well, when we started the strike, we were after back pay, a livable wage, democratisation of the forklifts, free assorted handkerchiefs, a weekly open mic, and a union. But after things escalated into an armed workplace occupation, we’ve escalated our demands to include the abolition of the New Zealand settler-colonial state and the establishment of a transfeminist matriarchal Socialist Federal Republic of Aotearoa.
But honestly, we’re not trying to go full Mahire Çayan here. We’re willing to go to the negotiating table with the class enemy, but as a gesture of good will of course we’re expecting their starting position to be amnesty and our initial demands.
“Aren’t you worried that the state can starve you out?”
“Well we have the largest supply of pickles and pickle juice in Christchurch behind the barricades here, so starvation and dehydration won’t be an issue even now that they’ve cut off power and water to the building. The bosses will bleed profits until they’re forced to their knees. We are right, we will win.”
“Takbīr,” intoned our correspondent, causing all the assembled trans women workers to chant “ALLAHU AKBAR!” as they pumped their fists in the air most Stalinistly.
With a renewed faith in the growing revolutionary consciousness of the oppressed proletarian masses, our correspondent elected not to leave the factory, but to instead try a low dose of spironolactone while struggling alongside their newfound comrades. Worker’s Spatula stands for nothing if not the liberation of all workers and oppressed, and the just distribution of pickles and other saline snacks to all women whose hormones necessitate them for diverse reasons, and thus was yet another struggle united with the Spatula.
Happy Pride Month from Worker’s Spatula,
and of course:
Workers and oppressed peoples of the world, unite!
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