Earlier this week, I wrote a post commemorating Labor Day. LighthouseKeeper took me to task in a thoughtful post for being too partisan (MOI????), and in a rejoinder I suggested that I might have let my desire to quote the song "Which Side Are You On?" influence my position.
I've thought more on the subject, and while I wish I could foresee an era of labor/management peace, where the two sides work together for the good of all concerned, I cannot.
To begin with, I didn't invent the division between labor and management. Indeed, the conflict long antedates the labor movement and, indeed, was the primary force in its genesis. Had that not been the case, management would not have fought the unions so viciously and, in many cases, violently.
Then, too, the very nature of the corporation--which is intended for the single purpose of making a profit--naturally leads to tension between those whose mission is to minimize cost and those who want to maximize their wages.
I realize that there are companies where unions never get a hold, not because of management efforts to keep the workers from organizing, but because a cooperative spirit makes it impossible to convince workers that their interests are so contrary to management's that a union is justified. But such situations are the exception, not the rule, and are liable to deteriorate with any change in the executive offices. (I read a book about guerrillas in the Philippines during WWII, in which the writer pointed out that there was a Japanese captain in Davao who treated the people well. As a result, the guerrillas could never get a foothold. But he was very much the exception.)
I've thought more on the subject, and while I wish I could foresee an era of labor/management peace, where the two sides work together for the good of all concerned, I cannot.
To begin with, I didn't invent the division between labor and management. Indeed, the conflict long antedates the labor movement and, indeed, was the primary force in its genesis. Had that not been the case, management would not have fought the unions so viciously and, in many cases, violently.
Then, too, the very nature of the corporation--which is intended for the single purpose of making a profit--naturally leads to tension between those whose mission is to minimize cost and those who want to maximize their wages.
I realize that there are companies where unions never get a hold, not because of management efforts to keep the workers from organizing, but because a cooperative spirit makes it impossible to convince workers that their interests are so contrary to management's that a union is justified. But such situations are the exception, not the rule, and are liable to deteriorate with any change in the executive offices. (I read a book about guerrillas in the Philippines during WWII, in which the writer pointed out that there was a Japanese captain in Davao who treated the people well. As a result, the guerrillas could never get a foothold. But he was very much the exception.)
So, my friends, I'm afraid that where business is concerned, it's still a case of, Which side are you on?
1 comment:
I completely agree that there is a real divide between labor and management. It's traceable to the time when we brought the tradespeople and artisans into factories and paid them wages, based in the short run more on the number of hours they worked rather than the quality of their work. They gave up their independence for more reliable income. As you pointed out the profit motive is at the heart of it. Labor is a cost center, not a profit center. As a management coach and career counselor I've talked to top execs who frankly say thay they don't want employees; they prefer consultants and contractors who get no benefits from them, and can be moved in and out on demand, without the implied moral factor of hiring and firing. Contractors just stop getting assignments when they are no longer needed.
But, like the weather, everyone is talking about it but no one is doing anything about it. And like the weather the divide is changeable, but not controllable.
One of the best writings on this subject came out in the early 1990's called Job Shift. I forget the author's name. It described what was then called the new paradigm of work.
As a career counselor I advise clients to look for work, not a job; let the source of work decide how to structure it. Of course that's more difficult to do, if not impossible, when the "job" is part of a union contract in a union shop. Ironically the very existence of unions stand in the way of workers getting work, not jobs. Perhaps over time we will return to a pre-Industrial Revolution paradigm, working independently as artisans and tradespeople, giving up our dependence on employers as we give up our dependence on parents. The lure is the idea of freedom from authority.
Meanwhile being for or against is playing the zero sum game, implying a winner and a loser
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