Atlas Shrugs Off Local 369 at Moncure Plywood

While the members of Local 369 were on the picket line, they faced the twin challenges of losing their jobs and enduring financial instability. They also had the theological challenge of confronting management while sorting out the meaning of authority as faithful Christians. As an outcome of the strike, they emerged with a labor ethic that combined evangelical belief and practice with picket line solidarity. Once the workers ended the nine-month strike, this labor ethic emerged anew in the struggle against post-strike management tactics that were designed to destroy the union inside the plant. Biblically based ethical principles and theology informed their struggle inside the plant. This struggle, in turn, shaped how they thought about the Bible, theology, and ethics. The evangelical union members at Moncure Plywood understood that faith commitments apply equally to the job and on the picket line. The sale of their plant to a private equity firm was not their decision, but they had to live with the consequences. Despite their lack of power over the sale, they tried to shape its outcome, especially when they grasped that their very existence as a union and as a family of workers would end.