--- Bitch | Lab <info at pulpculture.org> wrote:
> other than the industrial unions. Research on people
> who service others in
> various capacities shows that the struggle on the
> restaurant floor, on the
> cashier's mat, etc. plays itself out as a struggle
> against the customer
> with the worker seeking relief by siding with
> management's rules to protect
> themselves against the demands made by customers.
That in itself indicates a sea change in the sociological millieu for unionization. In the past unions benefited from the externalities (or so-called "neighborhood effect") of social solidarity along class lines, especially in Europe. That is, both disfrachisement and social solidarity coincided with class divisions - and the existing social solidarity ties (or social "capital" as pomos call it) made unionization easier.
Today, such solidarity ties are all but gone, especially in the US due a number of factors, chief among them being geographical mobility and suburbanization, and te culture of consumerism. As a result, people tend to identify themselves by thier cultural identities - life styles, consumer choices, education, ethnicity etc. which dissolves social solidarity tthat used to benefit unionization.
That would suggest that today's model for unionism is building alliances with what Gramsci called "civil society" (civic associations, organic intellectuals, political parties, media, academia, etc.) rather than reliance on the "wage cartel" model that prevails in the US.
Wojtek
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