When you open that hospital statement and feel that cold sense of dread.
When you don’t know how that utility bill is going to get paid.
When the state agency never picks up the phone, but never fails to call to collect.
When your job cuts your hours, your pay, your benefits, randomly assigns you new tasks, lays you off, fires you for no reason.
When your job disappears and magically reappears overseas, and the company makes billions.
When you’re so tired you can only go home and recharge only so you can do it all over again.
When your neighborhood looks like it’s been under siege, but the enemy is invisible.
When nothing makes any sense.
When you see a candidate on television talk about the dignity of work and fair pay, then never do anything about it.
When the party that claims to represent you never actually does.
When the union that claims to represent you only donates to candidates that never actually do, and they keep doing it.
When the union management and the company management look and act all too similar.
When you’re told a union of your own would be “detrimental to morale” but everyone is miserable anyway.
When the company demands you go back during a pandemic, don’t protect you and don’t care.
When the news shows you feel-good stories about how cops spelled out “HOPE” with their cars, but you remember they threw your friend’s family out of their house.
When you feel you’re always on the precipice of having nothing, and you’re so afraid to lose what little you’ve scraped together.
When you hear so many others with the same sleepless nights, the same crying in the bathroom, the exact same hopelessness.
When you realize you’re not alone.
When you’ve had enough of this.
When you have nothing left to lose except your fear.
When you realize that their money comes from you. You create the wealth, they just take it.
When you have that first conversation with a trusted friend or coworker.
When you read that one book that lays it all out.
When you start the secret spreadsheet of trusted people, how much they’ll support you.
When you map out the workplace to prevent leaks.
When you have the strength to reach out and connect.
When you meet for beers and start talking, start listening.
When you risk and lose and lose again, but still keep trying.
When you stop asking permission and start making demands.
When you strike without asking nicely.
When you realize the company are a bunch of cowards.
When you lock arms and join up with other groups.
When there are more of you than them by a thousand times.
When you’re no longer demanding a raise, you’re demanding the keys to the whole thing or else.
When you’re everywhere, in every city, in every workplace, in every industry.
When you’re not just one anymore, you’re everyone.
What then?
Carl Wilhoyte is the co-editor and co-founder of Zero Balance. His work has appeared in Street Fight Radio, District Sentinel, Abomination Magazine, Bourbon Penn, and Farmhouse Magazine.