This paper describes the context and conditions leading up to the November 1998 Jersey City Education Association (JCEA) strike, including the JCEA's history, state takeover of the district, and constraints in New Jersey's collective bargaining law that hampered the union's ability to address teacher dissatisfaction with curricular issues that were non-negotiable by state law. The author argues teachers used the contract and strike process to protect their pride in craft. A key aspect of this process was developing a new language and vocabulary to describe the union's role and teachers' needs as workers. The process was influenced by changed relationships between union leaders and teachers and by one local teacher educator's intervention. The circumstances of the strike demonstrate that contract negotiations, even when state law narrowly defines the scope of collective bargaining, can provide a context in which teachers redefine their self-interest. Teachers employ the union as a vehicle for struggle, developing a heightened sense of agency and expanding the definition of "self-interest." They simultaneously inform and are informed by a union leadership they trust to defend their economic interests, in a process that redefines the roles of union, the membership, and individual teachers in effecting school change. (Contains 54 references.) (SM)