In this article, I reflect on my experience as an active rank and file member of CUPE 3903, the union representing contract faculty and graduate students at York University in Toronto, Ontario, during the 2018 York University Strike, where I volunteered as a front-line communicator, or “car talker”. Drawing on these experiences, I reflect on the ways in which picketers generally try to (un)manage the emotions of drivers passing through the picket line. My analysis is focused on a particular venue - the Shoreham picket line located at the southwest entrance of the university, and centers around my personal interactions with the drivers crossing the picket line during the morning hours from March 2018 to May 2018. My analysis aims to open up space to discuss the largely overlooked role that the emotions of the public play in shaping the picket line experience. In particular, I provide a multi-directional analysis of the encounters that occurred between the picketers and the general public at the Shoreham picket line during the 2018 strike, highlighting the multiplicity of variables, such as the environment, the pre-existing beliefs of the participants, and expressions of collective anger, which informed these encounters. In doing this, I illuminate the complexity of the intertwined relationship between emotional and cognitive framing, thereby providing a more comprehensive model for understanding the role that emotions play in social movement organizing.
Cognitive Framing Illusions and Consumer Rationality