Читать книгу The Ungovernable Society - Grégoire Chamayou - Страница 15

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which could either be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice.

Adam Smith¹

‘The U.S. can’t afford what labor wants’ was the headline in Business Week in April 1970: ‘new union militancy could skyrocket wages and trigger runaway inflation’.² The magazine denounced the trade unions for, as it saw it, their virtual control of the economy: ‘a democratic society works on the assumption that no group within it can accumulate so much power that it can write its own ticket. […] is collective bargaining still bargaining, or has it become something close to blackmail by the unions?’³

‘The gravest economic problem facing the Western world in the early 1970s is cost-push inflation powered by excessive wage increases’, claimed Gilbert Burck in Fortune. ‘What is happening, throughout the Western world, is that organized labor is overreaching’.⁴

But the observation was paradoxical because, at the very same time that the abuse of union power was being denounced, there was also anxiety about their loss of authority. Union leaders, as Richard Armstrong pointed out in Fortune, no longer appeared able to control a base that was showing ‘an acquisitive and rebellious frame of mind’,⁵ whose members were more and more obviously getting carried away ‘by a tide of angry revolt, against management, against its own leadership, and in important ways against society itself’.⁶

Less and less able to control their troops, union leaders no longer seemed capable of fulfilling their role of social pacification. ‘Have the aging leaders of labor lost their grip?’⁷ They too, in short, seemed to be facing a crisis of governability. ‘Right now’, said one executive from the automobile industry, ‘our interlocutor is no longer the bureaucrat trade union’, but ‘the stubborn guy, the irresponsible local leader’, with ‘the power of the whole organization behind him’.⁸ This seizure of power by the faceless rank and file seemed to herald a new era in labour relations, possibly marked by strikes of an unprecedented magnitude.⁹

In the post-war period, as the Marxist sociologist Michael Burawoy suggested in 1979, American unions had become part of the company’s ‘internal state’: having fitted into the regulated system of collective bargaining while very broadly giving up on effective conflict, they did not so much help to question the order of domination as to reproduce it.¹⁰ By collaborating with a form of ‘private government in industry’,¹¹ they not only maintained the productive order, but contributed to fabricating consent and ensuring the hegemony of the ruling system of production. However, at the very moment when Burawoy was setting out his ideas, demonstrating in plain and simple terms how robust this regime of domination was, the latter was starting to fall apart behind his back.¹²

From the employer’s point of view, the diagnosis was twofold: the unions were both too strong and, in a sense, too weak. They were too strong in that they were still in a position to extract wage rises, no longer strong enough in that the union bureaucracies were no longer able to discipline their troops.¹³ What was the point, they said to each other, of continuing to make concessions to the trade union leadership if this no longer meant they could buy social peace at the base?

People started to make preparations for a showdown, but only on one side of the bargaining table because trade union leaders had completely failed to foresee what was coming.¹⁴ When they finally realized, it was already too late, and they reacted with bitterness. In 1978, Douglas Fraser, a great figure of American trade unionism, slammed the door of the Labor Management Group and wrote an open letter that sounded like a political testament: ‘leaders of the business community, with few exceptions, have chosen to wage a one-sided class war today in this country – a war against working people, the unemployed, the poor, the minorities […] The leaders of industry, commerce and finance in the United States have broken and discarded the fragile, unwritten compact previously existing during a past period of growth and progress’.¹⁵ He took note of the end of nearly thirty years of cordial agreement, a period during which ‘many big companies had come to depend on the unions as a primary force for stabilization’.¹⁶

This reversal had been foreshadowed in the theoretical field by an intellectual trend whose theses, formerly held by only a minority, would serve as the basis for an assault on trade unionism, which was now rejected in its very principles. Neoliberal economists had long been developing an aggressive critique of trade unions. As early as 1947, economist Fritz Machlup had characterized their action as an attempt to ‘fix monopolistic wages’.¹⁷ At the same time, Henry C. Simons, a fierce opponent of the New Deal and the mentor of the young Milton Friedman, denounced the ‘anomalies of control by the voluntary association’: faced with the threat of a kind of trade union government being set up, it was vital to ‘preserve the discipline of competition’.¹⁸ In the strategic debates which divided the Mont Pelerin Society on this issue, the cradle and vanguard of neoliberalism, Machlup defended a bellicose position: ‘Industrial peace is something we should be afraid of, as it can only be bought at the cost of further distortion of the wage structure’.¹⁹

