Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Labor-Management Relations: Starving Workers as a Childish Tactic
Posted by Find Insurance Online at 11:40 AMBefore the industrialization in the nineteenth century, nothing "intrinsic or permanent separated those who hired from those who hired out" because "many laborers could hope to ear and saven enough to become their own employers." (1) That is to say, the employee/employer distinction was not overlaid with connotations of disparate distinctions, such as child/parent and subject/ruler. Relatedly, the two parties to the economic agreements bearing on labor in exchange for money had roughly equal bargaining power. As the United States industrialized, however, a distinct working class developed as industrial workers found their upward mobility cut off by rising start-up costs and other barriers to entry. Additionally, the advent of the monopolies (and oligopolies) swung the balance of power in contract negotiations strongly in favor of the corporations. With the added leverage came pretensions going far beyond what could be justified by the relation of labor and capital in a commercial contract. The case of the first transcontinental railroad, which was completed in 1869, demonstrates just how distended the pretentions on the corporate side had become.
As the Central Pacific Railroad was working eastward on the first transcontinental railroad in the late 1860s, Chinese immigrants were hired at $26 per month (including board). The rate for white Americans was $30. The railroad was getting a good deal for the Chinese, as some of them had had experience using explosive black power (which had been invented by Chinese). Where the railroad had to blow out bedrock along a cliff, Chinese workers were lowered in reed baskets to place explosive in the rock and ignite the fuses in time to get out of the way. It was highly skilled and dangerous work. Accordingly, the Chinese struck for $40 per month. The reaction from the railroad partners gives us a snapshot of the attitude of management toward labor in nineteenth-century America.
As the Central Pacific Railroad was working eastward on the first transcontinental railroad in the late 1860s, Chinese immigrants were hired at $26 per month (including board). The rate for white Americans was $30. The railroad was getting a good deal for the Chinese, as some of them had had experience using explosive black power (which had been invented by Chinese). Where the railroad had to blow out bedrock along a cliff, Chinese workers were lowered in reed baskets to place explosive in the rock and ignite the fuses in time to get out of the way. It was highly skilled and dangerous work. Accordingly, the Chinese struck for $40 per month. The reaction from the railroad partners gives us a snapshot of the attitude of management toward labor in nineteenth-century America.
According to Brands, “the Central partners determined not to give in. ‘If they are successful in this demand, then they control and their demands will be increased,’ Hopkins warned the others. Edwin Crocker put the danger differently. ‘The truth is, he said, ‘they are getting smart.’” (2) From this description, it can be seen that the partners viewed the Chinese demand for a higher wage as an “all or none” matter rather than as one for negotiation. Moreover, the partners’ perception was that the matter was fundamentally one of control rather than compensation. That the Chinese demand probably had merit is supported by Edwin Crocker’s admission that the Chinese were getting smart. The Chinese’ skill with explosives also lends support to this view. Had the Chinese workers been over-reaching, Crocker might have said that the Chinese were getting greedy. Therefore, we can conclude more generally that in labor-management disputes, managers probably tended to react in terms of power rather than economics. Moreover, the power presumed was beyond that which pertains to an economic negotiation and contract. In other words, the partners assumed more control than they had a right to claim. In actuality, they and the workers were two parties to an agreement, rather than say rulers and subjects. The presumption led to a rather extreme tactic.
According to Brands, “Charles Crocker ordered the provisioners to the Chinese camps to stop supplying them with food. ‘They really began to suffer,’ Edwin Crocker recalled.” Edwin Crocker reported that after a week, Charles told the laborers “that he would not be dictated to that he made the rules for them and not they for him.” The hungriest of the strikers agreed to return to work. (3)
Although it could be argued that the contract for board also involved labor, the railroad would presumably be obligated to transport the workers back to civilization. Such contractual technicalities aside, starving other human beings in order to manipulate them to get one’s way is indicative of a criminal mind; it is essentially attempted murder. The over-extended presumption of a right to power based on an economic contract between two parties is obvious here. That the partners perceived the over-arching axis as one of control rather than money is evident from Charles Crocker’s use of dictated to and rules. These words are out of place in an economic transaction. In short, Crocker was presuming himself to be a ruler rather than a party to a contract. In addition, his tone suggests that he might have held the view that his side of the contract somehow made him akin to a parent, thus fittingly oriented to scolding the children.
The projections of being a ruler and a parent are so unnatural, or out of place, in an economic relationship between two parties that the psychology of the perpetrators must be questioned and found wanting. Even the psychological wherewithal and legal legitimacy even to stand as party in a contract can be questioned, so it is telling that the partners got away with their attitude and conduct. Ironically, it was the partners rather than the Chinese who were acting like children, yet how many people in the society and government who heard of the strike perceived the partners as being seriously out of line? If this perception was lacking because of what the society at the time attributed to being a business practitioner with a title, the problem may be in the societal values as well as what was presumed to come from position itself.
That childish (and perhaps even sadistic) behavior could issue out of a corporate office awash with economic leverage, being checked neither by whatever power labor could muster nor at least by humane societal values, points to the ability of corporate capitalism to effectively project its version of social reality onto society. A miner's mintrel in the wake of the unsuccessful "Long Strike" against the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad in 1874 captured the new situation facing both the workers and the country from the emergence of the modern corporation:
"Well, we've been beaten, beaten all to smash
And now, sir, we've begun to feel the lash,
As wielded by a gigantic corporation,
Which runs the Commonwealth and ruins the nation." (4)
That childish (and perhaps even sadistic) behavior could issue out of a corporate office awash with economic leverage, being checked neither by whatever power labor could muster nor at least by humane societal values, points to the ability of corporate capitalism to effectively project its version of social reality onto society. A miner's mintrel in the wake of the unsuccessful "Long Strike" against the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad in 1874 captured the new situation facing both the workers and the country from the emergence of the modern corporation:
"Well, we've been beaten, beaten all to smash
And now, sir, we've begun to feel the lash,
As wielded by a gigantic corporation,
Which runs the Commonwealth and ruins the nation." (4)
Footnotes:
1. Henry W. Brands, American Colossus: The Triumph of Capitalism 1865-1900 (New York: Doubleday, 2010), 96.
2. Ibid., 55.
3. Ibid., 56.
4. Priscilla Long, Where the Sun Never Shines: A History of America's Bloody Coal Industry (New York: Paragon House, 1989), 109.
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