Norma Rae - Natalie Sharp

 As demonstrated in the movie Norma Rae, without a regulated market or government regulation, labor workers are easily abused. The film did a great job of highlighting the difficulties the workers face in the textile industry in a town where that was the only job for almost everyone. The fear of standing up and being fired raised the stakes for many people and created a divide in who was willing to risk it all for better conditions. It was interesting to see that the black workers and most of the women workers were the ones pushing for the union the most. We can see that these groups are already being so oppressed that they might have less fear of getting fired than pushing for a union because they are already extremely taken advantage of. When in reality everyone wins if they can all come together. Another thing we have seen portrayed in the film and other films we have watched so far is the division of identities to separate the levels of oppression so each group feels like they have power over the next group. We saw how they promoted Norma Rae to watch over her coworkers to try and keep her quiet. Tactics such as dividing the poor population into poor white men, poor black men, and white women and poor black women, creates a chain of power dynamics to let those at the top maintain control. In Iron Jawed Angels they left behind the black women to get their movement passed sooner. This is a tactic derived from a Marxist theory called false consciousness that prevents a person from understanding the true nature of their social/economic situation. However, both of these films honed in on the idea of power to the people. When you can get everyone to join together for the same cause you can create real action. As Karl Marx believed if everyone could attain class consciousness and understand their collective place in society, there could be a great uprising that would help gain more workers' rights for all. This film showed a small example of this idea in action. Today, many of these extreme working conditions have been outlawed in the U.S., but we still import clothes and other goods from even worse factories in poor countries where the workers continue to be taken advantage of. This is an issue we see come up over and over again and we can’t trust the government or the marketplace to ensure the safety and well-being of the workers.