Tuesday, November 20, 2018
Unimaginable goal
From 1920 to 1975, most American workers were treated decently by their employers.
I'm always focusing on Fordism aka Social Economics as one source of decent treatment, but unions were the other side of the same coin.
I was reading a 1918 union magazine, Railway Carmen's Journal, trying as usual to find details and ideas for digital models. This journal didn't illustrate equipment, but it did illustrate the power of unions DRAMATICALLY.
The union came to the defense of the workers in every possible way, from working conditions to medical care. If something was wrong, the union tried to fix it.
Union men and their wives wrote many of the columns and articles in Carmen's Journal. They openly expressed a wide variety of thoughts on a wide variety of subjects, including some fierce criticism of the capitalist system.
NO worker in ANY industry would DARE to express such thoughts now. You can get fired for the remotest delusional suspicion of heresy or "racism" or "transphobia" or anti-global sentiments.
= = = = =
Fordism developed as an answer to unions. This response would be impossible now.
Stop and think:
Corporations didn't like unions. Corporations felt the need to COMPETE with unions by MAKING UNIONS UNNECESSARY.
Corporations and unions were competing to provide BETTER SERVICE for the employees.
The GOAL of competition is inverse now.
Now unions and corporations are competing to eliminate jobs as fast as possible. Unions are doing it by making impossible demands that lead to shutting down companies. Companies are doing it directly by shutting down factories and stores.
Labels: Alternate universe, defensible times
¶ 2:49 PM
