Norma Rae

     


    From my perspective, the success of labor is ethical work practices that both benefit the workplace and the workers themselves. I believe that belief in the marketplace and/or government action to ensure the success of labor is not well placed at all. The marketplace, itself, does not care about the success of labor or the ethicalness of that labor. If given the opportunity, corporations would not give benefits to their workers and would give them the lowest wage possible. Their goal is maximum profit, not their employees. 

    We see numerous examples of this today. In the United States, you have the Walt Disney Company, which provides an enormous amount of jobs to the Orlando area, refusing to up the wages of Disney World park employees by even one cent in recent union negotiations. Even though Disney World ticket prices are increasing for customers, their employees are still being underpaid. 

    Because corporations cannot take advantage of United States labor as much as they used to due to unionization, they have also turned to outsourcing their labor. With “fast fashion”, fashion brands seek quick and inexpensive ways to develop their products. Often, corporations like Nike, Amazon, and Urban Outfitters also exploit child labor in other countries to do so. 

    In conclusion, we cannot depend on the marketplace to ensure the success of labor. Norma Rae was a great example of this. It was only through coming together as a collective, a union, that the workplace changed. The factory did not want to change the labor conditions. Although we have moved forward in history, the marketplace has just found other ways to exploit labor. It just is not always on U.S. soil. 

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    Completely unrelated to the writing prompt, there was a quote in Norma Rae that really stood out to me. In a conversation between Norma Rae and the union organizer, she says, “You don’t seem that different from the rest of us,” in reference to him being Jewish. 

     In response, he said, “You know what makes us different, history.” This quote stood out to me because it encompasses all of our topics so far in class. Due to the history of race, class, gender, etc, different individuals face different hurdles than others and continue to in the modern day in the United States. 

Sierra Loiselle

Comments

  1. David BernellFebruary 22, 2023 at 7:25 PM

    This post points out that companies will routinely underpay and undervalue labor, and also suggests that the government doesn't do enough to compel better corporate behavior or wages. Tell us more about that part. What do you think are the barriers to greater government action? Also, great comments at the end about history and people's differences.

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