In short, I was reading an article (sorry, I don’t have it on hand, it was in a doctors office), about the similarities between the 19th Century workers bargaining structure and the present’s bargaining structure.
It was saying that its now returned to ‘the worker must prove themselves’ and show value to the company, and how its a lot less controlled legislation wise, meaning the capital owners have the power, much like the 19th Century.
This interested me, because I always believed we had made good progress in this kind of stuff. So why exactly do we have similarities to our 150 years the former?
Put shortly, businesses make the political contributions and have the lobbyists, so the laws have been gradually (since 1950 or so) changed to strip workers of all power.
Also, globalization has made it easier for businesses to do their work overseas, eliminating jobs in the US. For the few jobs remaining, supply and demand takes over, resulting in lowered pay.
There is no comparison at all between workers’ status 150 years ago and today. This is true both in the U.S. and in other industrialized countries.
150 years there were no unions, no collective bargaining, no sick leave, no health benefits, no safety rules and regulations. There were longer work weeks and no overtime. You could be discriminated against for any reason, fired for any infraction or none at all. There was no recourse.
The government did not have any standards, any laws covering workers, any laws covering industries. (“Any” is a slight exaggeration, but so close to reality as to not make a noticeable difference.) The courts did not support workers at any time, considering that they had entered into a private contract.
None of these things are true today. The legislation of the past decade has not been favorable to workers, but it has not rolled back any of these advances. In fact, most have continued to be strengthened in law and in court.
There have been economic changes, to be sure. Just as housing cycles between buyers’ markets and sellers’ markets, employment cycles between workers’ markets and owners’ markets. We are in an owners’ market today, at least in the U.S. But any similarity to the status of workers 150 years ago is of the most superficial sort. It doesn’t pass the laugh test, as they say.
Many think this is pro worker, but it was actually adopted by businesses t stop courts from awarding damages to injured workers at the turn of the century.
Most unions still protect workers from abusive management and contract violations. On the other hand, you don’t hear much about unions stong enough to maintain union staffing and rules regardless of conditions (“featherbedding”) and other such things. It seems like there are fewer strikes also.
Tactics such as strikes worked better when companies were smaller. Companies are larger now (“you guys don’t want to work we’ll build our widgets in Mexico”) and the marketplace is global. It’s OK to want $26 an hour to build red wagons and the company to sell them for $240 until a Chinese company is willing to make them and sell them in your country for $40. Union leaders see this also and many work with their companies to maintain competitiveness. This often translates into loss of union jobs and more flexibility in work rules.
As for legislation, I’m not sure much has changed but psychologically, a lot changed when Reagan fired the air traffic controllers in 1981. More companies seemed to play hardball after that.
As Exapno pointed out, many benifits won by unions are now government policy. We’re not going to see OHSA going away anytime soon. More needs to be done to protect worker pensions.
But are the good old days coming back when showing up was enough? I doubt it.
If you get the chance, read “Rivethead : Tales from the Assembly Line” by Ben Hamper. It chronicles some of this.