The Last Noble Protest
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THE LAST NOBLE PROTEST
(Sociology of Labor Unions)
“The labor movement means just this: It is the last noble protest of the American people against the power of incorporated wealth.” Wendell Phillips
Introduction to Sociology
THE LAST NOBLE PROTEST
(Sociology of Labor Unions)
If one is to give any credence to Darwinistic theories of history, then mankinds time on this planet has been dominated by a fundamental struggle for power and survival. This is inherent to the nature of humanity. War, oppression, greed, and many things condemned by ethicists, are all a natural part of the genetic nature of man. “It is not a uniquely human proclivity at all. It comes from something both sub- and superhumana brutality that speaks to us through the animals in our brain. If man has contributed anything…He has [only] learned to dream of peace.” (Bloom) There have always been predators and prey, but more importantly, there have always been masters and slaves, as well as those that have and those that have not.
The existence of dominance or of a pecking order is one of the primary traits of any pack or herd animal; and humans are a prime example of a social pack animal. The development away from small pack-like tribes to large, impersonalized civilization does not erase that from our basic nature, so one should not be surprised that dominance orders turned into class orders, and that dominance struggles became class struggles. If one is to take a conflict-theory view on history, class struggle has always been with us, driving the forces throughout history. The writings of Karl Marx (1818-1883) show history as a continuous struggle between the owners and the workers. It was the owners who controlled both the property and wealth; and by using those things combined with their status and power, it allowed them to define a dominant ideology that served their own interests as the ruling class. “A struggle is going on in all the nations of the civilized world between the oppressors and the oppressed of all countries, a struggle between the capitalist and the laborer…” (Marot, 2) In the recent era, one very visible arena for class struggle has been the presence and activity of the labor union.
Emerging during the Industrial Revolution, the labor union represented an attempt on the part of the “lower” working class to band together through organization and cooperation in an effort to dominate the “upper” industrialist or ruling class. In a democratic sense, of course, this seems fair because the lower classes are much more heavily populated than the upper classes (the logical result of any pack-style chain of status), and according to democratic principles, the majority should rule. However, evolutionary pack principles say otherwise. They say that the strongest, smartest and most shrewd should rule. Thus, the working class has sought to dominate through number and democratic theory as personified in labor unions and other similar organizations. Meanwhile, the ruling classes responded by attempting to maintain their advantage, power and control through force and strategy.
If one is to look at the world and the history of the labor union movement, it is easy to see that it is the story of a class struggle. Looking closely, one can also see the ways in which industry and the ruling class first attempted to overcome this challenge to their dominance with both physical and social force, but failed. That failure was followed by a second attempt to overcome the labor union threat by way of strategic manipulation. History shows that this second attempt was largely successful. Issues of class and worker solidarity and organization were almost universal as little as 60 years ago, and double that 100 years ago. However, in todays world, manipulated by the strategic planning of industry, class-based discussion is almost non-existent, and worker solidarity is increasingly cast aside or rejected by the very workers most in need of it. Industry has done its job well; the activist, revolutionary labor union appears to be all but dead. What remains appears to be a shell of its former self, as many labor unions have developed into a bureaucracy ruled by an elected few who may be more concerned with their own positions of leadership (including influence and power) than with the concerns of the membership they represent. What follows is a discussion of these two attempts to destroy the labor union movement, and the way in which those attempts have manipulated the lives and consciousness of the world of the working class.
One must of course, take into consideration the historical realities of extreme physical, legal and economic violence against the working class on the part of the industrial or ruling class. Secondly, one must also face the realities of today where obvious violence has been replaced by subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, psychological manipulation aimed at destroying the conversation and dialogue of class, along with the urge to join together in labor unions. This is done several ways, but most blatantly by the tendency of industry and industrial media/politicians to claim that labor unions were at one time a positive force, but that they have since “won” their battle and are now outdated. However, they are at the same time promoting working conditions that in many cases are worse than those of 50 years ago, all the while blaming the resulting hardships on the labor unions themselves. More subtly, the way the industrial conglomerate of the media (as per Perucci & Wysong) fails to portray or take seriously any discussion of class, or serious discussion of the rights and complaints of workers quietly promotes the annihilation of class-consciousness, providing the working class with a “zero image” of themselves.
Thanks to the degree with which the media has succeeded in the “colonization of consciousness” (Perucci & Wysong, 263-4), popular culture is permeated with the impression that labor unions breed violence. This is of course true, but only to the same extent and degree that a battered woman is breeding violence when she “talks back” to her abusive husband. Unlike many battered women though, the individuals involved