Check for web archive captures
Why Unions?
By lynmiller-lachmann on 2011-03-13 17:17:49
March 25, 2011 marks the hundredth anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire, which claimed the lives of 146
garment workers, the majority of them women and some of them as young as 16 years old. Most of the deaths occurred
because the factory owners locked the doors to the stairs and the exits because they didn’t want their workers to take breaks
or leave before their 14-hour shift had ended. The fire outraged New Yorkers and others, leading to improved safety
standards in factories and the growth of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), which defended
La
sweatshop workers and fought to improve their salaries and working conditions. Along
with negotiating for higher wages and better health and retirement benefits, unions also contribute to worker safety. Today,
right-to-work states (states where workers are not required to join unions that bargain collectively on behalf of those
workers, which generally has the effect of destroying unions and collective bargaining altogether) have a much higher per
capita fatality rate in industrial accidents than states where industrial workers do belong to unions and union organizers are
protected from arbitrary firing. Unions also offer support to workers in other areas, from housing (my son lives down the
street from a subsidized housing project built by the ILGWU) to professional development to support in cases where
workers experience harassment and discrimination. Cory Doctorow’s 2010 novel For the Win offers a vision of life without
unions and the sacrifices people make to get them. It is the account of a union organizing effort among high-tech sweatshop
workers in China, India, other countries in Asia, and the United States. The story begins when Matthew Fong, a worker in
China, is beaten and robbed by minions of a boss enraged because Matthew dared to quit and start his own business. The
business in question is gold farming—the collection of gold coins, weapons, and power-ups in a variety of video games that
can then be sold to well-heeled First World gamers. Doctorow then cuts to India, where 15-year-old Mala, a brilliant gamer
known as General Robotwalla, leads a group of street children who gold farm out of an Internet café. Working late one
night, Mala fights back against a sexual assault from one of the
boss’s older male employees and puts the creep into the hospital. The angry boss threatens to harm her family and in this
way gets her to take a significant pay cut. In Los Angeles, rebellious teenager and enthusiast for all-things-Chinese Leonard
“Wei Dong” Goldberg, runs away from home to take a low-paying job in Koreatown as a game administrator for the
conglomerate that runs the massive multiplayer online games and contracts with the brutal local bosses in China, India, and
elsewhere. Via his online friend Matthew, Wei Dong learns of the sweatshop workers’ plight, and he eventually smuggles
himself into China via a container ship to join the struggle. Through the secret organizing efforts of longtime—and for the
most part, failed—union organizer Big Sister Nor, the rebellion begins in cyberspace and eventually becomes very real when
police forces of Asia’s various dictatorships come after the striking sweatshop workers. Yet the cyberwarriors have one
weapon left, a hack that threatens to bring down the gaming conglomerate and the world’s financial system. While For the
Win is classified as science fiction, its setting is very contemporary, with discussion of the video game industry, speculative
financial instruments, worldwide boycotts, and the economics underlying the recent global recession. In some cases, events
alluded to in the story have already come to pass. For instance, following the Republican legislators’ ramming through the
union-busting bill in Wisconsin, a massive withdrawal of funds by union members from the M & I Bank forced the closing
of several branches. The ensuing boycott may complicate the bank’s sale to a Montreal-based corporation. For the Win is an
exciting tale of working people who struggle nonviolently against their powerful and violent masters. It reminds us that tools
do exist for nonviolent social change—marches, strikes, and boycotts—and it's important for those who are exploited in the
workplace to join with others rather than to suffer alone and in silence. As a first step, we need to overcome our shame at
being taken advantage of and to share our stories. I was recently stiffed out of more than half a year’s pay; most of my co-
workers went unpaid as well. Because we were contract workers and had no union, our employer could do this with
impunity. Those who persisted in asking for our fair compensation were fired. Unless American workers fight back, this may
represent the future for most of us.
La
