Fic: Um...Labor Union Slash. Implied. Implied Non-Con. Pre-Great War.
(EDIT: Screening is now off on this post.)
Okay, so merriman and I have a bad habit.
We go to libraries on our Day Off. We go and poke around The Basement.
Last time we found a bunch of weird ex-Nazi-owned things - the strangest bookplates ever. I should have taken one out to scan it.
This time? Old copies of The Industrial Worker from 1909. This was - and still is - a radical left Labor Union paper, associated with the IWW. Back in the early days there was a lot of Hardcore Communism proposed, some Anarchy, and yet a few businesses (prior to the Great War) still decided to advertise with them. More power to them, I suppose. There were poems and some pretty crappy cartoons and a lot of 'field reports,' wherein workers reported on the job conditions. (Generally 'bad'.)
She found a poem entitled 'Vice in the Fruit Harvest.' We didn't write anything more down than the title. (She also found a letter signed by 'Tom Smith, Hobo Agitator,' which she promptly decided was a title she wanted to have.)
I was bored. The title of the poem begged for something Very Wrong to be written. I've tried to match the style of the weird, mostly-literate but not great writers, style of the letters/'field reports.'
----
Vice in the Fruit Harvest!
Fellow Workers, this account stands as a WARNING to keep away from the DEMONIC Slave-Drivers in the Rockford area fruit harvest. We two Workers first found the fruit harvest to be a fairly pleasant Job, commendable - they claimed no problems hiring IWW workers, grub in the nearby town cheap and okay, sleep under the trees - but one night we found out THE TRUTH!!!
Workers, we two IWW members were sleeping comfortably in the grass beneath the pear trees when I - but not my companion - was waked by the foreman. It was near mid-night by the moon, and he did not seem panicked. I asked "Is there a fire?" I presumed he was rousting us in a sudden fit of Capitalism, to send us off without pay. Then I saw something else and I thought to myself, That is a Weapon, a Hammer or Club which he is holding beneath his long Jacket, and he means to Beat us, as well.
Those younger Workers who ally themselves with us would be cautioned against reading further.
What he drew forth was NOT! a Weapon of Pure Sort - the Sort a Worker Himself has had a hand in making - but rather a Weapon of Nature. When he drew forth that Staff, I stood, startled, and grabbed my fellow Worker by the arm to wake him.
"If you two fine workers," said the beastly Slave-Driver, "would care to make a few extra dollars..." he began. We told him we did not stand for such Crimes against Nature. He told us he still held our pay for the Week, and if we wanted it, we would do as asked.
Oh, Fellow Workers! The ABUSE we suffer for pay! Not only do we Work, but we bear the threat of Violence and Venereal Disease! For what this boss did to us Workers was an ABOMINATION. My companion to this day cannot sleep a full night, and he is constantly afraid a man - even a Fellow Worker! - may come up behind him, thrust his hands and staff into his trousers, and Assault him. The fear this Slave Driver has put us through is far worse than any money can compensate for. There can be NO WAGE GREAT ENOUGH for this especial Slavery!
- Beaten Beyond Our Liberties, Spokane Area
Okay, so merriman and I have a bad habit.
We go to libraries on our Day Off. We go and poke around The Basement.
Last time we found a bunch of weird ex-Nazi-owned things - the strangest bookplates ever. I should have taken one out to scan it.
This time? Old copies of The Industrial Worker from 1909. This was - and still is - a radical left Labor Union paper, associated with the IWW. Back in the early days there was a lot of Hardcore Communism proposed, some Anarchy, and yet a few businesses (prior to the Great War) still decided to advertise with them. More power to them, I suppose. There were poems and some pretty crappy cartoons and a lot of 'field reports,' wherein workers reported on the job conditions. (Generally 'bad'.)
She found a poem entitled 'Vice in the Fruit Harvest.' We didn't write anything more down than the title. (She also found a letter signed by 'Tom Smith, Hobo Agitator,' which she promptly decided was a title she wanted to have.)
I was bored. The title of the poem begged for something Very Wrong to be written. I've tried to match the style of the weird, mostly-literate but not great writers, style of the letters/'field reports.'
----
Vice in the Fruit Harvest!
Fellow Workers, this account stands as a WARNING to keep away from the DEMONIC Slave-Drivers in the Rockford area fruit harvest. We two Workers first found the fruit harvest to be a fairly pleasant Job, commendable - they claimed no problems hiring IWW workers, grub in the nearby town cheap and okay, sleep under the trees - but one night we found out THE TRUTH!!!
Workers, we two IWW members were sleeping comfortably in the grass beneath the pear trees when I - but not my companion - was waked by the foreman. It was near mid-night by the moon, and he did not seem panicked. I asked "Is there a fire?" I presumed he was rousting us in a sudden fit of Capitalism, to send us off without pay. Then I saw something else and I thought to myself, That is a Weapon, a Hammer or Club which he is holding beneath his long Jacket, and he means to Beat us, as well.
Those younger Workers who ally themselves with us would be cautioned against reading further.
What he drew forth was NOT! a Weapon of Pure Sort - the Sort a Worker Himself has had a hand in making - but rather a Weapon of Nature. When he drew forth that Staff, I stood, startled, and grabbed my fellow Worker by the arm to wake him.
"If you two fine workers," said the beastly Slave-Driver, "would care to make a few extra dollars..." he began. We told him we did not stand for such Crimes against Nature. He told us he still held our pay for the Week, and if we wanted it, we would do as asked.
Oh, Fellow Workers! The ABUSE we suffer for pay! Not only do we Work, but we bear the threat of Violence and Venereal Disease! For what this boss did to us Workers was an ABOMINATION. My companion to this day cannot sleep a full night, and he is constantly afraid a man - even a Fellow Worker! - may come up behind him, thrust his hands and staff into his trousers, and Assault him. The fear this Slave Driver has put us through is far worse than any money can compensate for. There can be NO WAGE GREAT ENOUGH for this especial Slavery!
- Beaten Beyond Our Liberties, Spokane Area