Over time, I've grown increasingly fascinated by how unions are portrayed in popular culture. Mostly, unions are just absent. But I was wandering through the library with my daughter and picked Absolute Rage (2002) almost at random.
The book is a crime thriller wherein a trade unionist is killed to help another (corrupt) trade unionist steal a union election in the West Virginia coal fields.
The "good" trade unionist is not really good, except in the sense that he actually cares about the workers. Otherwise, he's an abusive drunk blinded by ideology who gets his family killed in the cross fire.
The "bad" trade unionist is evil, corrupt (e.g., in the boss' pocket), greedy, and kind of stupid. He surrounds himself with various dumb and corrupt stooges who do his bidding. These character flaws are his undoing.
The strengths of the book are a good understanding of US labour politics and a realistic portrayal of the company towns in the coal field. The plot and characterization are consistent with the tendency of all US fiction to represent unions as corrupt or, alternately, a source of disruption (via strikes).
I certainly understand the need for a source of dramatic tension in a novel. What is so striking is how union are almost never framed a force for good and, indeed, are rarely mentioned at all.
Violence against health-care workers is a profound problem in Canada. A recent article in The Bulletin (co-authored by AU tutor James Brophy) identifies how the victims of this violence are more likely to be women (due to occupational segregation) and this contributes to the lack of action on the issue.
A number of other actors contribute to the occurrence of violence. These include high patient loads and limited access to security for workers. Workers are also reluctant to report violence, perhaps because they know little will be done and that they will be singled out as complainers.
Overall, this is an excellent summary of how workplace violence has been normalize in health-care settings
With the Christmas break upon us, this week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture looks beyond music to television. I’m awaiting publication of an article (coauthored with Mark McCutcheon) about the absence of images of labour in science fiction. When that finally drops, I will feature some of the few sci-fi texts we found.
In the meantime, I’ve been keeping an eye out for other television shows where unions and labour issues come up. With in-laws to avoid, this situation cries out for… the A-Team. Because, if you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them....maybe you can hire The A-Team.
The A-Team was a terrible 1980s drama about a group of do-gooder Vietnam vets driven underground because of something-or-other I forgot after I discovered girls. Season Two featured an episode called Labor Pains. I have embedded the key scene below but you can watch the whole, tedious episode here.
The show is a good example of the “a stranger comes to town” trope, albeit in a 1982 custom GMC van driving helluva fast and crashing through a billboard and then jumping a washed out bridge. The boys then have a fight with some goons who work for some agri-stooge kingpin who are pushing around some migrant farm workers. (You can now skip the first 14 minutes of the episode). Eventually, the A-Team convinces the workers to continue a work stoppage and form a union.
“You’ll have a union in this valley over my dead body!” cries the boss and then tries to starve the workers out because the crop is rotting in the field. Organizing ensures (the scene at 28.00 is pretty funny—if only every union drive had Mr. T on board, suckas). Mayhem ensures (although this was shot in the 1980s so it takes for-frigging-ever to get to the action), including a cabbage cannon. The workers triumph and the A-Team scoots before the military police show up.
Not a super realistic portrayal of an organizing drive, but an oddly sympathetic one (usually television episodes focus on the disruptive nature of strikes and union corruption). Of course, the A-Team are mercenaries and, in Season Three, they help a small-time logging operation battle a (you guessed it) corrupt union intent on shutting them down.
Over the past two years, Jason Foster and I have published three articles on how the media covers workplace injuries. The most accessible summary of this research is this Parkland Report. The crux is that media coverage misrepresents who gets hurt, the type of injury sustained, and the cause of injury.
Last week, I ran across an interesting doctoral dissertation from New Zealand entitled “Journalism and everyday trauma: A grounded theory of the impact from death-knocks and court reporting”. This study examines how (mostly female) reporters’ health is affected by reporting on fatalities and upsetting court cases. (Death knocks is a term meaning gaining family comment on a fatality, often by knocking on their door.)
