In Indian popular culture, after the defensive era of trade unions in the '70s and '80s, the unionism and trade union activities were viewed as disruptive and anti-social in nature. one of the few reasons behind such change in collective imagination are 1) the development rhetoric where unions become a barrier to economic progress and productivity 2) the change from socialist narrative to unipolar post-soviet American 'ways'. And economy 3) opening of Indian markets to privatization. This article gives a detailed perspective of what happened in United States industrial relations, which is considered as a model to be followed by other third world countries like India and how they got obsessed with the other two points mentioned above.
This artefact also gives a detailed picture of different kinds of theories and schools in the anthropology of labour, and how significant it is in the empirical level. as a student of tech and labour, theories such as ' collective action gives insights to the modus operandi of most of the Indian unions, which forgot about organizing and focused on servicing upon existing members.
"Sociologist Rick Fantasia argues that the bureaucratic routines imposed by Taft- Hartley for unions to provide member services channel conflict so that solidarity emerges only when workers must rely upon on such cohesion as a means to oppose employers outside these formal bureaucratic channels. Combs-Schilling’s (1980) research with United Auto Workers (UAW) reinforces this view. Fantasia argues that in extra procensual events, to use Bohannan’s (1958) term, solidarity emerges; but under normal working conditions, there is no space for it. Durrenberger’s (2002) study of Chicago stewards affirms this finding. Thus everyday routine action reflects less interest in unions and organizing than polls indicate (Bronfenbrenner et al. 1998)"
Servicing and organizing: one of the key reasons behind the decline of unionization and its decline in organizing is related to the issue of underdeveloped class consciousness, which will only be formulated in the context of the process of 'organizing". The anti-union notions limited the trade unions and labour unions, into such a state that unions were redirected only to do servicing part of unionisation, which doesn't give many opportunities for collective feeling and consciousness. The people who are part of unions itself are forced to believe it as an autocratic organisation, which is based on rational choice rather than the emotions urged to defend human rights.
Failure of unions: we can't blame only those hostile groups of unionisation for the decline of the collective power of American trade unions. The responsibility to act on such a vulnerable situation was lost among most situations. The authors accuse most of these organisations waited till apocalypse to happen and take action. The unions were a failure in recognizing structural changes happening along with globalization, privatization and offshoring
Way of organizing: the author argues about different schools of understanding about unionism and organising based on their differences in working style. he talks about political ecology of labour, collective action theory, social movement theory etc. all of them try to understand the different ways of organizing among American working class in this fluid economy under neoliberal conditions.
The main argument of the article is about how the process of 'organizing ' labour was declined or eliminated in a country like the United States and how unions responded to this defensive era. On one hand, the paper unpacks the myths surrounding the decline of labour unions in such chronic capitalist space and how each of these capitalist systems is different from each other at different legal and state level. For example, he comes up with the pro-union attitude of Scandinavian capitalist countries in comparison with anti-union attitude in the United States. The paper also looks into the different ways workers are organized today in the United States. He demolishes the myths of workers indifference towards union in neoliberal era and individualism as reasons for the decline of unionisation, but he points out “to well-organized, massive, and often violent opposition (Durrenberger 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996; Johnston 1994; Vanneman & Cannon 1987). Other factors in labour’s decline are structural, such as the flight of capital to low-wage countries and areas of the United States in which unions are weak, the shift from an industrial to a service economy"
1) "A corporate-sponsored cultural revolution established the concept of markets in American culture as a means of justifying corporate power (Doukas 2003). The concept of the market is symbolic and plays a ritual role in supporting prevailing practices and justifies authoritarian methods of labour control in global systems (Collins 2002, Griffith 1987), and it, therefore, has a direct bearing on unions ‘effectiveness".
2) "American unions have two dimensions: organizing and servicing. Organizing is the use of personnel and resources to increase the strength of the union by organizing more work sites and workers to control a greater portion of the labour market in an area or industry. Organizing can extend to electoral and legislative politics when unions mobilize support for candidates or causes. Servicing is negotiating and enforcing contracts that state the terms and conditions of union members’ work. It entails policing of contracts to be sure that employers are in compliance and processing grievances to resolve alleged contract violations".
3) In 1995 a four-year study that Service Employees International Union (SEIU) commissioned concluded that members prefer resources to go toward getting them better contracts, wages, benefits, and job protection. Leaders want to implement an organizing model to organize unorganized workers and to elect labour-friendly politicians. The two models of union behaviour are at odds because each requires different uses of the same scarce resources such as money for salaries (Durrenberger & Erem 2005a, Wells 1996)".
4) Worker disinterest, individualism, or some inscrutable difference between the United States and European countries do not account for this decline. Rather, it is due to well organized, massive, and often violent opposition (Durrenberger 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996; Johnston 1994; Vanneman & Cannon 1987). Other factors in labour’s decline are structural, such as the flight of capital to low-wage countries and areas of the United States in which unions are weak, the shift from an industrial to a service economy, and the changes of law and administration that have moved unions toward being bureaucracies for handling quasi-legal cases (Durrenberger & Erem1997; 2005a). Union leadership gained the stability of the servicing model at the price of organizing power, but because that guaranteed and enhanced their positions of power, and a predictable if the closed community of power, they were willingly complicit".
Paul Durrenberger is one of the eminent labour anthropologist, specialised in understanding trade union and labour movements in the context of neoliberal policies and settings. his labour studies was not bounded to 'modern 'industrial workers, he had done extensive fieldwork in Iceland, Thailand and US among tribal and peasants and wrote extensively on the comparisons between different types of work and 'workers'. His most important books are 'the anthropology of labour unions', 'gambling debt', 'uncertain times' and ' the anthropological study of class and class consciousness'. The most important idea he put forward through his books is about how labour unions became service organizations for neo-liberal agendas and entrepreneurs rather than being the driving force behind social movements, at least in the United States.