Movements or Institutions
When I served my coworkers as one of their Union Reps, I realized my knowledge was very limited. So, I enrolled in the Cornell University Extension Labor Studies program. The Labor History course covered the Labor Movement from its early European conception with Samuel Gompers and the AFL skilled trades through today’s AFL-CIO trades and industrial unions. Business establishments never have appreciated Unions, of course and found the levers of government very helpful to dissuade them. Sometimes, they have used extreme tactics such as lock outs, courts, public lynchings, U.S.Army ambushes. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Here’s another little beauty pulled from the fangs of American History: The first GM Human Relations Departments were simply gangs of thugs keeping the employees in line with brute force. Never learned that in High School, did we?
Today, however, Employers and Employees are much more civilized. Labor Laws, through Union efforts, have been established. There are systems, including Federal Mediators. There are lawyers on both sides. Yes, the various legal pre-trial apparatus and the courts end up settling disputes. Very civilized.
There is a downside, however. It seems there is always a downside…
The Corporations have more economic power and therefore more political influence to work the levers of the laws and the buttons of the lawmakers. Employers work those processes very skillfully. Unions are at a disadvantage reflected in a decline in membership: “The percentage of workers belonging to a union in the United States peaked in 1954 at almost 35%.” “In 2020, the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of union was 10.8 percent” (sources, Wikipedia and the U.S.B.L.S., respectively)
Union influence is certainly weaker in these institutions, and they are left to fight on the front of social persuasion and that, mainly using the levers of inspiration, convincing Employees to stand up for their own self interests, not those of the Employers. Employers can take very good care of themselves, thank you.
Union leverage is limited to informational picketing and if push comes to shove, using as a last resort, Strikes. So, what?
While Corporations have been very successful in their efforts with law and lawmakers, they have also been very persuasive in working the social levers, winning over public opinion and maintaining their paternalistic position in the mindset of Employees. They have persuaded many that Employers are their best friends and have only their happiness in mind. (Incidentally, “happiness” to the Founding Fathers meant “wealth.”) In other words, Employers tell you that you have an inalienable right of employment and therefore, you have no need to join a Union. Well… Remember that when your Employer reveals what he really thinks of your “right to work” and decides to lay you and your coworkers off or to move out of town.
Few Labor organizations have kept up, residing in offices piled high with “boilerplate” answers to members’ questions, needs, and grievances. Too frequently, Union offices are filled, not with coworkers but with Lawyers who are privately building their resumes to gain the higher pay by becoming Corporate Lawyers. Unions have mostly become institutionalized, high above the struggles where most of us live and work and certainly not caring for the idea of Workers’ Rights. Only very recently have Unions stirred from their slumber, taking action. Unfortunately, News Broadcasts have been scooped up by Corporations, so, barely let the public have a peek at the events on picket lines at major Employers.
Now, I said all that as background to illustrate a conclusion I have come to. As I have walked down the road of my life, as I have stopped to admire the view of the expanse laid out before me: Whenever any movement, whether a business startup or a labor organization, a Christinan denomination or a laureled University, whenever it becomes established as an institution, locked into a niche, woven into the fabric of Society, it stops changing, it stops growing… and just like living organisms, when that happens, their death is not far behind. Perishing in their own successes and failures, turning to dust, blowing and echoing through dark canyons, whispering throughout history only as faded memories in our collective minds, their functions end. Their once noble purpose dies.
Whether religions, institutions for learning, corporations, social structures and norms (including marriage), whatever, once an organization becomes an institution, it stops moving. It stops changing. It stops growing. Its structures decay. It is, for all intents and purposes, dead — or it might as well be.