The study reveals that journalists struggle to attain balance in the workplace—learning about newsroom norms and balancing journalistic objectivity with their own emotional reactions. To maintain this balance in light of the constant barrage of upsetting experiences can require some workers to emotionally detach from their work or undertake forms of emotional labour. One risk of this work is burn out.
An interesting question the study raises was whether media managers tended to overlook the emotional impact of this work on employee’s health because of the no-fault basis of New Zealand’s injury compensation system (which, like Canadian workers’ compensation, precludes employees suing their employer for compensation). Essentially, the researcher queries whether the absence of accountability (through OHS or WCB) means society countenances the injury.
This study raises interesting questions about the effect of injury coverage on reporters and may be a profitable area for further research about the reporting of occupational injury in Canada.
This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture is “I Got It Honest” by Aaron Tippin. This song is pretty typical blue-collar valourization. The key theme is that the singer works hard to earn an honest wage and that he values that integrity moreso that the material possessions he might earn at another (presumably less honest) job. Essentially the singer is “making a virtue of necessity” here.
The song, like much of country music, is aimed squarely at blue collar workers. Looking at the video, the most white collar workers you see are a school teacher and maybe two EMS workers. The rest of the workers are in a variety of factories, stores, and other lower-skill occupations. There are also notably fewer women than men (a 2:5 ratio by my rough count) which is a common way for country music to socially construct work and workers as men.
I wonder if we can also see some of the heartland alienation that may have fueled Donald Trump’s win in November? There is quite a bit of class resentment in the lyrics (e.g., silver spoon, highfalutin’, ruled by greed). It is interesting to consider that whether electing Trump really aligns with these interests in anything other than a rhetorical sense.
It ain't nothin' but a small frame house on an acre lot It ain't that much diff'rent from any other house on the block And it may not look like we got all our share of the promise But at least one thing's for sure, I got it honest
Roll out of the sack every mornin', head on down to the mill Give 'em all I got for eight, 'cause that's the deal If you'll check out my paycheck Well, you'll see that there ain't that much on it But ev'ry single penny I'm paid, I got it honest
I never had to hang my head in shame For puttin' a price tag on my name Never turned my back on what I believe Or let my heart be ruled by greed
'Cause buddy if I didn't earn it, I don't want it That way I can always say, I got it honest Now you ain't looking at some dude That was born with a Silver spoon in his mouth And I might seem like some kind of low-life To that highfalutin' crowd
But I'm plain spoken, straight talkin' And damn proud of what I have accomplished Some folks appreciate that and some don't But, I got it honest
Now when I die, I may not leave my kids a fortune But I hope they know'd my life stood for things that were important And I'll hand out the same sturdy old values of my daddy and my momma It made me every ounce of what I am and I got it honest
I never had to hang my head in shame For puttin' a price tag on my name Never turned my back on what I believe Or let my heart be ruled by greed
'Cause brother if I didn't earn it, I don't want it That way I can always say, I got it honest Friend there ain't no doubt about it, I got it honest
McMaster University recently announced North America’s first PhD program in labour studies is opening. It builds upon McMaster’s existing MA in Work & Society and BA in Labour Studies.
The faculty line up behind the program is pretty impressive (Wayne Lewchuck, Suzanne Mills, Stephanie Premji, Stephanie Ross, and Robert Storey). I wish this program had been available when I was a student! Application deadline is February 15.
I’m currently revising AU’s course on Human Rights, the Charter and Labour Relations. One of the recurring challenges that students identify is how difficult it can be to read and understand court decisions (specifically Supreme Court of Canada decisions).
While I’m including some skill-building components around reading court decisions, it is useful to reflect on (1) why we need to read these decisions and (2) why they are hard to read. The short video above is about the US Supreme Court but its logic is broadly applicable to Canada.
We need to read the decisions because they establish important legal precedents and explain why these precedents are established. And these decisions are difficult to read because the Supreme Court is a political institution that is seeking to achieve multiple outcomes (including resolving the case) with its decisions.
