> I'm not disagreeing with you that it's counteproductive, of course, since
> that's why I wrote that they are still slaves in "the long run" because
> "they aren't doing something more constructive to REALLY get they scrilla
> back." The organized ripping off is a secret. You need to be indoctrinated
> into it to even know it's being done. That requires that you demonstrate
> trustworthiness or deserving-ness to whomever is running the show on the
> ceramic tiled restaurant floor.
Yeah, there's solidarity and then there's solidarity.
I've worked a variety of trad. blue-collar jobs over the past 25 years - mostly shipping/receiving, machine shop, assembly or packaging line positions, and none of them union. I'm happy to say that, in my experience, "identifying with management" is only a problem with a very small portion - I'm bad at this sort of estimation, but perhaps 5-8% - of a warehouse or factory workforce.
Instead, there's practically an obligation to grumble, or whine, or bitch outright (up to a point) about immediate management and the company in general. There's certainly social pressure to contribute to the venting. As maddeningly monotonous as it can get, bitching about the company is requisite. Naturally sanguine personalities aside, to neither bitch nor sympathize with the general bitching raises suspicions that you're either (a) appalling enough to have genuinely bought into whatever condescending corporate morale campaign is currently being pitched; or (b) consciously identifying with the boss's p.o.v. in anticipation of reward. Either way the offending party cannot be trusted. This is one reason I feel much more at ease on a factory floor than in an office - though by another measure it's self-defeating (for pretty obvious reasons; see Paul Willis's _Learning to Labour_, e.g., for how working-class behavioral codes work against class interest).
Of course, all kinds of wedges are created by blurring the distinction btwn. labor and management, through committees, recognition programs, positions like "lead," and the ever-vile "team." And recall the controversy over cult studs championing workplace resistance and agency - so what, if organized revolt's been defused? OTOH, if maintaining your own self-respect on the job is a struggle you know intimately, anyone who suggests that you're a wholly-determined cog is a boss, or some other kind of enemy - that's exactly the fate you've beat today (if not "in the long run").
Also a potential enemy is anything that tempts you to make your hopes less guarded.
Probably the patron factor offers the retail/food service employers a useful tool to divert or defuse worker disaffection. But in my experience with unskilled or semi-skilled positions, especially if the work is stationary, much effort goes into simply _making it through_ until the next whatever: machine calibration, line shutdown - anticipating the next smoke, rewarding yourself w/a bathroom break, running something to another dept. cuz you know the supervisor's good for 5 minutes of bullshitting. Micro-scale. So if your habit is to think tactically in minutes, because thinking in hourly terms makes the day drag less bearably, then thinking strategically (as in union campaign, or career) requires a major gear-shift.
There's also the compensating pleasure of doing a job well, or doing it quickly, or efficiently, beating the clock or a personal best. But here's another potentially self-defeating survival tactic; you'll probably attract more responsibility for yourself, while raising the bar for co-workers - who will rightly hold you accountable for it.
Also, churlishness is expressible only up to a point - i.e., short of organized churlishness. Inevitably, when I raise the topic of unionization (which I normally - cautiously - do), it will immediately trigger some tension-reducing quasi-kidding like, "Just don't let anybody else hear you say that, ha ha."
If the conversation continues, it's on these slightly paranoid terms; and yeah, there's a prisoner's dilemma aspect. Also, the concern isn't just that someone might mention the conversation later, whether malevolently or carelessly. People get "called in to the office" all the time for cursing or joke-telling within earshot of the wrong person; for some people, instigating these dramas isn't so much a competition for scraps as a mechanism to relieve boredom, in turn generating the accessory entertainment mechanism of bitching about the miserable jerk who bitched about language or t-shirt, and so on. Lots of backbiting, but not so much scheming, maybe because the rewards are so unsure. But that's Wojtek's atomized Amerika too, I suppose. (The snitch culture of junior high thrives in warehouses!)
Personally, I've never known anyone to be disciplined for discussing unions, nor (from what they've told me) have my coworkers; the (non-agricultural) economy in this area of southcentral PA is mostly service sector (tourism, retail), w/some light industry and a only handful of large unionized workplaces that are notoriously difficult to get into. I know people in unions; but few people I've worked with have had much union experience. Still, the unspoken concern is always that, though you're never sure what _kind_ of trouble talking about unions might cause, you suspect it might be "high transaction cost" trouble - costlier than, say, expressing a common idle fantasy like "I'd love to show up tomorrow with a gun and shoot every motherfucker in this place" - which, btw, I've heard at every warehouse job I've ever had. Because it feels so good to say, I guess...
Certainly I'm aware how company responses to unionization tend to be swift and draconian and illegal, possibly in a way that my less overtly political coworkers are not. But as far as talking about unionization, we're equally cautious, having arrived at similar conclusions about the risks. During my one real serious effort at organizing, there was still plenty of mistrust to go around, and had anyone among the small coterie of supporters burned me, I wouldn't have been entirely surprised. But had they done so cunningly, for personal gain, I would've been shocked.
Which is to say, despite waging the minute-to-minute struggle of making it through the shift, workers still make long-range political assessments and decisions, albeit intuitively - such as resisting the ideal worker persona thrust upon them, or covering for slower, older, or less capable workers, or shunning co-workers who have that pro-company booster mentality. I haven't seen a whole lot of political maneuvering for advancement among warehouse or factory workers; opportunities for gain are limited, the results too unsure. Plus I don't mean to romanticize, but your average semi-skilled laborer is more likely to think in terms of communal lottery ticket purchases when conniving for naked self-gain.
As Joanna mentioned, not identifying with your oppressors makes for a "frustrating, conflicted, and stressful" workday. I'd only add that (a) my co-workers generally don't identify with their oppressors - they accomodate themselves to an alienating system; and (b) their work, too, is stressful and frustrating.
But what they seem not to allow (or admit) themselves to be is conflicted.
Anyway, the point I'd originally set out to make was this: the closest I've ever come to experiencing actual solidarity in a workplace involved an outrageously successful scam resulting in mad, as in felony-level, scrilla - and a happy ending for everyone involved. It may be going on still, for all I know. It was meticulous and clever, it made our unbearably tedious jobs almost thrilling; it was also stupid and reckless, if you weigh the considerable risk. But it was based on a shared hatred for how the company was treating us.
> But the situation is not hopeless. It's where people are struggling and
> that's where we need to be. That takes, as you say, institutions and
> practices. It takes hard work. It takes a willingness to, probably first of
> all, see it as far more complicated that duped workers mindlessly
> identifying with their employers.
-- Best regards,
DMC mailto:dclark at ptd.net