Unions and Co-Ops as a Means To Dismantle Modern-Day Wage Slavery
Without the ability to collectively organize in the workplace, people don't have control over poverty wages, grueling work schedules, and ultimately, their quality of life.
“Well, I think that what used to be called, centuries ago, ‘wage slavery’ is intolerable. And I don't think people ought to be forced to rent themselves in order to survive. I think that the economic institutions ought to be run democratically, by their participants, by the communities in which they exist, and so on; and I think basically through various kinds of free association.” - Noam Chomsky
This quote perfectly describes the fundamental, central problem of American “freedom” and capitalism: Can people truly be free if their ability to provide their families with food, water, shelter, and healthcare - the basic necessities of modern life - are undemocratically controlled by wealthy millionaire and billionaire CEOs who can take it all away and throw them into poverty? Is this not a fundamentally problematic relationship - slavery with extra steps?
The answer, in my opinion, is yes. Though the ideals of freedom and democracy are so often praised in America, it still hasn’t translated into *full* workplace democracy. Even defining what that is can be difficult, but this article will be my attempt to try.
Let’s start with unions. On one hand, these are an improvement over a completely undemocratic workplace where workers have no control over their pay, benefits, or working conditions. Workers trapped in such a situation can band together with their co-workers, form a union, and demand improvements in these areas.
Sounds perfect, right? Well, not quite. Even with unions, the hierarchical relationship between employers and workers is still in-place and with it comes the power struggle to actually achieve those improvements that the workers want. You can go on strike, but the bosses will try every trick in the book to prevent your success. Chipotle recently closed down a location as workers tried to unionize. Amazon called police, fired workers, and spent $4.3 million on anti-union consultants. Starbucks even surveilled their workers to stop unionization momentum as over 100 stores unionized.
These issues often intimidate workers away from even trying to collectively organize. Even if they’re just barely scraping by with their low-wage jobs, how will they provide for themselves or their families if their employer retaliates? If a union is formed, but the employer refuses the contract demands, will they have enough money in strike funds to wait them out? Will they be fired and replaced with scabs willing to work for the unfair benefits?
These issues demonstrate the flaws that remain, even if unionization succeeds. Like I said, it’s that hierarchical relationship between employer and employee that’s the central issue. It’s an inherently unfair, exploitive power dynamic.
Unions are still good and 100% should be formed as much as possible in the current economy to give workers more democracy and better benefits, but is there an even better option that could someday be pursued on a mass scale?
I theorize that some form of co-operative business structure could be the answer to dismantling that fundamentally exploitive employer-employee relationship. Instead of a capitalist claiming all of the power over their workers in the workplace because “it was my idea” or “I’m the one who took the risk so I make the big decisions,” imagine if jobs were operated 100% democratically, with any hierarchy being agreed on collectively by the workers who have equal ownership over the business and revokable by consensus decision-making?
Ultimately, *guaranteeing* all people their necessities of life pre-employment and providing complete workplace democracy after are the keys to dismantling the kind of capitalist wealth inequality that allows the top 1% to have as much money as the bottom 90%, while more than half of the country live paycheck-to-paycheck. So long as the ownership class is allowed to undemocratically force their workers into poverty-level wages and an unfairly oppressive work/life balance, wage slavery will continue to exist unabated.