On 10/11/07, Michael Nuwer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The trade union movement was erecting itself as a rival law-maker, > challenging the authority of the courts and the state. Labor activists > utilized a competing language of rights, claiming entitlements in jobs > and workplaces as well as broad freedoms of action and association. They > promulgated rules of workers' control which they dubbed "laws," and > sought to enforce them through new weapons and organizations.
Thanks for this info Michael. Do you have any references for this period? I am curipous about what kind of "entitlements" they were looking for. If it is just better pay then it is not really that different from Fordism (and inevitably, mass-consumption), right? Also doesn't the idea of organized workplaces automatically assume the factory system as the predominant organizational unit? Isn't there a rather basic contradiction here? i.e. how can you decommodify labor while staying within the organized workplace (which is premised on division of labor ad-absurdum)? -raghu. > This heritage was passed down in varying forms through-to the 1930s. > Recall that section 6 of the Clayton Act (1914) provides that "the labor > of a human being is not a commodity." The AFL declared this to be > "Labor's Magna Charta." The provision had no bite, especially after the > Supreme Court had its say, but the fact that this line was included in > the statute is a reflection of a particular view within the trade union > movement about work and employment. > > The struggle for a closed shop was a historically important issue, > because it went to the heart of which class would control the social > division of labor. Closed-shop agreements with manufacturers were one > way that labor could exercise and enforce self-determination in their > craft. Capital, however, regarded this conflict as one involving the > vital issue of managerial prerogative, and, as we know, capital won that > battle. When the 1935 National Labor Relations Act finally imposed > jurisdictional lines upon unions, the AFL's way of reproducing the > social division of labor was fatally undermined. >