It was this position that prevailed among economic elites in the early 1970s. In 1971, Fortune castigated ‘the power monopoly of work’:²⁰ ‘Allowed to organize like armies, they practice coercion and intimidation, and do not hesitate to disrupt a whole economy to gain their ends. […] The question is no longer whether this force needs curbing, but how. The key to doing so lies in understanding that the power of unionism is not preordained. It derives from exemptions and privileges granted by government that give unions a special sanctuary in our society. The task is to break down this sanctuary’.²¹

This took the form of direct political attacks from above, but also of more local manoeuvres. From the middle of the 1970s a new kind of consultant started to flourish, the ‘union busters’.²²

Imagine you are a senior manager in a big American company, and you receive in your mailbox a brochure entitled Trade unions: how to avoid them, defeat them and get rid of them. Attached is an invitation to a three-day seminar in a big hotel. Arriving the night before, you meet the organizers. The unusual appearance of the first, a labour psychologist – beard, open shirt, rolled-up sleeves – initially takes you aback, until you realize that this casual demeanour is part of the dress code of a profession he has been working in for more than twenty years with large American companies, including IBM, Shell, Dupont and Texas Instruments. The second is a New York lawyer wearing the obligatory outfit: dark suit and tailored shirt.

The seminar takes place in three stages: (1) How to prevent unionization? (2) How to stop a trade union organization gaining a foothold? (3) How to ‘de-unionize’ a company?

The first day is reserved for the ‘industrial psychologist’, who is going to teach you ‘how to make unions redundant’. When a management team ends up with union members in its company, he tells you, it has only itself to blame. ‘In fact, there are really only two approaches to unions which I call the cactus and the plum. The plum is an easy target. […] The cactus is tough and prickly – creating an environment clearly opposed to unions’.²³

It starts at the job interview. You have to learn how to grill the candidates. Since the law prohibits asking too direct questions about personal beliefs, you will need to be indirect: ‘Find out if they are involved in liberal causes; tenant organizations, consumer rights organizations or other activities which would reveal a pro-union tendency’.²⁴

Once they have been recruited, make it clear to the newcomers that ‘the company operates without unions, and has for a long time. […] Now we are not saying that unions are good or bad, what we are saying is that we don’t feel there is a need for them here, and no one has evidently ever felt the need for them because we don’t have any’.²⁵ QED.

You must also familiarize yourself with the art of ‘management without interference’: ‘Don’t drive to work in a fancy car. Don’t call people workers or even employees and don’t call bosses, bosses. Everyone should be considered part of the same firm. […] Give people titles they respect like technician or engineer’.²⁶

To give you a better understanding of what makes your subordinates tick, the psychologist then introduces you to the basic principles of the psychology of learning. If, while driving through Yellowstone Park, you come across a bear and feed him sweets through the window, ‘it is natural for him to expect a second jelly bean. […] If we continue this process long enough, we will run out of jelly beans, at which time the bear will take not only the empty sack, but an arm and a leg. We are likely to wonder why that lovable bear has suddenly turned into a hostile animal. The answer is simple: The bear has been rewarded and reinforced by his aggressive activities in much the same manner that employees of some organizations have been rewarded for collective activity’.²⁷

After the lunch break, the psychologist presents his ‘early warning system to spot unionization’ – a bundle of questionnaires. Employees will be required to complete personality tests, officially intended to ‘anticipate and solve employee relations problems’,²⁸ but actually serving to establish a ‘psychological profile of the workforce’ aimed at evaluating the ‘loyalty of the employee’ and to detect, even on the basis of weak signals, the individuals most likely to join a union.²⁹ ‘Think for a moment who are the people who are going to be the most vulnerable if the union knocks on your door. Are these people really meant for us? Maybe they’d be more happy someplace else. Weed ’em out. Git rid of anyone who’s not going to be a team player’.³⁰

And have no compunction in doing so, for it is your freedom that is at stake. For, when there is no union,

you hire whom you wish, pay them whatever you have to pay them or you wish to pay them and terminate their employment as you wish and lay them off. You assign them to any kind of job you want. Those things are all going to change. […] If a union comes into the plant, who do you think is going to be affected most? It isn’t the president, or the vicepresidents of the company. It’s you. Mr. and Mrs. Supervisor. You’re the ones who are going to be up against the union every day. You’re going to have to deal with the shop steward, with the grievances, with the complaints, with the slowdowns, with the harassment. […] Having a union in your shop is going to affect how you operate in many personal areas. It will affect your ability to control promotions, transfers, job assignments, trial periods, discipline, discharge, retirement, layoffs, and recalls.³¹

With these fine words, the psychologist closes the first day of the seminar.

