Article November 10, 2003 Issue

Protest for HEALTH

By Channing Walker

When grocery workers first went on strike last month in California, it stirred but a ripple of response in our household. None of us drew a paycheck from any of the supermarkets involved, nor did any of our friends. None of us so much as owned a share of stock in any of the affected companies. Our cupboards were fairly full. When we did start shopping, if we felt inclined to honor picket lines, another unpicketed market was close by.

So, why did that slightest of ripples never dissipate to total stillness in my mind? Perhaps because of what the strike was really about. It wasn't about the commonest of strike-triggering issues: wages and job security. It was about healthcare insurance. And for many people, that's synonymous with health itself.

For me, the grocery workers' strike became something of a modernday parable, a symbol of the protest for health. That's a protest that on some intuitive level almost all of us sense we have a right to make. That's a protest reaching far beyond, and going back far before, any union-driven picket lines. That's a protest that, in its best form, plays a key role in Christian healing.