The next day, the lawyer sets out a series of manoeuvres to obstruct the formation of a union and delay the convening of professional elections – these are obstruction tactics and verge on illegality. Anti-union arguments, standard letters and patterns of pre-written speeches are handed out for you to distribute among your subordinates.

The third day, finally, the lawyer divulges to you, under the seal of strict confidentiality, a whole range of tactics of ‘de-unionization’. If you practise (as it is wise to do so) espionage on your employees, there is for example this advice: ‘I know the union meeting is going to be held at the Holiday Inn. I park my car in the lot and watch everybody who comes into the parking lot. That is an act of surveillance. I may not do this. Now, if I just happen to be coming to the Holiday Inn to attend another function and I happen to see certain people go in – I have every right to do that’. Once the ringleaders have been identified, you must be able to sack them in all due form. Here, too, provided you have made advance preparations, nothing could be easier: ‘If management keeps careful records of absences and reprimands, it can usually make dismissal of a pro-union worker look legitimate’.³²

As a reminder, you will be able to leave this seminar with a signed copy of the book written by one or the other of these consultants – a practical guide in which you will find a detailed list of all the ‘tactics and strategies needed’³³ to set up your anti-union guerrillas.

It is important to be always on your guard, this useful vade mecum reminds you, and to be attentive to any warning signs of emerging trade union activity: when ‘groups of people who are deep in conversation suddenly clam up when supervisors approach’, when ‘graffiti hostile to the business appears on the restroom walls’ (and these same restrooms start attracting a lot of people even when, as far as you know, there is no epidemic of ‘gastro-enteritis), you may well suspect that people are getting together well in the restroom to discuss something’.³⁴

If the movement is confirmed, establish a ‘war room’ in the management offices, a command post that will act as ‘a centre of activity’.³⁵ On the wall, you’ll pin a big diagram listing ‘the names of all employees by department with the designation “union,” “company,” and “?”’ – which will give you an overview of the loyalty of your employees. All the relevant information will need to be taken up daily to the war room. Thus, informed in real time of how things are developing on the battlefield, management can ‘determine the strategy and decide on effective counter-attack techniques’.³⁶

It’s your turn to campaign, distribute leaflets and put up posters – the manual provides you with templates, all you need to do is get them photocopied. One example of a slogan on a poster: ‘Yes, you have something to lose in voting for a union: freedom to solve your own problems individually and directly with the management’.³⁷ In addition to posters and leaflets, the manual suggests you have made some anti-union ‘fortune cookies’ to hand out in the canteen, stuffed with relevant messages. The employee breaks open the cookie and reads: ‘Union dues put rice in someone else’s bowl’, or ‘Sorry, no luck with the union’ or ‘Beware of dragon in organizer’s magic lamp’.³⁸ Other procedures of the same kind include organizing free cocktail evenings or even offering your employees a free turkey for Thanksgiving – a tangible economic reminder of the commitment of the employer to a happy and satisfied workforce.³⁹ On this occasion, between raising two toasts, ‘the company will highlight the fact that the strong feelings of loyalty employees feel toward him would be disturbed by the presence of a union’.⁴⁰

And, if, despite all these efforts, you still can’t solve the problem, you will always be able to use the services of anti-union consultants who will come, in commando mode, to lend you a helping hand ‘aimed at the areas of greatest worker vulnerability as divined by their psychological spade-work’.⁴¹ One of these reformed ‘union busters’ testified in his autobiography to what was more concretely implied by this combined strategy of misinformation and personal attacks: ‘as the consultants go about the business of destroying unions, they invade people’s lives, demolish their friendships, crush their will, and shatter their families’.⁴² As one unionist said: ‘their weapons are emotional intimidation and the subversion of the law. Whenever and wherever working people seek to organize, this guerrilla army dressed in three-piece suits stands ready to resist’.⁴³

When journalist Beth Nissen got a job incognito with Texas Instruments in 1978 so that she could produce a report on unionism, she felt the fear that was now prevalent among the employees. While discussing the issue of the union with a colleague, the latter replied: ‘Please don’t talk to me on break any more. […] If the company finds out I’m listening, I’ll get fired’.⁴⁴ For simply mentioning the possibility of joining a trade union, the undercover reporter was dismissed on some spurious context barely three weeks after being hired.